Civil Servants Trained in Results-Based Management

Fifty eight civil servants have completed training in Results-Based Management (RBM), following two one-week training workshops hosted by the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), at its Oxford Road office, New Kingston.

The workshops, hosted November 30 – December 11, were intended to strengthen the capacity of the public sector, and its partners, to implement, monitor and evaluate the Vision 2030 Jamaica-National Development Plan and the Medium Term Socio-Economic Policy Framework (2009-2012).

They were sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation (CFTC), in collaboration with the Canadian Co-operation Fund (CCF) of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

At Friday’s (December 11) closing ceremony, Caribbean Region, Commonwealth Secretariat Advisor, Dr. Joan Nwasike, assured participants that the Commonwealth Secretariat was committed to helping Jamaica foster a culture of results-based achievement in the public sector, while improving capacity at the national level in Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation.

President of the International Development Evaluation Association, Dr. Ray Rist (right), congratulates a beaming Tisha Ewen-Smith (left) of the Social Development Commission (SDC) who successfully completed training in Results-Based Management at the closing ceremony of the Planning Institute of Jamaica’s (PIOJ) Results-Based Management (RBM) training workshop at the agency’s head office, Oxford Road, New Kingston, on Friday (December 11).

“The Commonwealth Secretariat is ready to continue assisting the Government of Jamaica, as it strives for RBM. It is the way countries are going now. For every cent spent, we need to see results and your citizens need to see results. The concentration is on service delivery and public servants [need] to deliver quality services”, she told the participants.

“We recommend that this training is given to everyone in the public service even at the highest level even it is a half day of training awareness on what RBM is all about because, if everyone is onboard, from the top, then you won’t have any problems. I’m sure that recommendation will be taken onboard sooner than you think,” she said.

The Training was conducted by President of the International Development Evaluation Association, Dr. Ray Rist, who has had a distinguished career in advising international organisations and Governments on how to design and build results-based monitoring and evaluation systems.

Through participatory group work with plenary reporting and discussions, participants were able to gain hands-on experience in the fundamentals of results based monitoring and evaluation, which can be applied at the national and sectoral levels.

The public sector workers who benefitted from the training included Heads of Agencies, strategic and corporate planners, and other senior level and technical staff, including statisticians, research, monitoring and budgetary officers from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Manager, Multilateral Technical Co-operation Unit, External Co-operation Management Division at the PIOJ, Andrea Stewart, who also spoke at the closing ceremony charged the participants to utilise the knowledge gained to become change agents in their respective organisations.

“It is hoped that you will become trainers in your organisation, thereby ensuring the multiplication of the number of persons knowledgeable about, and applying RBM tools to their work”, she enthused.

The RBM Training Workshops are part of a series to be held over the next year for senior Government officials and technical officers who have responsibility for performance monitoring and evaluation, data collection, research and analysis.

For more information on the workshops, persons can contact Curline Beckford at 935 – 5075 or Sherica Hawthorne at 935 – 5149 or shawthorne@pioj.gov.jm .

The Vision 2030 Jamaica National Development plan can be viewed at www.vision2030.gov.jm