Japan trains Liberian and Sierra Leonean civil servants

Accra, Sept. 28, GNA - Office of the Head of Civil Service (OHCS) in Ghana and Civil Service Training Centre (CSTC) are jointly undertaking a training programme on “Ethical Leadership for Quality Productivity Improvement” for Civil Servants of Liberia and Sierra Leone in Accra.

The course is designed and developed under “The Project for Institutional Capacity Development of the Civil Service training Centre” and sponsored by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Twenty participants from the civil services of Liberia and Sierra Leone are participating in the first training programme.

A statement issued in Accra on Wednesday by JICA said the three-week course began on September 19-October 7.

It is the first in the series of training programmes to be developed by OHCS and CSTC for Civil Servants in the West African sub-region.

The course is developed based on the needs of civil servants identified in a Training Needs Analysis that was conducted in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The Human Resource Management Office (HRMO) in Sierra Leone and the Civil Service Agency (CSA) in Liberia are partners for planning and implementing the training programme.

The course objective is to develop competent ethical leaders to serve as change agents for sustainable quality and productivity improvement of the civil service in these countries targeted at middle-level civil servants.

Under the programme, all participants are expected to have discussed with their immediate supervisors the issues related to ethics and or leadership that should be tackled to improve the current situation in their workplace.

Based on discussion, participants are expected to complete the “Pre-training Evaluation form” prior to the training. Participants will make short presentations on the issue at the beginning of the training programme.

Additionally, Action Plans prepared based on the above-mentioned form by all participants during the course will be reviewed by external evaluators to measure their progress several months after the training.

As a result of the successful completion of the previous project by JICA (2007-2010), the Governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia expressed interest and requested OHCS to provide more training opportunities to their civil servants.

In response to such needs and requests from the sub-region, OHCS requested JICA for further institutional capacity enhancement of the CSTC, which has been providing civil service training successfully for middle level civil servants.

Mr Woeli K. Kemevor, Head of Civil Service addressing the opening session stated: “We can benefit from the capacity building project with our strong partnership with JICA. Civil servants can change customer expectation by improvement of quality productivity through this programme”.

Mr Jiro Inamura, Chief Representative of JICA Ghana Office said: “I understand the Governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia have taken firm steps to develop their countries and improve the life of their people.

“To this end, I believe this training programme can contribute by motivating participants to improve their work and public services.“

Mr Naoto Nikai, Japanese Ambassador to Ghana, said Japanese Government would continue its support to improve public administration systems of West African countries through various projects.