Report of the Seminar on Public Sector Leadership Capacity...

African Training and Research Centre in Administration for

Development

New Partnership for Africa’s Development

United Nations Department of Economic and

Social Affairs

Republic of Uganda

Report of the Seminar on

Public Sector Leadership Capacity Development for Good Governance in Africa

Nile Hotel International Conference Centre Kampala, Uganda

27-30 January 2004

Original: English

Report of the Seminar on Public Sector Leadership Capacity Development for Good Governance in Africa, Kampala, Uganda, 27-30 January 2004

African Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development – CAFRAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development – NEPAD United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs - UNDESA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 1

Formal Opening Ceremony............................................................................................................... 2

I. First Plenary Session: Public Sector Leadership Development in Africa ............................... 11

II. Second Plenary Session: Challenges and Strategies for Public Sector Leadership Development ........................................................................................................................... 14

III. Third Plenary Sessions: Panel Discussion on the Challenges of Leadership Capacity Development for Performance Enhancement in the Public Sector in Africa ......................... 19

IV. Fourth Plenary Session: Towards the Preparation of the Programme on Leadership Capacity Development (Panel Discussion)............................................................................................ 22

V. Fifth Plenary Session: Presentation of Syndicate Reports....................................................... 25

VI. Six Plenary Session: Seminar Conclusions and Recommendations........................................ 26

Abbreviations .................................................................................................................................. 29

Annex I: Work Programme............................................................................................................. 30

Annex II: Syndicate Working Groups Reports ............................................................................... 35



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Introduction

1. A seminar focusing on the theme, Public Sector Leadership Development for Good Governance in Africa was held at the Nile International Conference Centre, Kampala, Uganda, from 27 to 30 January, 2004. It was organised by CAFRAD under the auspicious of NEPAD, jointly hosted by the Government of Uganda (Ministry fo Public Service) and the Uganda Management Institute and financed by UNDESA, with financial support from the Government of Italy. The seminar attracted a total of 85 participants, among whom were 10 ministers of public service, other high-ranking government officials, as well as representatives of international organizations and partner institutions. The regional and international organizations represented at the seminar included; the African Union Commission, OECD, UNDP/UNESCO project on leadership development,, the Commonwealth Secretariat, AAPAM, ESAMI, the United Nations Staff College, Turin, the African Capacity Building Foundation/PAMNET, and the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration. The number of countries represented at the seminar was 32 (See Annex A for the list of participants). .Mr. Jide Balogun of UNDESA served as Rapporteur-General.

2. Based on the presentations made by renowned public administration practitioners and scholars on

various aspects of the seminar theme, and the indepth discussions which took place in working groups, the seminar acknowledged the need for the preparation and implementation of a Plan of Action aimed at developing and nurturing visionary leadership capacities in the African public service to meet the challenges confronting the continent. The seminar further directed that the elements identified (in plenary sessions and by syndicate groups) as critical to the realization of the leadership development objectives be taken into account in preparing the plan. Above all, the plan was to be implemented over a period of at least three years.

3. This report begins with the issues raised at the formal opening ceremony, particularly, following

the delivery of the Opening Address by The Right Honourable 3rd Deputy Prime Minister of Uganda, the statements by the Director General of CAFRAD, the Director of DPADM of UNDESA, the Italian Ambassador’s message of goodwill, and the thematic presentations by the South African Minister for Public Service and Administration who was also the Guest of Honour at the opening and the Sudanese Minister of Labour and Administrative Reform. In the second section, the report proceeds to summarize the papers presented at the first substantive session and the discussions that followed. The focus of the third section is on the conclusions reached and the recommendations proferred at the second plenary session. The fourth section presents highlights of the panel discussions which took place at the third and the fourth plenary sessions, while the fifth presents the reports of the three syndicate groups that had been established to deliberate on the elements that should inform the preparation of the Plan of Action on public service leadership development. In the sixth and last section, the report summarizes the findings and recommendations of the seminar.



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Formal Opening Ceremony

Chairperson: Hon. Patrick A. Okumu-Ringa, Minister of State in the Ministry of Public Service, Uganda

Session Rapporteurs: Salim Latib, (DPSA), Wilberforce Turyasingura (UMI) 4. The seminar on “Public Sector Leadership Development for Good Governance in Africa” was

formally declared open by the Honourable Geraldine Frazer Moleketi, Chairperson of the 4th Pan- African Conference of Ministers of Public Service and Minister of Public Service of South Africa in the presence of the Rt. Hon. 3rd Deputy Prime Minister of Uganda, Mr. Henry Kajura, on Tuesday, 27 January 2004. The opening ceremony featured the presentation of welcome and key note speeches by notable personalities, among them, the Deputy Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Kajura; the Director of the Division for Public Administration and Development in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Mr. Guido Bertucci represented by John-Mary Kauzya, Chief of Governance and Public Administration Branch UNDESA, the Deputy Director-General of the NEPAD Secretariat, Mr. Smunda Mokoena ; the Italian Ambassador to Uganda, H.E., Mr. Maurizio Teucci ; the Minister of State for Labour and Administrative Reform, Sudan, H.E., Dr Mahgoub Tag Elsir; the Director-General of CAFRAD, Prof. Tijjani Muhammad Bande, and the Ag. Director of the Uganda management Institute, Dr. John Kiyaga - Nsubuga. The Minister of State in the Ministry of Public Service, Republic of Uganda, Hon. Patrick A. Okumu-Ringa, was the Chairperson at the ceremony.

5. The Acting Director of the Uganda Management Institute, Dr John Kiyaga Nsubuga, who was

Master of Ceremony, introduced the distinguished speakers. He thereafter handed the moderation of the proceedings at the formal opening over to the Chairman, Hon. Okumu-Ringa.

6. What makes the occasion especially memorable was the recurring emphasis on the benefits of

collective action. In the words of the Rt. Hon. Henry Kajura, 3rd Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Service of Uganda, ‘..only through posture, joint action could we with assured success confront head on the numerous challenges before us. It is pleasant, if not flattering, to see how sister African States, in the context of the Pan-African Ministerial Conference and NEPAD, have embraced this view most seriously.” The Deputy Prime Minister recalled the deliberations that took place in Stellenboch in May 2003 under the chairpersonship of the South African Minister for Public Service and Administration, Hon. Geraldine Fraser-Moloketi. As part of a comprehensive Agenda on Governance and Public Administration, the 4th Pan African Conference of Ministers at Stellenboch had identified leadership development as an area of priority. The 3rd Deputy Prime Minister expressed the delight that CAFRAD and its other partners took steps to address this gigantic challenge as directed by the Conference.



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7. The Deputy Prime Minister further referred to the landmark resolution of the UN General Assembly (Resolution No. 50.225) which underscored the need for a robust public sector in meeting the challenges of equity, nation building, peace and development. He acknowledged the contributions of the Government of Italy which, through UNDESA/DPADM, actively supported the reform process in Africa. The Deputy Prime Minister concluded by stating that Uganda and other African countries looked forward to the launching of the leadership development programme. On behalf of the various countries, he pledged to ‘‘to do all in our power to see to an effective follow up’’ of the seminar’s recommendations.

8. In his own statement (read on his behalf by Dr John-Mary Kauzya), the Director of the Division for

Public Administration and Development Management, UNDESA, Mr. Guido Bertucci, traced the link between the Seminar’s objectives and the United Nations Millennium Declaration. In much the same way as the Seminar focused on the need to develop a visionary leadership capacity and the competencies needed to meet the challenges facing the African continent, the Millennium Declaration had pledged the support of the international community for Africa’s efforts at achieving the objectives of poverty eradication, lasting peace, sustainable development and integration in the global economy. The Secretary-General’s road map towards the implementation of the Declaration had also acknowledged the resolve of the African leaders to take ownership and assume control of their destiny. This assumption of direct responsibility for Africa’s welfare and development has clear implications for government and public service leadership capacity-building. Echoing the Deputy Prime Minister’s observations, the UNDESA statement acknowledged the linkage between the priorities set by the African Governments and the Millennium Development Goals.

9. Besides welcoming the opportunity to cement relations with its African partners, UNDESA

appreciated the fact that NEPAD had agreed to be part not only of the organization of the Seminar that was being declared open, but also of the follow up implementation activities. UNDESA, therefore, accords high priority to strengthening partnership with this new continental initiative, and with other global, regional, and national bodies that are actively engaged in the task of promoting Africa’s development.

10. UNDESA commended the efforts of the African governments, and particularly, their determination

to use NEPAD’s programme of Governance and Public Administration as a springboard for strengthening leadership capacity within the continent. The UN Department therefore urged the rest of the world to identify itself with these laudable aspirations and to provide the necessary support. According to the Department, getting Africa out of the poverty trap was a daunting challenge. However, with the resolve displayed by the African leaders to tackle this challenge boldly, and subject to the provision that the international community makes good its promise to support NEPAD, prospects for poverty eradication on the continent appeared bright.



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11. UNDESA expressed appreciation for the support it had always received from its African partners, particularly, the Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service, the Governing Board as well as the Director-General of CAFRAD, and the national public administration and development management institutes. The Department also recognized the role played by other international partners, prominent among which is IASIA. Finally, UNDESA thanked the Government of Italy for generously providing the resources needed in organizing the Seminar, and the Government and People of Uganda for the warm welcome and hospitality extended to the participants.

12. In his own remarks, the Italian Ambassador to Uganda, H.E.. Maurizio Teucci, placed particular

emphasis on the need for collective action – a principle that informed the establishment of the African Union (AU). He reaffirmed the commitment of the Italian Government to meeting the jointly identified leadership development needs of the new initiative. He added that his Government was supporting, through DPADM/UNDESA, and within the context of the Governance and Public Administration programme adopted in Cape Town, South Africa by the 4th Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service at its meeting in May 2003, specific activities in the area of governance and public administration.

13. Mr Teucci noted that the Workshop that was just beginning in Kampala, was a key component of a

UNDESA project on ‘‘Capacity Building in Public Sector Management for Good Governance in Africa’’ funded by the Government of Italy. Turning his attention to the AU, he stated that the success of the new body would depend on good governance, stakeholder participation, observance of human rights and the degree of commitment to democratization at all levels.

14. Mr. Smunda Mokoena, representing Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, Chairperson of the NEPAD

Steering Committee, expressed the admiration of the NEPAD Secretariat and Steering Committee for the leadership shown by African Ministers of the Public Service in developing the Governance and Public Administration programme which has greatly influenced the decision to conduct the latest Seminar.

