Report on the Ministerial Roundtable Mlimani City Centre Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania Thursday 23 June, 2011

Transcription

1 2011 United Nations and Africa Public Service Forum Transformative in Public Administration and Innovation in Governance: Creating a better life for all. Report on the Ministerial Roundtable Mlimani City Centre Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania Thursday 23 June, 2011 Introduction The Ministerial Roundtable was a high point of 2011 United Nations and Africa Public Service Forum and preceded the presentation of the United Nations Public Service Day Awards. It commenced with the reading of the Dar es Salaam Communiqué encompassing the conclusions of the four parallel capacity building workshops that comprised the forum, and the recommendations made by approximately 300 workshop participants to governments world-wide, according to the focus of each workshop. Those participants included senior government officials at the national and local levels, experts, academics and representatives from international organizations. In summary, the Communiqué reflected concerns over a rising set of domestic and international challenges faced by governments originating from multiple causes, including economic and financial crises, conflict and social unrest, environmental issues as well as natural disasters, and the negative effect of corruption in achieving adequately responsive governance. It contained, essentially, 10 groups of recommendations. The Roundtable discussions continued for 90 minutes and were chaired by Professor Mukandara Rwekaza, Vice Chancellor of Dar es Salaam University. Contributors included Ministers of Public Administration from Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mexico, Oman, Republic of Korea, United Republic of Tanzania, Sudan, and Zimbabwe 1. The Chair first called on the government representatives to focus deliberately on pro-poor policies in view of the concerns reflected in the Communiqué, adding that although governments in many parts of the world have been concerned about poverty reduction and eradication for some time, the 1 The full list of Ministers in attendance is included in an appendix. 1

2 problem prevails. He then proposed that the situation required transformation and asked for their comments in this regard. Roundtable Discussions H.E. Dr. Salim Al-Ruzaiqi, Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology Authority, Oman, was the first contributor. He proposed that governments must start listening to people and open direct channels to facilitate communication between the people and their governments. He emphasized that policies can be transformed through ICT and shared from his experiences in Oman with the establishment of a knowledge centre for women to facilitate their participation in policy-making. He emphasized that governments should not be listening only to those with a high voice, but to all, including women. Dr. Al-Ruzaiqi s comments led to the Chair questioning the Ministers on how the public service can improve its capacity to listen more appropriately to what is being said, and to respond. The Minister of Public Service and Administration of the Republic of South Africa, H.E. M. R. Baloyi responded that governments must listen with the intention to respond, considering the viability of their implementing policies in respect of the needs of all members and groups in their societies, all of whom should have a sense of ownership to the policies. He stated that a policy is only good to the extent that it can be effectively implemented. He then informed that the African Capacity Building Foundation had achieved some success by focussing at the following three elements: i) The promotion of good values and ethics ii) Focus on tools and results-based efficiencies, in particular, in the areas of revenue collecting, which supports policy implementation iii) Broadening the frame by re-engaging cities, including in these discussions: civil society, the private sector, and special groups including women He felt that it was important for the public to understand what they can expect from their governments and to bring everyone together in the effort to achieve change. It was his view that, in Africa, a learning culture needed to be attained to avoid the perpetuation of mistakes made by predecessors, and consequently, situations remained the same. He emphasized the importance of building a society sufficiently educated to understand the services needed, and to make demands of their governments to supply them. The Chair turned the discussion to the issue of a well trained civil service, as a paid 2

