Thematic Area: Democratic Governance
Project Document
Annual Work Plan of 2009
Progress Report Quarter 1 2009
Annual Report 2008
Annual Report 2007
Annual Report 2007 - Annex 1
Progress Report Quarter 1 2008
Progress Report Quarter 1 2008 Annex I AWP
Progress Report Quarter 2 2008
Progress Report Quarter 2 2008 Annex 1 AWP
Progress Report Quarter 3 2008
Progress Report Quarter 3 2008 Annex 1 AWP
Progress Report Quarter 1 2007
Progress Report Quarter 2 2007
Progress Report Quarter 3 2007
Annual Report 2006
[Last Updated July 2009]
Project Start Date: May 2005
Project End Date: December 2009
Status of project: Active
Project Location: Afghanistan Civil Service Institute, Kabul, Afghanistan
Responsible Partners: IARCSC, Afghanistan Civil Service Institute
Implementation Modality: Direct Implementation (DIM)
Lack of human capacity is among the most serious problems facing the Afghan civil service. The problem is particularly acute at senior management level, where there is few senior cadre with genuine leadership and management skills in place. Civil service leadership, however, plays a pivotal role to (i) loyally and effectively support and advance the new vision for the future that the Government has set in place for the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan, (ii) to lead and manage the process of change and reform, in particular the reforms of the public sector, iii) to inspire, to influence and motivate others to support the reform and to achieve the changes, and (iv) to personify and represent the values of a new civil service culture and a culture of service delivery.
The “Civil Service Leadership Development” project is designed to assist the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission (IARCSC) to implement the Civil Service Leadership Development Strategy and to further support the Government of Afghanistan’s Public Administration Reforms efforts. The objective of the project is to strengthen the capacities of key senior civil servants in priority national government institutions in order to contribute to the establishment of a competent and effective civil service. To date the project has trained more than 700 senior civil servants drawn from 24 ministries and 6 independent agencies to different streams of training programmes from central and provincial level.
In order to ensure the continuity of the training programmes implemented under the CSLD project, an output for “operation and set-up of the Afghan Civil Service Institute (ACSI)” was added in 2007. UNDP is supporting the Afghan Civil Service Institute (ACSI) by closely twinning international experts and Afghan counterparts to promote transfer of knowledge and ensuring that the required institutional and human capacity is built at the ACSI for delivering responsive and relevant leadership training programmes for Afghan civil servants.
The CSLD project is contributing to the capacity development process at sub-national level by closely collaboration with the Afghanistan Sub-national Governance Programme (ASGP).
Upon the request of the Government of Afghanistan, the CSLD project planned to use its experience of delivering responsive leadership training programmes for Afghan civil service and designed a structured training programme that will be used by the government to assess the competencies of potential candidates for senior leadership positions and confirm their appointments. The contents of the new training programme are aligned with pay and grade scale for the civil service, which is under implementation. It is specifically addressing the competency requirements of senior civil servants in grades 1 and 2. This training programme is named as the Senior Leadership Competency Development Programme (SLCDP). All SLCDP trainings will be conducted within the premises of the ACSI. In 2008- 2009, it is planned to train a total of 220 senior civil servants drawn from all key ministries and agencies.
The project to date has completed delivering several popular leadership-training programmes. In 2006 and 2007, nearly 500 senior civil servants participated in the three training streams (ELP, SLP & TLP).
Top Leadership Programme (TLP)
This training programme was designed for high-level government executives and targeted 44 senior officials, i.e. Deputy Ministers, General Directors and Provincial Governors. The training programme was delivered in 2006 in two rounds outside of the country. The contents of the training programme mainly focused on leadership concepts and techniques, strategic planning management and hands on exercises in change management. The first TLP course was organized in September 2006 with 22 participants (11 Deputy Ministers and 5 Directors from various ministries, and 6 Governors from the Provinces of Zabul, Ghor, Parwan, Bamyan, Laghman and Samangan). It combined interactive class-room training with case scenarios and study visits to German Ministries. The second TLP course took place in November 2006 with 22 participants (16 Deputy Ministers and 6 Directors from various the ministries). The training programme also included experience sharing and exposure visits to various institutions.