15. He noted that the challenge of building the African state needs to be understood within the context

of deepening poverty and underdevelopment, ongoing conflicts and inability to attract the high levels of investment necessary for economic growth and sustained development. The objectives and principles of the transformation agenda of Africa are reflected in both the Constitutive Act of the African Union and the NEPAD Strategic Framework document, and it is within this context that the need to promote good governance and capacitate African states and governments is located.

16. The clear link between building public sector capacity in order to facilitate socio-economic

development programmes in the interests of the people of Africa was reinforced through the inclusion of the Capacity Development Programme on Governance and Public Administration within the Declaration of the Implementation of NEPAD adopted in Maputo, Mozambique, during the Second Assembly of the African Heads of State and Government of the African Union.



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17. Finally, Mr. Mokoena emphasized the great need for African governments to begin to prioritise appropriate action plans, with adequate resources from national budgets. Capacity development in the public sector must in part be funded by African governments. To this end, the NEPAD statement concluded by emphasizing the need to ensure that adequate resources are made available for capacity development and that capacity development was not taken hostage by resource constraints.

18. The Guest of Honour, H.E., Mrs. Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Minister of Public Service and

Administration of South Africa and Chairperson of the 4th Pan-African Conference of Ministers also addressed the august gathering. She observed that Africa today faces an unprecedented opportunity to engage the developed world in trade and cultural exchanges, to build relationships of mutual benefit with other developing nations of the South, and to firmly arrest the relentless spread of poverty and marginalisation that has haunted the continent for so many decades.

19. The adoption of the Programme in Governance and Public Administration, arising out of the

deliberations of the 4th Pan-African Conference of Ministers of Public Service, held in South Africa (May 2003) reflects the commitment of African Public Service Ministers to working collectively within the framework of NEPAD.

20. Within the context of a seminar on Building Public Sector Capacity for Good Governance in

Africa, Minister Fraser-Moleketi posed the question “How do we understand the particularity of ‘African’ without losing sense of universal/ widely shared knowledge, experience and history ?” A further dilemma is to factor in sufficient distinction and diversity within the concept of the “African”, to ensure that we do not suggest similarity and unanimity in value and behaviour across a very big continent which experienced many diverse influences and that has consequently developed its own systems on different tracts. Above all, Minister Fraser-Moleketi noted that participants need to be careful about labelling something as “African” simply because it is voiced, demonstrated or embraced by a person of African origin.

21. The leadership development challenge, Minister Fraser-Moleketi noted, should be clearly located

within the context of Africa’s colonial legacy – and against the background of the inheritance of administrative systems of other countries, and the neglect of indigenous administrative models. She called on intellectuals to undertake further research and engage in dialogue on the leadership challenge confronting the African continent. She identified the seminar as an opportunity to enhance dialogue on the issue. In order to guide discussions at the seminar, the Minister posed the following questions:

• What are the unique challenges that are facing African leadership at the beginning of the 21st

Century ? What are the demands that these challenges will place on the leadership style – both administratively and politically speaking ?



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• Are there some challenges lodged in the political-administrative interface in Africa given that the history of the continent is different from other parts of the world ?

• Is there a uniquely African leadership style that has been corrupted by the colonial experience and is it possible to regenerate it ?

• What are the challenges in terms of leadership development in Africa ? What curricula should be developed and how should materials and case studies be selected ?

22. Minister Fraser-Moleketi questioned whether it is possible for us to draw on African philosophical

traditions in order to re-establish African thinking on public administration. With few exceptions such as the francophone philosophers/political scientists Achille Mbembe and Amadou Hampate Ba, the philosophical underpinnings for a modern Africanised public administration is fairly deplete. Nevertheless, there is some undeniable influence in the African mindset and value system that distinguishes it from that of a more Western or Eurocentric approach and that is relevant for thinking about public administration and hence, public sector leadership development.

23. In closing, Minister Fraser-Moleketi noted that currently the trend is to focus on the political

dimension of governance, with public administration and public sector leadership development issues being relegated to the periphery of the work in the African Union as well as in NEPAD initiatives. This situation should be addressed. It is up to African leadership to place public administration in its appropriate place, and to provide leadership to public servants and the partners with which they work.

24. The keynote address by Dr. Tag Elsir Mahgoub Ali, State Minister of Labour and Administrative

Reform of Sudan, raised a number of highly pertinent issues. His paper, titled “The Role of Public Sector Leadership in Fostering Socio-Economic and Political Development in Africa”, begins by outlining the past and the current maladies confronting most African countries. It notes that there is a growing demand for concrete action – action that responds to Africa’s development challenges. This contrasts sharply with the previous tendency to be content with charismatic leadership. In light of this new development, the paper canvasses the need for Africans to confront their problems courageously and remain steadfast in the quest for solutions. Convinced that the time of reckoning had finally arrived, the paper sees the need for critical and sober self-examination. If and when Africa embarks on such an exercise, it should ensure that it is devoid of self-deception and that is not unduly influenced by emotions or fictive thinking. While engaged in this process of self-examination, Africa should focus on the root causes of the problems confronting it and not on the symptoms. Some of the problems highlighted by Dr Tag Elsir include:

• Internal and external conflicts, resulting in the destruction of social capital as well as the

infrastructure;

• poor economic management – translating into low economic performance;



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• fragility of institutions – institutions that tend to be hobbled by tradition, tribalism and nepotism, and liable to perform well below standard;

• deepening poverty, rising incidence of deprivation and abysmal ignorance, and increasing cases (as well as severity) of endemic diseases;

• poor governance systems giving way to a management crisis of epic dimensions, and excerbating the situation already made bad by lack of transparency and accountability;

• weakened trust in government as an institution – a situation compounded by unbridled lust for power and the growth of unscrupulous careerists; and;

• poor service delivery.

25. The author identifies eighteen critical challenges specifically confronting Africa and the African

leadership. Among these are:

• The challenge of governance and public service reform (including the reform of the civil service bureaucracy);

• The challenge of consolidating democracy and promoting sustainable human development and poverty reduction particularly in view of the HIV/ AIDS pandemic.

• The challenge of conflict prevention and management within the context of increasing tensions within African societies that are increasingly demanding recognition of cultural and ethnic diversity in political and economic spheres;

• The challenge of globalisation and human capital drain;

• The challenge of private sector development and external debt burden;

• The challenge of multinational integration and understanding the international political and economic order and of how to respond to it intelligently;

• The challenge of gender equality; and

• The challenge of reshaping and leading organizations and people through a culture that is conducive to excellence to react dynamically to the aforementioned challenges.

26. The author acknowledges that leadership is difficult to define but easy to recognize. All the same,

various theoretical and academic attempts have been made to define leadership and its various formations – namely, transformational leadership and transactional leadership and their elements. It is suggested that leadership varies according to the demands of a particular situation, as leaders are themselves diverse individuals. The author agrees with Covey’s argument that leaders could be “…extroverts and aloof, retiring men…eccentrics…some are worriers and some are relaxed…some morbidly shy.” Leadership focuses more on people than on things; on the long-term rather than the short term; on values and principles rather than activities; on mission, purpose and direction rather than on methods, techniques and speed. (Covey, P. Principle-Centred Leadership).



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27. The author surmises that perhaps what is required in the African context are attributes such as those that aid the processes of strategic visioning, provide clear directions to the future, and challenge old rules and mindsets. He also highlights key questions that must be asked as part of identifying the critical dimensions of leadership and determining the requisite roadmap to effective leadership. To name a few: • Is leadership simply innovation—cultural or political? • Is it essentially inspirational? • Is it goal setting and goal fulfillment? • Is leadership the attainment of progressively worthy goals and objectives through the

intelligent integration of human and production resources or is it simply driving the herd? • Is leadership concerned with achieving a major paradigm shift, making the public service more

mission–oriented, dynamic and resilient in a rapidly changing environment? • Is leadership concerned with exerting big effort in making incremental but significant changes

encompassing not only structural and systems changes, but changes in values in the mindset of civil service or is it satisfied with maintaining the status quo?

• Is leadership continuously assessing the strengths and weaknesses, evaluating opportunities and threats for a clear sense of direction with identified and controlled risks, and thus sound decision-making or is it simply repeating yesterday?

28. With these questions in mind, the author reflects on the changing role of the public service. In his view, the complexities of modern governments require that leadership imbibe the capacity to manage diversity, identify and develop key strategic areas, seek and nurture productive partnerships and focus on outputs as well as results. In any case, new developments such as global interdependence, the communication and technology revolution and increased expectations from the public to increase their involvement in decision-making dictate the need for a proactive leadership. In addition, attention must be given to building the necessary institutional, human resources and technological capacities to support governance. Finally, in its response to the challenges facing African governments, public sector leadership must differentiate between leading and managing. He clarifies the distinction by holding that whereas management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things. The essential element in this regard is effectiveness. As a function of leadership, effectiveness is not about the effort exerted in an action plan. Instead, it is about whether the effort is being exerted into an action plan that has overall strategic merit. In making the metamorphosis from management to leadership, the intrinsic and personal attributes of the individual leader are critically important.

29. The paper notes some of the current thinking on the personal attributes of a leader and provides

detailed definitions of them. They include Vision; Implementing the Vision; Motives and Traits; and Knowledge, Skills and Ability. The Minister converts the letters making up the word “leadership” into attributes as follows: L-Love, E-Empathy, A-Attention, D-Dedication, E-Enforcement of Values, R-Reward, S-Synergy, H-Hoopla, I-Integrity, P-Perseverance.



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30. Finally, the author highlights the key leadership capacity challenges facing the various African institutions – be they in the public or private sector. With specific reference to the public sector, these challenges include:

• Successfully designing and implementing development policies and programmes;

• Providing an efficient, cost – effective and responsive public service;

• Establishing and managing an effective and transparent regulatory and legal framework to guide the growth and development of the private sector, reward innovativeness and risk-taking and adequately protect consumers and the environment;

• Enhancing the capacity of institutions that promote the rule of law, protect property rights, reinforces state legitimacy, and guarantees socio-political stability;

• Putting in place a sound framework for managing public resources and attendant issues such as decentralisation, fiscal federalism, debt relief, poverty reduction and intergenerational equity.

31. As regards leadership in the private sector, the key challenges include:

• Promoting product and price competitiveness (that is, producing high quality, low priced goods and services, and by so doing, enhancing the competitiveness of the African economy in an era of globalization);

• Performing more efficiently, functions that had hitherto been a monopoly of the State;

• Formulating and adhering to good corporate governance standards, and displaying a high sense of social responsibility;

• Establishing codes of best practices and raising productivity and output standards; and

• Undertaking research for development and promoting the adaptation and application of science and technology.