3 meritocracy, at the same time representing all groups to achieve a diverse and representative bureaucracy. The obstacles to this were seen as the un-even access to education. The Minister of State for Community Development, Gender and Children, of the United Republic of Tanzania, H.E. Sophia M. Simba pointed out that her Ministry was providing guidelines on how to mainstream women in public administration, providing sponsorship towards building capacity among women to enable them to qualify for employment and promotion in the public service. Hon. Ahmed Aden Sugow, Assistant Minister of Public Service, Kenya added that meritocracy can be abused even if rightly used in a country where the development of the human resources has not been fair to all, hence, the importance of bringing the level of education and capacity of women up to par. Hon. Pillay Chedmbruy-Tassarajen, Minister for Information and Communication Technology, Mauritius stated that in his country the Ministry of Social Integration had played a significant role in making education accessible by providing free access to the Internet. He added that the poverty level of those living on below US $1 per day was negligible. The Hon. Amna Dirar, Minister for Labour, Sudan added that their Ministry of Public Service was collecting statistics to ensure that there is a balance in gender across the society. The following contribution was made by the Honourable Dalmas Otieno Anyango, Chairperson of the Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service and Minister of State for Public Service, Kenya, who stated that even if governments limit themselves to propoor policies, they would be under representing the survival of the fittest approach. He added that liberal policies support a survival of the fittest constitutional and legal framework. It was his view that more would be accomplished under a human rights framework and felt that this should have been a feature of the Dar es Salaam Communiqué. A human rights frame work would contribute to helping the poor to stop being poor, rather than pro-poor policies that would keep them poor. The honourable Minister recommended human resources development policies that would help to make the poor fit to compete on even and sustainable terms where necessary. To achieve these, governments needed to examine their constitutional and legal frameworks to determine whether they sufficiently empower administrative systems capable of accommodating the week in a sustainable way, surviving changes in political leadership. He 3

4 insisted that governments must alter their constitutions and support the changes with adequate legal and administrative frameworks. He summed up with the following five points: i) Discrimination must be outlawed to ensure the realization of the millennium development goals ii) Pro-poor policies will not take us to our goals iii) Existing anti-corruption policies are often superficial and must address the major issues equally iv) Isolated attempts will not be adequate. Comprehensive attempts are needed to empower citizens v) Rather than simply to get past elections, more detailed attention to constitutional, legal, and administrative frameworks is necessary. Hon. Ashraf Abel Wahab, Minister, Egypt stated that constitutions need to be grounded in service rather than in power, such as with attributing power to government officials over citizens. They should focus more on how well services should be delivered. He agreed that there is a need for leadership to transform lives, not simply to provide subsidies and health services. He stressed that no one should be left out, that education was a good strategy in paving the way from poverty and for employment. He called on civil society to push governments to be more transparent and recommended that the success of public policies rests on assessment and evaluation. The Chair then posed the question of how a shared vision might be achieved. In response, Hon. Azong Hassan, Minister for Public Sector Reform, Ghana shared the approach being used in his country, where the National Development Commission is engaging all political parties to participate in the debates on development issues. This is intended to avoid the formulation of public policy decisions that are merely the product of party politics. H.E. Chang, Kwang-Soo, the Assistant Minister of Informatization Strategy, Ministry of Public Administration and Security of the Republic of South Korea shared from the many development successes of his country, pointing to the following four key factors: i) Citizen-centric policies ii) Dedicated organizations iii) Partnerships between public and private sectors iv) Commitment of e-leaders 4

5 The Assistant Minister placed a lot of emphasis on the role of e-leadership and the development of e-government. He called on governments to provide education for the disabled, elderly, low-income earners to improve the digital divide between urban and rural populations, and to provide personal computers to citizens. He complimented UNDESA/DPADM on its activities towards developing global partnerships for sharing information and stated that the UN Public Administration Country Studies was a good initiative and that his government was willing to share information with the developing world for the future benefits and prosperity. Open Floor Discussions The first contributor congratulated the Honourable Dalmas Otieno Anyango on his delivery about the need for restructuring political institutions, but challenged his comments that existing structures encouraged the un-fittest to survive. It was his view, rather, that it was the poor who were the fittest in their ability to survive without. He added that governments face a huge challenge to retrofit an ancient public system that was never intended for public service. Therefore, there is a need to redefine the way that public servants function and related procedures must be redefined to identify what a public servant is in the contemporary contexts. The second contribution came from a representative of Rwanda, who stated that governments are to change for the better in improving the lives of their citizens; it should not be business as usual, with policies that are challenged at the implementation stage. He recommended less grandiose and more practical policy approaches and added that the poor must be engaged in planning processes and that more attention to the orphans was necessary. It was his view that developing countries could learn from countries like China and the Republic of Korea, and that every effort should be made to reduce expenditure. The next comments emphasized the failure of governments to communicate with the poor during discussions on matters related to their well-being. The view was expressed that there was need for more advocacy on behalf of those without a voice. The recommendation as made that the people should be the ones actually placed on the stage to debate on how their circumstances should be addressed, and the Government Ministers placed in the audience to listen. 5