Senior Leadership Programme (SLP)
This training programme was designed and delivered to senior executives working in different public sector institutions, which supervise several professionals and make decisions of different kinds in managing complex operations. In 2006 and 2007, seven rounds of SLP training programmes were successfully conducted. The total duration of the training programme was four weeks. It was delivered in such a way that it would facilitate practical implementation and action learning. Over 200 participants from all central ministries and agencies took part in this programme.
Emergent Leadership Programme (ELP)
This training programme was designed and delivered to civil servants who hold middle management level managerial responsibilities in various line ministries and agencies. The total duration of the training programmes was four weeks, divided into different workshops to allow participants to implement their theoretical knowledge gain in the day-today practical work. In 2006 and 2007, eight rounds of ELP training programmes were conducted. Over 240 participants from central ministries, and agencies, as well as provincial administrative offices took part in the programme.
Coaching
All SLP and ELP training programmes were accompanied by a coaching scheme that helps combine class-room training with extensive on-the-job coaching to maximize the actual impact of the training programmes and influence change at the work place. The overall feedback regarding the coaching support given to the participants in the central ministries and agencies has been very positive.
Alumni Programme and CSLD Network
CSLD Network was created in 2006 to reach out to all the former participants of the CSLD courses and others in the civil service system, to disseminate general information on Public Administration Reform and provide a platform for sharing of experiences and to encourage networking among CSLD training participants. The project has been organizing a cycle of Alumni meetings since 2006. Alumni meetings, essentially are a half day conferences, whereby former participants of CSLD training programmes and others interested will come together to participate in presentations of prominent resource persons, from government, academia of the international community, on topical issues and latest developments in the area of public administration, and in particular public sector reform. The CSLD newsletter has been published with new and revised formats and contents, and in particular with the aim of aligning this output to the operational capacity building initiatives of the ACSI. Brochures and training materials have been revised, redesigned, and updated, and are operational.
Senior Leadership Competency Development Programme (SLCDP)
The SLCDP is a high-level comprehensive training programme that will be used to assess the competence of senior civil servants who will be assigned to senior leadership positions in the civil service as per the new pay and grade system. The programme is designed carefully to equip civil servants with the skills and knowledge that is required to manage complex operations in the public sector. The participants for this programme will be selected from those candidates whose nominations for senior positions have been processed by the Board of Appointments of the IARCSC. The delivery modalities as well as the continuous assessment tools to be used during the training period are designed in such a way that the concepts of the training sessions are implemented to the real working environment of the Afghan civil service system. In 2008- 2009, it is planned to train a total of 220 senior civil servants drawn from all key ministries and agencies.
To date 10 SLCDP courses with an average participation of 25 participants in each course has been launched by the project. In phase one of the SLCDP training programme that started from mid 2008 until January 2009, about 114 participants have undergone SLCDP courses and graduated. The second phase of SLCDP trainings started in early 2009 and will continue until July, 2009 with the graduation of 120 more participants from central and provincial level who are actively taking part in different sessions of SLCDP trainings. SLCDP course 6 is fully conducted and all other remaining courses have already completed their third session of trainings out of a four week training session.
In parallel with the delivery of SLCDP trainings, coaching programmes are designed and implemented for all the SLCDP course participants during the training session breaks for central and provincial level participants, however coaching for provincial participants is conducted by phone by the national coaches and a day early attendance is required before the next session begins in Afghanistan Civil Service Institute to review coaching assignments between participants and national coaches and to do a coaching debriefing.
Special Emergent Leadership Programme
CSLD project managed to conduct and deliver a four week leadership development training programme for provincial directors and deputy directors in first phase of its SLCDP trainings in 2008. More than 30 participants from different provinces of Afghanistan participated in this course and have been awarded certificates in the final graduation ceremony held in Afghanistan Civil Service Institute. This programme was successfully coordinated between ASGP, Provincial Affairs Department of IARCSC and CSLD project for the provincial level senior civil servants.