32. For civil society to play an effective role in meeting the development challenges facing Africa in

the 21st century it requires capacity in the following areas :

• Institutional autonomy, reinforced by professional policy analysis and research capacity;

• Effective interface with the public and private sectors;

• Competence in providing advisory and technical services in support of policies, strategies and programmes targeted at poverty reduction; and

• Participation in, and monitoring of, public service delivery in the search for accountable, transparent and efficient government.



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Issues emerging from the opening speeches 33. The speeches delivered at the opening ceremony raised the following pertinent issues – issues that

accorded with the Seminar theme and kept recurring in the plenary and syndicate discussions:

(i) there is need for a programme aimed at enhancing the capacity of government and public service leadership to respond adequately to contemporary and unfolding challenges;

(ii) among the challenges requiring visionary leadership responses are those triggered by the growing and insistent demands for popular participation and good governance, for the accommodation of ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity, for equity in income distribution, for the eradication of poverty, and for measures likely to transform the Africa continent from a marginal player to a force to reckon with in global relations;

(iii) the visionary leadership that is so badly needed will emerge only when Africa embarks on a process of critical self-examination and desists from evading responsibility for its choices and the consequences;

(iv) character, integrity, commitment to excellence and unceasing search for perfection are among the defining attributes of the new generation of leaders needed by Africa to conquer obstacles to growth and development;

(v) scholars have a major role to play in extrapolating from African philosophical traditions those values and attributes that could readily be adapted to meet modern challenges and reposition the continent for take-off to self-sustaining growth and development.



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I. First Plenary Session: Public Sector Leadership Development in Africa

Chairperson: E. S. Gaspar D. Kobako, Minister of Public Service, Burundi Resource Persons: Professor Ousmane Batoko, and Mr. Lelo Mamosi Rapporteurs: Mr. Wilberforce Turyansingura and Mr. Gianluca Misuraca 34. Against the backdrop of the stimulating ideas presented by the keynote speakers at the opening

ceremony, the seminar proceeded to the first substantive session. The topic discussed at this session is “Public Sector Leadership Development in Africa”. Two papers were presented at the session. The first, by M. Ousmane Batoko, Professor of Public Law, University of Parakou, Benin, is titled “Leadership Capacity for reform and modernization of governance”. The second paper (by Mr. Lelo Mamosi of CAFRAD) summarizes the findings of a survey undertaken by CAFRAD to assess leadership capacity development needs across the continent.

35. Professor Batoko’s presentation begins by noting the importance of leadership. According to him,

successful governance reforms require good leaders. The successful implementation of NEPAD, which has received a lot of support from the international community, is dependent on the quality of leadership. He proceeds on the premise that impact of the public sector in African countries is limited by a lack of capacity to implement key institutional, administrative and economic reforms. In many cases the persons placed in charge of such reforms, he argues, are not necessarily effective leaders. Leadership is clearly not defined by qualifications alone, but by other conditions. A great number of problems facing African countries are due in large measure to the gaps in capacities for formulating and implementing economic, social, political and administrative reforms. When implementing reforms, priority tends to be given to structural changes and standards. The human aspects of reforms have, in most cases, been neglected, especially leadership.

36. Professor Batoko is of the view that in order to overcome resistance to change, a leader ought to

command respect, and this s/he can do by providing intellectual, technical and emotional resources, providing a long term perspective on reform and paying attention to the identification of problems and their causes. Above all, a leader should persuade, rather than impose ideas.

37. A leader should have a vision and reflect optimism. S/he should not expect people to implement

change through force. He should also ensure that the vision is shared, and that people take ownership of it. Successful public sector reform requires participation from a diverse range of stakeholders, including trade unions, civil society and others. The leader should establish teams, share information and acknowledge the actions and contributions of others. The National Conference on Strong Forces held in Benin in February 1990 is a good example of this.



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38. The true leader should reflect in his daily practice what he requires others to do. He should be above reproach, having impeccable qualifications, and be a source of influential ideas on governance. In a nutshell, he should be a model to others, and retain the confidence of those who look up to him/her. The leader should ensure that his actions are above suspicion and that he is not tainted by allegations of corruption. Transparency should start with the leader himself. People are not only rational, but also emotional and wish to have standards of leadership to which they can aspire. The fight against corruption has failed in many instances because there is a feeling that there is inadequate commitment from the leadership.

39. The leader responsible for implementing governance reforms should have the full support of the

Head of State and never be second-guessed by members of the government. The first set of reforms should be accompanied by material incentives, financial and moral, to motivate the implementers of the reforms. Without these the leader will always struggle to gain support.

40. In his own contribution, Mr. Mamosi presented the results of a survey undertaken in 2003 to

identify and assess the leadership capacity development needs in the African public service. The survey was conducted in collaboration with UNDESA and within the framework of the NEPAD programme on Public Sector Leadership Capacity Development.

41. According to Mr. Mamosi, a total of 52 questionnaires were despatched, but only 22 responses

were received, representing a response rate of 42.3%. The analysis of the responses reveals that:

1) African countries use various names to designate the Ministry in charge of Public Service. The most commonly used being:

• Ministry of Public Service;

• Ministry of Public Service and Administrative Reform

• Ministry of Public Service, Administrative Reform and State Reform

• Ministry of Public Service and Labour

• Ministry of Public Service, Labour, Professional Training and Social Affairs

2) Responsibilities of Ministries of Public Service are increasingly important and diversified. Many public service ministries work under the Prime Minister, the cabinet or the Presidency.

3) With regard to previous training in leadership development, 50% of the respondents have already attended such programme; 45.5% have not yet done so, and one does not know.

4) Among those who have participated in leadership development programme, 45.5% are satisfied with their training but 54.5% said that the programme did not respond to their needs and did not improve their leadership skills.



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5) All the respondents (100%) expressed the desire to participate in a leadership capacity development programme if an opportunity arises. This include those who have already, as well as those who have not yet, taken part in a leadership development programme.

6) Among the most recommended topics – topics of great importance in leadership development programme - are visioning and strategic planning; communication with staff and with citizens/clients; evaluation and improvement of performance.

7) Participation of very senior administrative staff in leadership capacity development programme was recommended.

8) The duration of the programme recommended was of one week (5 – 7 days).

42. Overall, therefore, the study reveals that a need exists for a programme in leadership capacity

development. However, the programme must take into account the diversity as well as the complexity of the mandate of the Ministry of Public Service. The profile of the present and future leaders must also reflect the African realities and context.

General comments 43. At the end of the two presentations, the participants observed as follows:

(a) The character of the leader is critical to the successful implementation of governance and public service reforms;

(b) Despite the low response rate, the results of the CAFRAD survey appear to confim the status of and attitudes to leadership training in certain sub-regions;

(c) The CAFRAD study further reinforces the need for a programme aimed at developing leadership capacities in the African public service.



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II. Second Plenary Session: Challenges and Strategies for Public Sector Leadership Development

Chairperson: H.E. Hon Ahmed Sulliman Jeewah, Minister of Civil Service Affairs and Administrative Reform, Mauritius

Resource Persons: Bobby Soobrayan, John Kiyaga Nsubuga, and Patrick Fitzgerald Rapporteurs: Mr. Wilberforce Turyansingura and Mr. Gianluca Misuraca 44. The second plenary session featured three presentations: Mr Bobby Soobrayan, Director-General of

SAMDI; Dr John Kiyaga Nsubuga, Acting Director of the Uganda Management Institute; Professor Patrick Fitzgerald, Director, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

45. Mr Bobby Soobrayan’s in his paper titled “Leadership Challenges and role of African MDIs

contextualises the challenges of leadership within a trajectory of globalisation, a new discourse on good governance and the contributions of history, traditions, values, culture and indigenous knowledge systems.” The paper argues that Management Development Institutions (MDIs) have to play a leading role in enhancing leadership capacity building. It adduces the following reasons for taking this position:

• There is a correlation between the effectiveness of MDIs and improved public sector leadership

capacity;

• Leadership development strategies and interventions must be responsive, sustained and integrated with delivery, reflective of historical, social and indigenous knowledge systems and capable of sustaining and reproducing a critical mass of public sector leadership within each country;

• The utilisation, validity, scope and impact of research on the public sector is vastly improved if conducted by effective national MDIs;

• The role of regional and international leadership development agencies is critically important but not sufficient to sustain organizational change.

46. In recognition of this role, a forum for African MDIs named “African Management Development

Institutes Network (AMDIN)” was initiated in 2002. Its rationale is to support institutional development, resource leverage and exchange, and knowledge exchange and development.

47. The core activities are research, consultancy, curriculum development and training. Mr Soobrayan

concluded by highlighting AMDIN’s vision, which is: “to design a 3 year programme for leadership development in Africa and to develop a network for continuous activities in public sector leadership development in Africa.”



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48. The immediate objective of AMDIN is to mobilise the participation of all African MDIs. The core

activities are research and consultancy; curriculum development and training. The core activities have been assigned in the interim to the Ethiopian Civil Service College (ECSC), the South African Management Development Institute (SAMDI) and the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA).

49. The strategic objective of MDIs, in response to the 2003 Stellenbosch Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service, is to create a convergence among mission, practice and local relevance. This can be complemented with continental collaboration on capacity development initiatives, while striving for outcomes-focussed national relevance. This collaborative initiative is vital to harmonise leadership development programmes across the continent.

50. Mr Soobrayan concluded by stressing the need for structured interventions in leadership capacity development. Less formal approaches should also be considered, especially mentoring. There is a need to utilise the knowledge of senior retired public managers to pass on leadership skills to the youth.

51. In his own presentation titled “Analysing the Leadership Capacity Challenge: Towards potential Intervention Strategies”, Professor Patrick Fitzgerald explored the possibility of evolving an African approach to management. Leadership practice, it seems, is optimized when it’s rooted in the conditions and circumstances of its environment. This raises the possibility of crafting an African specific orientation to ‘Leadership’. Leadership is invariably closely bound-up with the cultural and politico-socio life-world in which it is manifested. This is precisely a large part of what renders it cryptic in nature and difficult to transfer through textbook or conventional training formats.

52. Leadership theory, it is contended, has to some extent, been unhelpful, as it has not succeeded in providing an explanation of leadership in action or its strategic cultivation. However, this absence of a conclusive theory of leadership creates an environment where there is a constant search for meaning. It is through such activities that leadership knowledge helps to shape and reshape individual action and institutional architectures.

