Leadership Development workshop to boost Public Service skills

DPI, GUYANA, Thursday, November 9, 2017

Twenty-five senior ministerial officers will benefit from a three-day Leadership Development workshop hosted by the Department of Public Service, within the Ministry of Presidency.

The exercise under the theme, “Leading for Result from the middle,” aims to provide a wider insight into leadership approaches and tools to promote synergy and high performance in teams within the public service.

Delivering the feature address, Minister of Public Service within the Ministry of the Presidency, Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine said that the participants selected for the training all hold critical leadership positions. They will, in turn, impart the knowledge gained at the workshop, to their colleagues in an effort to address faltering standards within the public service. He noted implementation of the Caribbean Leadership Programme (CLP) is vital to improving the services of the country.

“The Caribbean Leadership Programme (CLP) has developed a sustainable strategy for leadership development beyond the CLP’s lifestyle. This strategy involves improving the capacity of the participating countries, national training arms, and unit to deliver leadership training,” Minister Roopnaraine explained.

Reginald Brotherson, Permanent Secretary in the Department of Public Service said despite the unit being small, one of their many objectives is the implementation of training to build capacity to ensure organisational results and efficiency hence the importance of the workshop.

“We (participants) are gathered here because we are part of the Caribbean Leadership Development Programme. Of course, this programme aims to enhance skills at permanent secretary level, middle managers level and now we are at the third level. We (ministry) tried to fashion a programme with an edit of the Caribbean Leadership Programme to suit our local needs,” Brotherson said.

The PS added that he expects an attitudinal change among the participants.

It was highlighted that the Canadian High Commission launched a CDN$20M Caribbean Leadership Programme (CLP) last year that aims to create a sustainable leadership programme for countries across the Caribbean region.

The overall purpose of the CLP is to support public service leaders in developing their capacity to contribute more effectively to regional integration, economic growth, and gender-sensitive public-sector reform.

Currently, the participating countries in the CLP are Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Luica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

 

By: Neola Damon