Women Leadership Programme
CSLD Project always encouraged and promoted women participation in its leadership training programmes and thus designed a special women leadership training programme in coordination and consultation with the leadership of the IARCSC. This WLP has already been started and going through its second week of leadership trainings that is conducted by national and international trainers in Afghanistan Civil Service Institute. About 24 senior women civil servants are participating in this course from different government institutions and in the mean time a coaching plan is designed for implementation of coaching programme for WLP course participants. This course was designed as part of the support in implementation of the gender mainstreaming policy for CSLD project.
Top Leadership Competency Development Training Programme
Based on the positive results and findings from previous TLP programmes conducted in 2 rounds for deputy ministers, provincial governors and general directors from civil service, CSLD has been approached and requested to design a similar top leadership training programme in 2009 for the deputy ministers, head of independent government directorates and agencies. All arrangement for the delivery of this training programme is done and the green light is given by the President to proceed with the implementation of TLCDP. Very soon a group of 25 deputy ministers, head of independent government agencies, commissioners and general directors will be travelling to Malaysia to participate in this programme. The programme is designed for 2 weeks and accompanying exposure visits with Malaysian counterparts and officials of the Malaysia government.
Training of Trainers
One of the areas of support to ACSI is building the capacity and training delivery skills of the trainers, and CSLD project has designed a special subject matter ToT for the ACSI trainers as well as provincial trainers from IARCSC provincial training centers in the provinces. This ToT course is designed in 3 phases/sessions that 2 sessions has already been delivered and conducted for 20 trainers from ACSI and provinces. This programme is coordinated with ASGP and Provincial Affairs Department of IARCSC and will ensure that ACSI trainers will get the required skills and knowledge of the delivery of SLCDP trainings and ensuring its sustainability in ACSI delivering regular SLCDP trainings to senior civil servants of Afghanistan. This course has built in evaluation mechanism to assess each individual trainer capacity and level of understanding of the subject matter and focus in advanced subject matter training delivery by the international trainers to national trainers.
External linkages and twinning arrangements
CSLD as part of its mandate in building the capacity of ACSI in the delivery of training programmes and linking it with other regional prominent public administration institution in the region supported exposure visits for possible twinning arrangement for the ACSI and IARCSC management and leadership. These exposure visits have already been made to Thailand, Singapore and India. After deliberations and studies of the delegation Indian Institute of Public Administration was found to be a suitable partner in future collaboration with ACSI as it was mutually agreed and approved. A memorandum of understanding and action plan was drafted and shared with the IIPA which was accepted for implementation. We are looking into further implementation of this action plan.
Comprehensive Evaluation and Exit Strategy
A new external evaluator is on-board to deliver studies and assessment of the achievements of the CSLD project and prepare the final report on the project. This evaluation is going to introduce an exit strategy for the CSLD project and work has already begun by the evaluator in overall assessment and evaluation of the project.
Additional Priorities
• Implementation of Project Output 5: Support to the Operation and Set-up of the Afghan Civil Service Institute.
• Continued implementation of SLCDP
• Development of exit strategy to ensure national ownership and the continuation of training programmes at ACSI.
Gender Integration
The project has throughout the training programmes encourage female civil servants to participate in all its training programmes. The figures for all the training programmes conducted in 2007 indicate that 17% of the participants were female civil servants. About 11% of the participants in 2007 came from various provincial offices. The figures in 2008 and 2009 for women participation including special women leadership training programme reached to 41 out of 285 including ToT and 158 provincial participants out of a total of 285 including ToT program.
Partnerships and Resources:
Target Budget: USD 9,457,774Received Budget: USD 8,970,015
Committed: USD 8,973,662
Donors: Government of Australia, Government of Germany, Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, Government of Norway, UNDP Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund and UNDP core funds.
Contacts:
Kumlachew Aberra, CSLD Project Manager (kumlachew.aberra@undp.org)
Homa Sorouri, UNDP Programme Officer (homa.sorouri@undp.org)
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