53. The public management domain is not the easiest in which to identify and verify leadership hypotheses. Whilst there is a thread of leadership studies within the public administration discipline, the themes explored tend to be those of personal integrity, setting good examples, competent stewardship of resources and diplomatic communicative behavior. These, it is postulated, are very far from the leadership role ascribed to politicians, or even private sector executives. With the rise in importance of the ‘capable’ state, the rhetoric of leadership development previously reserved for the private sector, began to find its way into the collective consciousness of the public management system. What remains an area of deep contestation is the relevance of some of the (managerialist) values that have found their way into public administration.



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54. A deep and complex challenge in public sector leadership is the harmonisation of roles between the

politicians and the “functional” leadership expected of senior public servants. We do not always see a predominant situation where political leadership and public service leadership are explicitly understood to be partners in a development mission.

55. Professor Fitzgerald identified a number of approaches to leadership development. These include:

• Leadership capacity as Enhanced skills: This approach places more emphasis on the enhancement of management competency and the supporting skills;

• Leadership capacity as managing differently: Reflected in a shift to more state of art, contemporary management techniques;

• Leadership capacity as formal knowledge: Seeks to educate public sector managers with information and knowledge regarding a wide range of issues including globalisation, development theory and practice;

• Leadership capacity as surfacing and sharing knowledge: Assumes that implicit knowledge possessed by some managers can be surfaced and communicated to the whole cadre;

• Leadership capacity as accelerated experience and broadened horizons: Emphasises the need to expose public managers to greater world and life experiences through travel, placements in other organisations, professional exchanges, study visits, etc;

• Leadership capacity as self-discovery: Takes the form of facilitated leadership programmes where the objective is to allow for self-discovery and personal growth;

• Leadership capacity as the training environment: This attaches great importance to socialising the manager to the entire organisational environment.

• Leadership capacity as acculturation to “chaos”: This approach takes the post-modern stance and sees the post modernist management leader as operating in a situation characterized neither by uniformity nor certainty, but by diversity, complexity, and surprising change.

56. The author concludes by stating that the activity of leadership capacity development, and the

building of successful mechanisms and institutional arrangements to sustain such a programme, are by themselves, a leadership process. Thus to some extent the approach to be pursued will more likely emerge through intuition, gut instinct and a leap of faith, than an academic and abstract sifting of so-called international best practices.

57. The third paper was presented by Dr John Kiyaga Nsubuga under the title, “Leadership Challenges

in Mainstreaming Performance Enhancement in the Public Service”. This paper notes that the public service exists to translate the national vision into tangible outcomes. Much of this depends on how the national vision has been articulated, the availability of resources, the competence of managerial leadership and the strength of the partnership forged with other players.



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58. Dr Kiyaga - Nsubuga identified the following leadership competencies as critical to the success of public service performance enhancement initiatives:

• Ability to inspire a shared vision, Strategic thinking, Customer focus, Decision making,

Developing organisational talent, Delegation and empowerment, Creating leading teams, Leading by example, Personal strength and maturity, Effective communication, Resilience, Innovativeness/creativity, Transparency and accountability, Sound technical knowledge, Ability to mentor others.

59. The paper further points out the following challenges in enhancing efficiency in the public service:

• Generating consensus on the direction and scope of reforms

• Mobilising necessary resources

• Building effective partnership with stakeholders

• Developing appropriate systems for the proper utilisation of human resources

• Developing key competencies among the top managerial leadership.

• Lack of structured management development programme

• Weak implementation capabilities

• Wage differential between the public sector and the private sector. This has the effect of making public sector managers less motivated than their counterparts in the private sector.



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Issues emerging from the presentations 60. The main issues emerged from the presentations are the following:

(i) It is not possible to separate the political leadership from the leadership of the professional civil service since both echelons work in the same environment and they exist to serve the same customers;

(ii) MDIs are more dependent on governments than business schools;

(iii) AMDIN has the potential to fill a major void in information networking and experience sharing among the MDIs;

(iv) Business schools seem more glamorous that MDIs because the former offer a wide range of subjects and are more customer focussed than the latter;

(v) Some MDIs in Africa are more advanced than others although they address almost similar issues

(vi) Ministers of public service are rotated quite often and this affects the continuity of the programmes they initiate;

(vii) There is a need for structured interventions in leadership capacity development in Africa that reflect the African context but maintains relevance

Recommendations 61. The discussion produced the following recommendations:

a. An African Leadership Institute should be established to address the need for the acquisition of public service leadership capacity.

b. A mix of structured and less formalistic approaches (including mentoring) should be adopted in the training and development of public service leaders;

c. Character (including endurance, diversity tolerance, and ethical) training should form an integral part of the curriculum on the development of public service leaders;

d. In conducting high-level leadership training courses, efforts should be made to utilize the knowledge and experience of retired public officers;

e. MDIs should strive to be self-financing, and should design “products” and services that are in demand;

f. Leadership needs assessment should not only focus on the leaders but also on the people they lead.

g. MDIs should enjoy a substantial degree of operational autonomy

h. The career development service should be strengthened while instituting measures designed to rid the system of time servers and non-performers.



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III. Third Plenary Sessions: Panel Discussion on the Challenges of Leadership Capacity Development for Performance Enhancement in the Public Sector in Africa

Chairperson: H.E., Dr. Jose Antonio Da Conceicao Chichava, Minister of State Administration, Mozambique

Resource Persons/Panelists: Prof. Y. Barongo, Secretary-General, AAPAM

Prof. Sheikh Abdullah, Director-General, ASCON

Dr. M H Lekorwe, Director, CESPAM

Ms Anita Amoa-Awua, GIDD, Commonwealth Secretariat

Dr Bonard L. Mwape, Director-General, ESAMI

Mr. Hans C. Williams, Director-General, Civil Service Agency, Liberia

Rapporteurs: Gianluca Misuraca and M J Balogun

A synopsis of the Panellists’ presentations

62. The panellists raised a number of issues in the course of their interventions at the third plenary session. Professor Barongo, the newly appointed Secretary-General of AAPAM, took the participants down the memory lane. His Association used to be actively supported by African Governments and generously endowed by external donors. In the last few years, however, the support from the African Government appeared to have waned, and the donors seemed to have taken this as a sign of indifference that deserved to be re-paid in kind – that is, with declining financial assistance. Considering the useful contribution that AAPAM had made over the years (in bringing top political office holders and senior career public servants together to deliberate on critical policy and management issues, disseminating best practices in governance and public sector management, and even releasing publications that foresaw Africa’s growing marginalization), it is essential that African Governments take steps to revitalize this inter-African organization.

63. In his own contribution, the Director-General of ASCON focused on the link between integrity and the challenges facing the Africa continent. He observed that while technical incompetence impacts negatively on socio-political and economic development, the harm occasioned by precipitate declines in what he called “integrity quotient” was far greater. Whereas the damage caused by technical incompetence might progress arithmetically, that inflicted by corruption tends to advance geometrically, if not exponentially. The ASCON Director-General therefore contends that the integrity factor must be carefully examined before the leadership equation could be solved.



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64. Dr Lekorwe introduced his newly established organization – CESPAM, a SADC center of

excellence. He sees similarities between the results of the CAFRAD survey on leadership training needs, and the pattern prevailing in different parts of the continent. His centre therefore looked forward to collaborating with CAFRAD and other partners in responding to the issues raised in the survey, and in implementing a programme aimed at enhancing the leadership capacity of the public service.

65. Ms. Anita Amoa-Awua took the opportunity to introduce not only the Commonwealth Secretariat,

but also its governance and institutional development programme. Her first-hand experience as a graduate of a public administration college and of a business school placed her at an advantage in unravelling the myths surrounding both types of institution. According to her, one reason business schools appear more popular than their public administration counterparts was their tendency to expose the student to a variety of disciplines.

66. Dr Bonard Mwape, Director-General of ESAMI, focused on the mandate and programmes of his

institution. He dispelled the notion that senior government officials (particularly, cabinet ministers) were above “training.” ESAMI, he pointed out, had organized retreats for such cadres in the past, and the outcome was invariably satisfactory. The Chairperson of the session, Minister Chichava, confirmed Dr. Mwape’s statement, citing the experience of his own country, Mozambique.

67. The last intervention was made by Mr. Hans C. Williams, Director-General, Civil Service Agency,

Liberia. He traced the history of the civil service, and narrated the civil service’s descent from excellence to its current situation. Conflict in Liberia had not helped matters, as physical assets and infrastructure facilities were among the first to be destroyed. He also highlighted the monumental challenges facing the civil service, among them, challenges of institution reconstruction, and of morale and motivation. Due to the precarious economic situation, the take home pay of senior officials had fallen drastically.

68. The Civil Service Agency was working with a number of external organizations (among them, the

World Bank) to revitalize public administration institutions. He therefore hoped that the international community would support the efforts of his agency at repositioning the civil service for the challenges of rehabilitation, peace building, reconstruction and development.



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General comments/observations

69. Based on the issues raised by the panellists and the discussions that took place thereafter, the seminar made the following observations:

(i) As a creature of the African Governments, AAPAM deserves to be actively supported, more so, considering the vital contributions it has made to the enhancement of public administration knowledge and standards in Africa;

(ii) The character or integrity quotient is as important as its intelligence counterpart in defining the attributes of government and public service leaders;

(iii) Liberia (and other states emerging from conflict) need the support and assistance of sister African states and the world community in responding to the momentous challenges of post-conflict reconstruction and development;

(iv) Business schools and MDIs play a complementary role, and neither is “superior” to the other;

(v) Leadership development programmes should not be introduced for their own sake, but for the purpose of responding to challenges which must be specified.

70. The main problem facing Africa at large is not necessarily lack of resources, particularly, finance. The main issue is how to mobilise people for developmental efforts. Africans should realise that no one else apart from themselves can shoulder their problems. Money is useful only when people have been fully mobilised to tackle perceived problems and accomplish specific objectives. Leadership training is good but it is not the only way of promoting leadership capacity. There is also need to apply other techniques of, and learn from best practices in, leadership capacity building.



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IV. Fourth Plenary Session: Towards the Preparation of the Programme on Leadership Capacity Development (Panel Discussion)

Chairperson: H.E., Dr. Tag Elsir Mahgoub Ali, Minister of State of Labour and Administrative Reform, Sudan

71. The fourth session focused on setting the tone for the preparation of the action plan for the

continental programme on leadership capacity development. In each panelist’s reflection on the inputs made thus far, attention was given to highlighting those elements that should be considered in the action plan.

