On 28th April 2015 the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) concluded its capacity development workshop entitled “Change Management in Public Sector Reform” held in Istanbul, Turkey. Attended by 12 participants from the National Center for Management Development and Information Technology (NCMDIT) in Baghdad and 7 from the Kurdistan Institute for Public Administration (KIPA), the workshop discussed strategic needs of change management in support of the ongoing public sector reform in Iraq.
In collaboration with the Lebanese Institutes des Finances Basil Fuleihan, the workshop was organized within the framework of the Iraq Public Sector Modernization (IPSM) Programme of the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) which has been supporting the public sector reform agenda of the country, such as decentralization, service delivery and capacity development.
NCMDIT and KIPA have been playing a strategic role in building institutional and individual capacity among ministries and governorates in the process. During this capacity development workshop, both institutes developed their change management roadmaps which aim to enhance their roles as change agents of public sector reform at a time of crisis the country is facing.
KIPA Director, Sawsan Mohamed Amin Mirani, said that change management was one of the important topics that would lead to success and development of ministries and governmental institutions that enables continuous improvements and reforms. According to Mirani, this workshop was a good beginning to set the roadmap for change management in place and to ensure sustainable implementation.
Launched on 20 April, the workshop reviewed the concept and theoretical aspects of change management as well as examples from other countries in the region, including Lebanon where training institutes demonstrated creativity and filled gaps in public sector reforms.
NCMDIT Executive Director, Qusay Khalil, said “it is crucial to identify methodologies and mechanism of change in addition to looking at success stories in this area with the continuous support of ESCWA.”
Chief of the ESCWA Governance and Statebuilding Section, Atsuko Okuda, saw that the workshop was a very timely initiative considering all the external factors, such as violence, emergencies, fluctuating oil prices among others, which has affected the availability of budgets and pace and scope of public sector reforms. She also saw that the workshop played a catalytic role in assessing these external and internal factors, identifying strategic priorities of the NCMDIT services and developing the change management roadmaps.
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