6 Another contributor pointed out that public servants are the barometers by which we measure our governments. Regretfully, new governments come and incumbents are told to proceed on leave. Added to this, governments must be prepared to think outside of the box, if not, they will remain in the old silos. The question of what constitutes the public was also raised, along with various classifications, such as rich, and poor. Reference was then made by another contributor regarding public service, as discussed in the forum, in terms of distributive economics, but not sufficiently related to the issue of political structure. The analogy that fish start rotting from the head was made to emphasize the importance of leadership, followed by the call for transformation in political leadership, the most effective of which was seen to be founded on the desire to serve the public. A comment then came from a student of the University of Dar es Salaam, who reminded the assembly that young people were 60 per cent of the population and to achieve transformative leadership, as a national investment, these young people must be appropriately groomed for political leadership. The student made the following recommendations: ii) Create effective institutions iii) More should be invested in academic institutions, which are seen as the way towards creating transformative leadership iv) Invest in human resources development among the youth A contribution then came from Dr. John Mary Kauzya, Chief of the Public Administration Capacity Building Branch, UNDESA/DPADM, on the important issue of human resources development for public service. He explained that public service bureaucracy needed to be developmental bureaucracy more than simply representative bureaucracy. He added that government agencies in poor countries are sometimes manned by very highly qualified public servants, who need to iron out the inconsistencies of their function to achieve development in their countries. 6

7 APPENDIX List of Government Ministers and Other High Level Government Representatives Hon. Ashraf Abel Wahab Minister Egypt Hon. Azong Hassan Minister for Public Sector Reform Ghana Hon. Dalmas Otieno Anyango, Egh., Mp. Chairperson of the Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service Minister of State for Public Service Kenya Hon. Semano Sekatle Minister of Public Service Lesotho Hon. Pillay Chedmbruy-Tassarajen Minister for Information and Communication Technology Mauritius Hon. Gungah Ashit Kumar Minister of Civil Service and Administrative Reforms Mauritius H.E. Mr. M.R. Baloyi Minister for Public Service and Administration South Africa Hon. Amna Dirar Minister for Labour Sudan Hon. Stephen Wasira Minister of State, President's Office Social Relations and Coordination United Republic of Tanzania Hon. Hawa A. Ghasia Minister of State, Public Service Management United Republic of Tanzania Hon. E.G. Muknoweshuro Minister of Public Service Zimbabwe 7

8 Hon. Ahmed Aden Sugow Assistant Minister of Public Service Kenya H.E. Mr. Salvador Vega Casillas Secretary of Public Administration Mexico H. E. Mrs. Julia Dolly Joiner Commissioner for Political Affairs African Union H. E. Dr. Salim Al-Ruzaiqi Chief Executive Officer, Information Technology Authority (ITA) Sultanate of Oman Mrs. Huh, Mi-yeon Assistant Mayor of Women and Family Affairs Seoul Metropolitan Government Republic of Korea H.E. Mr. Chang, Kwang-Soo Assistant Minister Informatization Strategy Office Ministry of Public Administration and Security (MOPAS) Republic of Korea Mr. Andrej Hrnciar Mayor of the Town of Martin Slovakia Dr. Frannie Leuatier Executive Secretary African Capacity Building Foundation Zimbabwe 8