72. Dr John – Mary Kauzya, the Chief GPAB/ DPADM/ UNDESA, argued that leadership development interventions must begin with clear targets, and that the development of leadership capability must occur over a period of time. Also, to be viable and sustainable, leadership development cannot start with, or restricted to, those that are already within leadership positions – i.e. politicians, parliamentarians and ministers. While short-term interventions have their merits, the approach of developing a leadership reservoir, through building the capacities of various sectors of society to lead, allows for sustainability and consistent readiness. This implies that this process should begin, for instance, as early as university or even at the entry level of public service.

73. The second panelist reiterated the notion of building a reservoir of leaders as a critical aspect of any reform effort. He noted that minimum requirements must be defined so that irrespective of individual specialization, the prerequisites for one to be an effective leader are in place. Mr, Mitala, who is the Head of Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet of Uganda, as with other panelists, noted that training of public leaders must also accommodate the environment, in terms of demands, constraints and opportunities, within which they work.

74. In reflecting on what to do to develop leadership capacity for good governance, the Executive Director of the CPSI, Ms Glenda White, focused on the notion of ‘good governance.’ She observes that perhaps there has been a gap in the debate, as discussions have not reflected the link between “good governance” and “public sector leadership capacity.” Ms White makes this critical link and highlights that it is being increasingly regarded as the basis for engagement between developing and developed countries. The response to this trend, the panelist suggests, has been discomfort by developing countries as there seems to have evolved a uniform and universalized notion of ‘good governance’ that while creating a common language and definition, does not allow for local and indigenous variances of how it is applied or understood. She concludes by highlighting three key issues that face the seminar as it considers the most suitable strategies for a plan of action: • The challenge of our leaders to work within the context of an externally articulated concepts of

good governance, that while allowing for global benchmarking, also creates constraints in their own specific contexts;

• The opportunity created by the existence of NEPAD to challenge how good governance is measured internationally and the concomitant instruments to use in this process; and



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• The need for public sector leadership interventions to cater for diverse groups not just in terms of national and regional context, but also in terms of sectors.

75. Ms Juka Jabang the Head of the MDI from Gambia, began by pointing out some of the challenges and context within which most African MDIs must function. She notes that most MDIs’ challenges must be historically contextualised. That is, “…the problems of MDIs are created by the very institutions that set them up…as they are usually established through acts of Parliament…and often the financial resources necessary are not adequately catered for.” As a result, when countries’ resources diminish, the quality of delivery from MDIs also declined. In addition, MDIs find themselves competing with private sector consultants and sometimes this is perpetuated by governments, as the products delivered by the private sector are rightly or wrongly assumed to be superior to those of MDIs. Finally, many MDIs did not have the capacity or expertise to handle new issues – issues emerging from changes in the global environment. As such, they became further disadvantaged and perceived as redundant institutions. A credible response to these challenges must include financial support and recognition from governments.

76. In conclusion, the programme on leadership development should include technical capacity and character building elements that reflect a value system that adequately responds to the challenges of the environment. The immediate work environment must instil a sense of pride, such that when a public service leader leaves, s/he can continue to work in the public service in a different capacity.

77. The next panelist’s remarks were premised on answering the question: why have African public servants not performed ? Mr Amota Nyang’era, from the Office of the President in Kenya, posits that perhaps the answer to this question is linked to the lack of proper social security systems [that would cater to ensuring financial security at retirement] in most African countries. Public servants have two fundamental and competing interests -- that is, success as public servants or ensuring personal security once they have exited from the public service. The panelist suggests that in the absence of an appropriate response to this dilemma, through for instance, a fixed term contract that ensures financial security at retirement for senior public officials, identifying and building leaders of excellence within the public service will continue to be a daunting challenge.

78. Ms Elsa Pilichowski from the OECD linked the experience of the OECD with its leadership intervention to the seminar’s effort to develop a plan of action for African leadership development. In the OECD experience, the need to define and locate the impetus for the renewed interest in the notion of leadership arrived at two conclusions. First, leaders are those individuals that can make organizations change; and secondly, that leadership regained prominence in the early 1990s as it began to be linked with arising notions of performance management. In general, however, the trend in OECD countries has been that most leaders are identified irrespective of whether or not they have demonstrated that they can change organizations. A critical learning for the OECD has been that there are no ‘formulas’ or ‘leadership solutions’ to the question of ‘creating’ or developing leaders. Instead, perhaps the critical challenge lies in managing the tension between the dilemma of, on the one hand, creating various entry points for leaders to be developed and thus, creating leaders that are adaptable within any institutional context and that are able to drive



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institutional transformation; and on the other hand, having a very specific entry point through which ‘grooming’ for leadership can begin and hence, a leader that is not so adaptable in their ability to move things forward will fall by the way side. Both systems have inherent risks and it is in weighing the risks that the particular context within which leadership is being developed becomes important.

79. The Staff College of the UN represented by Mr Timothy Cartwright, faces similar challenges to the MDIs in the African continent. Like African MDIs whose mandate is to build the capacities of public officials within a specific national or regional context, the UN Staff College is mandated to service United Nations agencies and build the capacity of officials working within the UN system. Also, as with African MDIs, it works on a cost recovery system and it is in view of the challenge of adequate resourcing and the constant challenge of improving the quality of its delivery that it made the following strategic choices:

• Diversification and development of tailor made programmes that emphasize needs assessment, customer orientation and quality control.

• Increase emphasis on Monitoring and Evaluation and emphasis on the fact that training is a means to an end.

• Acknowledging that training on its own is not enough and that other options must be explored in developing public service leadership capacity;

• the organizational context in which leadership operates is also a crucial factor.

80. Mr Timothy Cartwright, the Director UNSSC, suggests that these are some of the considerations that must be made in thinking and planning forward to strengthen MDIs efforts to address their challenges.

81. The final panelist, Prof Alan Rosenbau, President, IASIA, focused his input on the need to ensure

that the environment is conducive to the development of leadership. Part of developing leadership means creating an environment that allows leaders to lead and ensures that they are not tempted by the arrogance of power. In this respect, arrogance of power is only prevented by accountability structures that must be in place within a society and within organizations. In their absence, leaders inevitably become power-drunk. In closing, he suggests several areas of focus in the development of a leadership programme - processes; themes; values; and on decentralization of the interventions.



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Participants’ comments and recommendations 82. The session agreed that in the development of a plan of action, the following issues must be fully

considered:

• Identification of institutions at continental and sub-regional level;

• The content must be informed by broader and already existing continental processes, such as the NEPAD programme.

• The drivers of the implementation of the programme should be identified at the political and operational levels.

• The specific needs and the expected outcomes must be clear.

• Strategies for assisting MDIs to gain more autonomy [and thus, less dependency and influence] from government should be devised.

V. Fifth Plenary Session: Presentation of Syndicate Reports

Chairperson: H.E., Mr. Themba Msimbi, Minister of Public Service and Information, Swaziland It was at this session that the reports of the three Syndicate Groups were presented (See Annexes to this Report). At the end of the three presentations, the Seminar agreed that the reports be taken into account in preparing the Programme of Action on Leadership Development.



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VI. Six Plenary Session: Seminar Conclusions and Recommendations

Chairperson: Rt. Hon. . Mr. Henry Kajura, Deputy Prime Minister, Uganda 83. In general, the three-day seminar produced a consensus on the need for a programme addressing the

capacity building needs of government and public service leaders in Africa and reflecting the priorities identified at plenary sessions and in working groups.

84. The specific conclusions of the seminar are as follows:

(i) there is need for a programme aimed at enhancing the capacity of government and public service leadership to respond adequately to contemporary and unfolding challenges;

(ii) among the challenges requiring visionary leadership responses are those triggered by the growing and insistent demands for popular participation and good governance, for the accommodation of ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity, for equity in income distribution, for the eradication of poverty, and for measures likely to transform the Africa continent from a marginal player to a force to reckon with in global relations;

(iii) the visionary leadership that is so badly needed will emerge only when Africa embarks on a process of critical self-examination and desists from evading responsibility for its choices and the consequences threreof;

(iv) character, integrity, commitment to excellence and unceasing search for perfection are among the defining attributes of the new generation of leaders needed by Africa to conquer obstacles to growth and development;

(v) scholars have a major role to play in extrapolating from African philosophical traditions those values and attributes that could readily be adapted to meet modern challenges and reposition the continent for take-off to self-sustaining growth and development;

(vi) Despite the low response rate, the results of the CAFRAD survey appear to confim the status of and attitudes to leadership training in certain sub-regions;

(vii) The CAFRAD study further reinforces the need for a programme aimed at developing leadership capacities in the African public service;

(viii) It is not possible to separate the political leadership from the leadership of the professional civil service since both echelons work in the same environment and they exist to serve the same customers;

(ix) MDIs are more dependent on governments than business schools;

(x) AMDIN has the potential to fill a major void in information networking and experience sharing among the MDIs;

(xi) Business schools seem more glamorous than MDIs because the former offer a wide range of subjects and are more customer focussed than the latter;



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(xii) Some MDIs in Africa are more advanced than others although they address similar issues;

(xiii) Ministers of public service are rotated quite often and this affects the continuity of the programmes they initiate;

(xiv) There is a need for structured interventions in leadership capacity development in Africa that reflect the African context but maintain relevance in the world we operate in;

(xv) As a creature of the African Governments, AAPAM deserves to be actively supported, more so, considering the vital contributions it has made to the enhancement of public administration knowledge and standards in Africa;

(xvi) The character or integrity quotient is as important as its intelligence counterpart in defining the attributes of government and public service leaders;

(xvii) Liberia (and other states emerging from conflict) need the support and assistance of sister African states and the world community in responding to the momentous challenges of post-conflict reconstruction and development;

(xviii) Business schools and MDIs play a complementary role, and neither is “superior” to the other;

(xix) Leadership development programmes should not be introduced for their own sake, but for the purpose of responding to challenges which must be specified.

Seminar Recommendations 85. Proceeding from the observations outlined above, the seminar made a number of recommendations,

principal among which are:

(a) Under the auspices of the Chairperson of the 4th Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service, CAFRAD, UMI, UNDESA and other stakeholders should proceed from the elements agreed upon at the Kampala Workshop to prepare a detailed and realistic Programme of Action aimed at meeting the urgent need for capacity for visionary leadership in Africa;

(b) After due consultations, the Programme should be submitted to the Chairperson of the 4th Pan African Conference of Ministers for implementation;

(c) In preparing the Programme of Action, due consideration should be given to the possibility of establishing a Pan African Leadership Academy;

(d) The inculcation of moral values and leadership skills should be undertaken from childhood, through the formative years, to maturity;

(e) African Governments should institute measures aimed at disseminating the African Public Service Charter and ensuring that its contents influence the conduct of public affairs;

(f) Leaders should develop the resilience needed to grapple with the challenge of poverty, and should have a positive outlook to development challenges in general;



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(g) A test of leadership will be the extent to which internal African responses are envisioned by multiple stakeholders to tackle urgent problems (e.g., poverty, conflict, emergency relief, declining moral values, HIV/AIDs, and ecological disasters);

(h) Public service institutions (including training outfits) should be relevant to the context within which they operate;

(i) NEPAD should take the necessary steps to eliminate barriers (physical or otherwise) to communications among the various African states and peoples, as barriers to communication will undoubtedly impact negatively on the achievement of the proposed Pan African leadership development objectives;

(j) Character (including endurance) training should be a key component in the mix of strategies that should be considered in the development of leadership capacity; and

(k) As a basis for interrogating external concepts and ideas, the proposed Programme of Action on Leadership Development should pay attention to the critical necessity for indigenous research on the linkages among leadership, governance and public administration in Africa.

(l) The Leadership capacity develeopment program should include elements that empower African leaders to deal with challenges of globalisation including effective and beneficial interaction with Global actors. Partnerships already developed with, for example, UN system and UN Staff College, IASIA, the Commonwealth Secretariat, OECD, etc should form building blocks for collaboration in this endevour.

86. Besides affirming the need for a Programme of Action on Leadership Development, the Seminar

urged the various partners (CAFRAD, DESA, UMI, etc.) to give priority to the design of the Programme, and to its transmission to the Chairperson of the 4th Pan African Conference for review, approval, and implementation.

87. The Workshop was subsequently declared closed by the Rt. Hon. .Deputy Prime Minister of

Uganda, Mr. Henry Kajura, on Friday, 30 January, 2004.



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Abbreviations

AAPAM - African Association for Public Administration and Management

ACBF - Africa Capacity Building Foundation

ASCON - Administrative Staff College of Nigeria

CAFRAD – Centre Africain de Formation et de Recherche Administratives pour le Developpement (meaning, African Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development)

ESAMI - Eastern and Southern African Management Institute

GIDD - Governance and Institution Development Division (of the Commonwealth Secretariat)

GIMPA - Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration

IASIA - International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration

MDIs - Management Development Institutes

NEPAD - New Partnership for African Development

OECD - Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

OFPA - Observertoire Fonction Publique Africain SAMDI - South African Management Development Institute

UMI - Uganda Management Institute

UNDESA/DPADM/GPAB -

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Division for

Public Administration and Development Management/Governance and Public

Administration Branch

UNDP - United Nations Development Programme

UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNSSC - United Nations System Staff College (Turin).

Report of the Seminar on Public Sector Leadership Capacity Development for Good Governance in Africa, Kampala, Uganda, 27-30 January 2004 – Annex I


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Annex I: Work Programme

Tuesday 27th January 2004 Opening Ceremony Chairperson: 09h00 to 09h10 Welcome and Introduction of Members of High Table,

Master of Ceremony, Dr. John Kiyaga Nsubuga, Director UMI 09h10 to 09h25 Welcome Address by Chief Host,

Rt. Hon. Henry Kajura, 3rd Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Service of Uganda 09h25 to 09h35 Introduction of Programme,

Prof Tijjani Muhammad Bande, Director General of CAFRAD 09h35 to 09h50 Remarks,

Mr Guido Bertucci, Director DPADM/UNDESA 09h50 to 10h00 Remarks,

Mr Smunda Mokoena, NEPAD Secretariat 10h00 to 10h10 Remarks,

H.E. Mr Maurizio Teucci, Ambassador of Italy to Uganda

10h10 to 10h30 Opening Speech of Guest of Honour and Chairperson of the 4th Pan African Conference of Ministers of Civil Service, Hon. Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Minister of Public Service and Administration of South Africa

10h30 to 11h00 Keynote Address: The Role of Public Sector Leadership in Fostering Socio-Economic Development in Africa, H. E. Dr. Mahgoub Tagelsir, Minister of State for Labour and Administrative Reform, Sudan

11h00 to 11h30 Coffee Break and Group Photograph



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Session I: Public Sector Leadership Development in Africa Chairperson: 11h30 to 11h55 Leadership Capacity in Governance Reform and Modernization,

Prof. Ousmane Batoko, Former Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reform, Benin

11h55 to 12h20 Report of the Survey on the Leadership Capacity Development Needs Identification Study, Mr Lelo Mamosi, Senior Expert, CAFRAD

12h20 to 13h00 Discussion 13h00 to 14h30 Lunch Session II: Challenges and Strategies for Public Sector Leadership Development Chairperson: H.E. Hon Ahmed Sulliman Jeewah, Minister of Civil Service Affairs and Administrative Reform, Mauritius 14h30 to 14h55 Leadership Challenge and the Role of African MDIs,

Mr Bobby Soobrayan, Director General, SAMDI 14h55 to 15h20 Leadership Capacity Challenges in Mainstreaming Performance Enhancement in the Public Sector,

Dr. John Kiyaga Nsubuga, UMI 15h20 to 15h45 Analyzing Leadership Capacity Challenge: Towards Potential Intervention Strategies,

Prof. Patrick FitzGerald, Director, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

15h45 to 16h45 Discussion 16h45 to 17h00 Coffee Break



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Session III: Reflections on the Challenges of Leadership Capacity Development for Performance Enhancement in the Public Sector in Africa Chairperson: H.E. Dr Jose Antonio Da Conceicao Chichava, Minister of State Administration, Mozambique 17h00 to 18h30 Panel Discussion,

Panelists: Prof. Y. Barongo, Secretary General, AAPAM, Prof. Sheikh Abdullah, Director General, ASCON Dr M. H. Lekorwe, Director, CESPAM, Mr Jose Joao Lourenco, Director General, INAP Prof Adebayo Olukoshi, Executive Secretary, CODESRIA, Ms Anita Amoa-Awua, GIDD, Commonwealth Secretariat, Dr Bonard L. Mwape, Director General, ESAMI, Mr. Hans C. Williams, Director General, Civil Service Agency, Liberia



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Wednesday 28th January 2004 Session IV: Work Group Towards the Preparation of the Programme on Leadership Capacity Development Chaiperson: S.E. Mr Lamine Kamara, Minister of Employment and Public Servic, Guinee Conakri 08h30 to 10h00 Panel Discussion,

Panelists:

Mr John-Mary Kauzya, Chief GPAB/DPADM/UNDESA,

Mr John Mitala, Head of Public Service and Secretary to Cabinet, Uganda

Ms Glenda White, Executive Director, CPSI,

Ms Juka Jabang, Director MDI-Gambia,

Mr. Amota Nyang’era, Office of the President, Kenya

Prof Alan Rosenbaun, President, IASIA

Ms Olubanke King-Akerele, Program Coordinator of the UNDP/UNESCO Joint Initiative on Leadership, UNESCO Regional Office, Senegal

Mr Timothy Cartwright, Director, UNSSC

10h00 to 10h30 Formation and Breaking into Work Groups

10h30 to 10h45 Coffee Break 10h45 to 13h00 Group Work 13h00 to 14h30 Lunch 14h30 to 16h00 Group Work 16h00 to 16h15 Coffee Break 16h15 to 18h00 Group Work



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Thursday 29th January 2004 Session V: Preparation of the Programme on Leadership Capacity Development in Africa Chaiperson: H.E. Dr Vola Dieudonné Razafindralambo, Minister of Public Service, Madagascar 10h00 to 10h30 Presentation of Group Reports 10h30 to 10h45 Coffee Break 10h45 to 13h00 Discussion of Group Reports 13h00 to 14h30 Lunch 14h30 to 16h00 Drafting of the General Report of the Seminar,

Rapporteurs Committee 16h00 to 16h15 Coffee Break 16h15 to 18h00 Drafting of the Programme on Leadership Capacity Development,

Rapporteurs Committee Afternoon Free for Participants 19h30 Cultural Night - Venue: The Gardens – Nile Hotel International Conference Centre Friday 30th January 2004 Session VI: Programme on Leadership Capacity Development Chaiperson: H. E. Mr July Gabarari Moyo, Minister of Public Service and Social Welfare, Zimbabwe 09h00 to 09h45 Presentation of the Draft Report and Programme on Leadership Capacity Development,

Rapporteur General, Prof. M. Jide Balogun, Principal Interregional Advisor GPAB/DPADM/UNDESA,

09h45 to 10h45 Discussion of the Report and Draft Programme 10h45 to 11h15 Coffee Break Closing Ceremony Chairperson: Hon. Patrick Okumu Ringe, Minister of State in Charge of General Duties, Ministry of Public Service, Uganda 11h15 to 12h00 Closing Statement and Official Launch of the Pan African Leadership Capacity Development Programme,

Rt. Hon. Prof. Apolo Nsibambi, Prime Minister of Uganda

Report of the Seminar on Public Sector Leadership Capacity Development for Good Governance in Africa, Kampala, Uganda, 27-30 January 2004 – Annex II


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Annex II: Syndicate Working Groups Reports

Working Group: 1

Overview of Discussion

Introduction 1. The working group session was attended by approximately twenty participants and was jointly

chaired Professor Ousmane Batoko, former Minister of Public Service and Administrative Reform of Benin and H.E. Minister Gaspar Kobako, Minister de la Function Public, Burundi. The group was fairly diverse, with participants from Francophone and Anglophone countries, representing ail of the regions of the AU.

2. The diversity of the group was both, a source of strength and a source of challenge for the group. A strength, as it insured that that the deliberations embodied multiple perspective and views on the 'leadership development challenge'. The group benefited from the inputs of officials and Ministers (former Ministers) and those involved in the practice of 'leadership development'. A source of challenge, as it became difficult for the Rapporteur to construct a summary of inputs from participants. Particularly as ail the issues raised, however diverse and contradictory, were equally valid and important.

3. In view of the above, the approach to this group report has primarily been, to provide a reasonable overview of ail of the issues raised. Inevitably, a few of the issues may not be fully captured in the report and may need input from the colleagues and participants who were present at the session. If the report errs and does not capture any specific input or in any way misrepresents specific input, members of the group will add (and forgive the rapporteur for any oversight). It is important to state that the input of participants was based on their understanding of the brief (as translated, in some cases).

4. Naturally, any process of reporting would need to reflect on the intention of the overall Rapporteur and the facilitators when providing a summary overview of the session. Such a process is inevitably subjective and requires some discretion on the part of the rapporteur. In the absence of a value-adding summary, that seeks to interpret what has been said and cast it within the framework provided by the overall rapporteur, it is difficult to see how this report would serve the purpose of 'building a future agenda for Leadership Development in our diverse continent'. In response to this challenge, the report concludes by providing a brief reflective summary that attempts to cast, in a manner that would be useful, the central issues that need to be considered when building a 'continental agenda for leadership development'. The summaries provided by the Chairperson assisted the process.

5. It is hoped that, by providing both a detailed overview of all the issues raised and a reflective summary, the group would have lived-up to the expectations of the overall facilitator and participants. Whilst the group attempted to structure discussions within the ambits of the asterisked agenda items, it was invariable that issues raised went over the structure provided. Hence substantive overlaps in this overview are inevitable.



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Background and Justification/Including Some Issues 1. Countries that embark on Public Sector Reforms invariably fail to recognize that such reform

processes must be supported by the development of appropriate leadership skills. That is, there has to be a focus on ensuring that skills are built to implement the envisage reform and ensure continuity in the reform exercise.

2. In reflecting on leadership capacity development, it is essential that there be some focus on the low-levels of development and mal-administration that some countries confront. In so doing the capacity development interventions need to address these issues directly. That is, there needs to be a direct link between capacity building and the development context and challenges of each country.

3. In some cases of Public Sector Reform, changes at the political level inevitably lead to changes in the overall reform strategy and hence the absence of continuity. Whilst these changes are often inevitable, failures in the reform process often emanate from the fact that no serious attempts are made to retain capable individuals or recruit leaders with the required expertise.

4. It was pointed out that often senior-officials are appointed arbitrarily, with no substantive verification process, to ensure that individual has the required competency and aptitude for the leadership role that has been conferred. The inevitable result of such actions is that the individual fails to provide leadership over her or his department and thus contributing to delivery failures.

5. Finding leaders who are competent remains a major challenge for the public sector. Training and retaining individuals cannot on there own, address this. We need to incorporate some strategy around ensuring that we find individuals who have substantive exposure. Many of our current leaders, it is postulated, do not have substantive and wide exposure and thus fail to respond to constant changes in the environment. It is clear that, in many situations, leaders are not adequately prepared for leadership.

6. The need to establish a public service that is impartial and that serves as tool for implementation was emphasized. It was contended that this stability would be a pillar for any reform process and will serve to ensure that reforms do not remain at the level of being 'political slogans'. The separation between politics and administration, it was contended, creates a situation where we could focus on ensuring that the officials have the means and capacity to deliver on the reform agenda.

7. The Minister of Burundi (and Chairperson of the group) provided a detailed overview of the legal or guiding framework for the Burundi public service. In addition to providing for a representative public service, the Arusha agreement provided for transparency and the establishment of the National School of Administration. In Burundi there is a link between technical and political posts - some officials depart with the former Minister. In this respect, Burundi faces a number of implementation challenges.

8. In response to the overview of the Burundi experience, it was noted that sometime what takes place in practice is often different from the content of documents and the policy decisions. Hence there was a need to build capability at all levels and ensure that the policy direction provided is implemented and absorbed by those who remain in the service after political changes.



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9. In some cases, there are other factors, which result in leadership failures. This includes the informalisation of administration and the overriding socio-culture context of leadership. It was noted, in this respect, that some countries face situations where a formally appointed leaders role is undermined by those who exercise traditional authority. In such a context good leaders fail, as there source of authority is different from the authority exercised by the informal networks.

10. It was noted that there is to much emphasis on training and that there was a need to introduce other methods of developing good leaders. In this respect, there was also a need to move beyond just politicians and ensure that there is training of individuals in civil society organisations. For the MDI's to be effective, there was also a need to ensure that we establish appropriate and sustainable delivery partnerships.

Assessment of Issues and Gaps 1. Of particular concern was the reality that many Ministers of Public Service do not stay long in

office. It was noted that, on average, Ministers may not be in office for more then two years (5 years in the experience of Benin and SA). Ministers of Public Service, where most susceptible to change, when there is a crisis in the public service or a strike by officials. It is this considered necessary that the focus be in the hands of public servants /permanent - secretaries.

2. The Uganda experience was deemed very instructive on the efforts to ensure that there was a link between the leadership development and training efforts and the governments programme priorities. The central advantage was a focus on the development of practical skills. There still however remain some gaps and further efforts are required. In particular, there are gaps in the training of local officials.

3. In reflecting on leadership methodologies, it was important to note that we need to think of mentorship as an important strategy in leadership development. We also need to note that leadership is situational. Hence, the leadership skills required in one situation will be very different from the leadership skills required in another situation.

4. It was re-emphasized by the colleague from Algeria that there is a strong need to ensure stability of the public service. This may be reflected in the efforts to keep officials. They are the ones that require training, rather then Ministers. Ministers emerge from political processes and hence, receive their leadership training through the political process. That is, they have political leadership capabilities - the focus hence should be on public servants and on ensuring integration between them. Ministers inevitably demonstrate some specialization before they are appointed ( it was however contended that this is often not the case in many countries and sometime people wonder how a particular Minister was appointed to a portfolio).

5. The Cameroon experience was very instructive on the strategy that can be used to drive reforms in the administration. In Cameroon each department established a 'Reform Committee'. This committee ensured ownership of the reform process and enhanced the prospects for success, by ensuring ongoing monitoring and accountability for the reform exercise.



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6. It was noted that one strategy for ensuring that the leadership development exercise is relevant, is to align it with the performance assessment system. As the system reveals certain gaps in the capacities of public service leaders, it becomes possible to respond to these gaps by introducing appropriate leadership development interventions.

7. In focusing on the details of the leadership challenges, members of the group also highlighted the need to deal with the issues of conflict, poverty and economic growth. i.e.

• There is a need to ensure that we deal with conflicts in the continent (a strategy suggested was to introduce conflict management training).

• In the area of poverty, there was a strong emphasis on building the capacity of people to engage in entrepreneurial activities and to focus on removing barriers for wealth creation.

• There was some concern with the difficulties of trade between countries, as a result of restriction on movements (it was suggested that customs officials be trained).

Leadership Development Programme 1. The group emphasized the need to encourage further research on the 'leadership' problematic.

This, it was suggested that research, would assist in filling the capacity gap and will provide a good basis to establish appropriate leadership intervention.

2. Linked to the need to conduct further research on leadership was a need to broaden leaders understanding of their environments. It was felt that leaders often did not have a broad understanding of their environment and that they required constant exposure to analysis of the context and challenges that emerge from the political, social and economic environment.

3. In conducting research, there was a strong need create an inventory of leadership experiences across the continent and world. This was emphasized and deemed to be something that would add value to future deliberations.

4. In terms of the content of leadership development interventions, there was an articulated need to focus on policy issues. ln this respect, it was also argued that leadership development programmes need to be linked directly to organizational change and organizational development interventions. Within this context there was also a strong emphasis on changing 'mind-sets' and attitudes and not just improving the knowledge of individuals.

5. Network and sharing was considered very important for the continent. Concern was expressed with the costs of such network and hence a need for greater country contribution for this. It was noted that such network will allow for the exchange of capacities and experiences. It was pointed out that often its difficult to exchange staff between different MDI's in the continent.

6. In conclusion, it was argued that we need to create a critical mass of leaders to sustain our institutions and ensure transformation of our societies. In this respect, we need to move towards getting people who know how, rather then the know who type of people or system.

7. (Group noted that the list of partner organisation listed on the last page was not exhaustive). There was also some request that there be a discussion on how and by whom the programme will be implemented.



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Working Group: 2

Components of the Plan of Action

A. Critical Assessment of issues currently addressed and the Methodologies applied in the Development of Government and Public Service Leadership Capacity in Africa

The group identified 6 key issues that are currently being addressed, to greater or lesser degrees:

1. Relevant leadership competencies Management development institutes and business schools are making attempts to address management competencies and in some cases leadership competencies as well. However these activities are not optimal. Seminars organized for Ministers tend to focus on economic reform and foreign affairs and not public sector reform; training packages are not relevant to the dynamic workplaces in which are public sector leaders find themselves and resource persons are not always sufficiently well-trained to deliver programmes to high level groups. MDIs are currently better equipped to deliver management and not leadership training.

2. Value systems Value systems, embracing human rights, democratic governance, vision and ethics, are much more complex than competencies because they need to be instilled in leaders through a variety of approaches. • Codes of conduct or ethics; • Good governance practices such as integrity systems including ombudsman, free press,

elections. This has occurred largely in response to the requirements of donors. • The African Public Service Charter

Values cannot be taught only to adults, but should be instilled in citizens from when they are young, from the time of primary school, and through various other mechanisms of socialisation such as the media, churches, families. This should be further enhanced through strengthening the institutions that need to enforce accountability and oversight.

3. Institution-building Ideally we require institutions in the public sector that are there to serve the public. They should be relevant to their country, while being adaptable. They should be able to exist in their own rights and outlive the people who establish and manage them. In order for this to happen strong systems and processes that are transparent are required. These institutions should also be protected by a regulatory framework. For institutions to sustain themselves, they should be



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shown to be appropriate and relevant, and sufficient consensus should exist among stakeholders on this. A process of inclusiveness when determining the vision and programmes of public institutions will assist in reaffirming their mandate. Institution building will be most effective when leaders focus on the positive and effective aspects of the institutions, reinforce what is valid, and don’t always start from scratch. Good succession planning and appropriate research should also be in place.

Countries in Africa start from very different points with regards to institution building. For some, institutions have been destroyed by conflict and the challenge facing newly elected leadership is to begin to establish effective institutions without any base. In other instances there has been stability since the time of independence and the institutions of governance such as the public service, parliament and the judiciary exist, but require institutional transformation.

4. Resource mobilization and management Within the African context leaders are continuously confronted by the challenge of limited resources – human, financial, physical, technical. Financing is limited, and there is a brain drain of well qualified and experiences resources either to the private sector or to other countries. The group proposed the following: • African governments should be encouraged to borrow from their neighbours because

expertise is more relevant. Within the framework of the African Union countries should be encouraged to share resources, even to the extent of addressing linguistic barriers. The borrowing of financial resources is also acceptable if it is against a clear plan and can be managed effectively. In order to facilitate the exchange of human expertise, we need to clearly identify the current profile of skills, and where the gaps exist.

• Leaders should be encouraged to grappled with the challenge of poverty and not give up because of a lack of resources. Need to change our mind-set about what can be done and the nature of the challenges facing us.

• The attrition of human resources is a result of lack of motivation, poor working conditions, inequitable remuneration and ineffective incentives. Training often leads to greater marketability of individuals, who then choose to leave the employ of government. In order to address this conditions of service need to change, and better incentives put in place. Consideration also needs to be given to the overall stability of the enabling environment, to ensure that training and development interventions have maximum impact.

5. Performance management Performance management is an important tool in the public sector, although performance measurement has been shown to have variable and limited results. Leadership performance should be measured and while elections can used as a measure of the performance of politicians, specific mechanisms for officials need to be developed.

6. Political / administrative interface The relationship between politicians and administrators needs to be improved, partly through building a greater understanding of the relative roles and responsibilities of both parties.



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B. Gaps that need to be filled in contemporary leadership development efforts The group focused on actions that are required to address continental exchange and the implementation of continently approved programmes. The sentiment was expressed that African public services need to see themselves as integrated and doing things in partnership, as a starting point, and the various governance institutions on the continent (MDIs, CAFRAD, AAPAM) need to be drawn into this. It isn’t enough for institutions to network, this doesn’t make Africa one. We need to do more beyond this. At the political level, NEPAD and the GPA programme exist, but grassroots public servants are not aware of them.

The group proposed the following:

• Successful continental initiatives such as the African Public Service Charter need to be taken

further, through communication and information dissemination to all public servants. Leadership training should include training on the Charter. National governments should practically print and distribute the Charter and look at other mechanisms of dissemination.

• Public servants should go on courses in MDIs in other countries.

• Mechanisms of enforcement should also be considered, integrated into national legal systems.

• Structural constraints to communication should be addressed. It is difficult for public servants across the continent to collaborate with the costs of communication and travel. The overall NEPAD framework provides an opportunity for infrastructural barriers to be addressed by other programmes, and recommendations in this regard should be made to the appropriate structures.

• Leadership development should focus on how the vision of NEPAD can be integrated into national programmes.

• We should consider the establishment of a Pan-African Leadership Institute (more later).

• Leadership development should focus on building a cadre of leadership hat will address poverty and inequality and not just perpetuate elites. This can be done through focusing on building institutions, creating policies, improving the enabling environment for job creation and investing in education. Leaders also need to utilize resources much better and avoid unnecessary exploitation of them.

• Leaders need to mobilize people around a common cause without external intervention, such as the example of Somaliland.

• A love of our countries and the continent should be instilled in leaders, and in turn in public servants in order to build patriotism. Need mechanisms in addition to training as this isn’t enough by itself. Mechanisms of enforcement will help to reinforce mindset changes.



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C. Elements of a viable Public Service Leadership Development Programme

Strategic focus: Building leadership of senior public service officials to realize the vision of NEPAD, through having contact and learning more from each other.

Tactical objectives: • Create clusters or communities of practice to facilitate exchange • Build the capacity of public sector leaders to facilitate processes of consultation and

negotiation. • Facilitate engagement with a range of stakeholders such as the private sector, communities

and civil society.

Beneficiaries: Primary beneficiaries are public sector leaders, including politicians and administrators. Secondary beneficiaries are other stakeholders.

Critical activities Need to consider activities that are not always the obvious ones included in management development programmes. • In addition to what is included in the guidelines the group added internships, mentorships,

secondments, attachments, coaching and placement in credible and effective institutions. • Leadership programmes should have a range of activities, mixed and matched to meet the

needs of particular audiences. • Need a stronger focus on accelerated transformation. • Should consider activities that place leaders in circumstances of crisis or challenge, that

reflect the true capability of leadership. • Public servants should be taken through a process of visioning, facilitated by African experts.

They will learn the methodology while producing an actual product of value.

Governance and institutional issues: The group proposes the establishment of a Pan-African Leadership Institute that will function as a virtual institution, giving guidance to a pan-African leadership programme, while enabling delivery through existing institutions, such as MDIs, to ensure that they are not rendered insignificant. The Institute will also need to make creative use of technology. A technical Steering Committee will be in place to guide the work of the Institute, and will remain politically accountable to the Committee of Ministers.



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Paticipants (spelling of a few names need to be verfied) Juka Faton Jabang (Chairperson) Gambia Patrice Kachimera Malawi Mohamed El Hassen Hamid Sudan Mary Muhunde Uganda Jou-fons Lources Angola Hans C. Williams Liberia Glenda White (Rapporteur) Centre for Public Service Innovation Ghirmay G. Woldegehemid Eritrea Dan Bamwesigye MTAC, Uganda Timothy L. Ogum Ghana I. Kabumba Uganda / Nkumba University Alain Francis Bogler AFTRA, Benin John-Mary Kauzya UNDESA Tijjani Muhammed Bande CAFRAD



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Working Group: 3

Components of the Plan of Action

1. Background and Justification

a) The challenge of locating and domesticating leadership within the value systems of contemporary African societies and nations

b) The challenge of contextualising international discourse on democracy, leadership and good governance

c) The challenge of instituting mechanisms of accountability and transparency d) The challenge of owning the process of public service reform e) The challenge of effectively utilising human capital and other resources f) The challenge of conflict prevention g) The challenge of partnership with other stakeholders in leadership development, such as the

Private sector, NGOs and CBOs h) The challenge of sustainable intervention strategies in poverty reduction and wealth creation i) The challenge of managing HIV/Aids pandemic j) The challenge of globalisation and its paradoxes versus national and sub-national identities k) The challenge of the present international economic order and accessing world markets l) The challenge of the Digital Divide and the Information Revolution

2. Critical Assessment of Issues currently Addressed and the Methodologies Applied

a) Arrogance of Power, the ‘Big Woman’/ ‘Big Man’ Syndrome, leadership is narrowly identified with the highest echelons in society, Interventions in leadership development concentrate on the senior managerial and top executive levels

b) Western prescriptions of democracy, leadership and good governance have been applied with hardly any reference to the indigenous contexts, a case of one shoe size fits all

c) Institutionalised mechanisms have been set up but which appear to have been grafted on to African governments and breed antagonism rather than sustain effective leadership. These institutions also need to be integrated within the value-systems of the contemporary African societies and nations.

d) Public Service Reform is directed with little, if any, stakeholder participation. Reform has been bedevilled by Short-Termism.

e) Training offered with limited job opportunities, preference for foreign over local training capability, human capital drain, home-grown research efforts should be strengthened and utilised.



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f) Practice has been to resolve conflicts in a reactive manner, rather than take a pro-active approach to conflict prevention

g) Networking and dialogue with other stakeholders for the common goals and objectives has lacked commitment. Rather than emphasise efficiency through effective complementarity, the tendency has been separatism, competition, mutual suspicion and waste.

h) Top-down approaches to poverty reduction and wealth creation have not been complemented by the bottom-up approaches. Effects of donor-aided projects have not significantly been realised by the targeted beneficiaries. Short-Termism remains a challenge. Inappropriate sequencing of programmes with no logical follow-up. People must be mobilised and interventions must be community-based to foster ownership and sustainability

i) Methodology has been to create public awareness by addressing cultural taboos on sex and sex education and to seek access to cheap Anti-retrovirals. Strategies of Social Marketing to transform attitudes and inculcate sense of personal responsibility need to be conceived and implemented.

j) Wholesale surrender to the apparently inevitable or defiance/resistance to the perceived ‘foreign’. Methodology should encourage dialogue, not conflict

k) Commitment to regional blocs, which at the lower levels must be complemented by interventions by NGOs, CBOs and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).

l) Methodology has been to receive donations of computer equipment in schools and centres of Higher Learning. Need to focus more on the role of ICT as a tool in facilitating the long-standing campaigns against illiteracy.

3. Gaps that need to be filled in contemporary leadership development efforts

a) Availability of resources b) Strengthening of regional blocs and through their committees to cover all strata up to the grass-

roots c) Synergy between MDIs and other institutions involved in leadership development capacity

within nations and across the African Continent. d) Institutionalisation of Human Rights right from the grass-roots e) Rediscovery and revitalisation of tested and adapted traditional means of conflict resolution

through amicable settlement rather than prosecution f) Rediscovery of the value of human capital g) Institution of whistle-blowing mechanisms at all levels in case of conflict emergence. h) Emphasis on wealth creation rather than on poverty eradication i) Leadership training should traverse the entire spectrum, conceptualised as a continuum from

childhood to adulthood, building character and integrity in the process. j) Revitalisation of co-operative enterprise rather than encouraging sole proprietorship and the

formation of appropriate regulatory frameworks



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5. Elements of a Viable Public Service Leadership Development Programme a) Strategic Focus:

Creating and enhancing sustainable and viable Public Service Leadership Development Capacity for efficient and effective service delivery

Tactical Objectives i) To enhance the capacity of public service leadership for efficient and effective service

delivery ii) To enhance the capacity of public service institutions for efficiency in the public service iii) To strengthen the role of MDIs in training public service leadership development capacity iv) To recognise role of Public-Private Partnerships in leadership development v) To encourage wider participation of civil society in the development of public service

leadership capacity vi) To encourage synergy in the establishment of MDIs and related strategic partners in

public service leadership development vii) To encourage a common vocabulary in public service leadership training and curriculum

b) Beneficiaries

i) Political leadership ii) The Electorate iii) NGOs and CBOs

c) Critical Activities

i) Development and regular update of appropriate demand-driven public service leadership curriculum

ii) Encouraging synergy and networking among MDIs and other institutions involves in leadership development

iii) Fine-tuning methods of training delivery to suit various target audiences in leadership development

iv) Modernisation of training delivery aids v) Fostering and utilisation of home-generated research

Membership of Group 3 No. Name Designation Signature 1. Prof. Sheikh Abdallah Chairman 2. Mrs Mukuka L.W. Zimba Member 3. Amb. Basil Gaterebe Member 4. Mr Jimmy Lwamafa Member 5. Hon. Henry M. Kajura Member 6. Hon. Benigna Mukiibi Member 7. Mr Atkilt Hagos Member 8. Ms A.M. Makoko Member 9. Mr Ali Mohamed Kamil Member 10. Col. C.C. Obi Member 11. Dr Michael Kakooza Rapporteur

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