Accra, June 29, GNA - The management of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in collaboration with the DANIDA Fellowship, will organize a management course dubbed: Women-in-Management in September to improve the operational effectiveness of managers.

Professor Yaw Agyemang Badu, Rector of GIMPA, said the programme sought to help participants to develop personal strategies to meet their needs in order to achieve peak performance as managers in the public sector.

Prof Badu noted that the two-week programme was also in line with the Institute's commitment to nurture and build human capacity to meet local and international challenges.

He said this at a press briefing to officially launch the Institute's 50th Anniversary in Accra.

Prof. Badu said participants for the programme would be taken through practical sessions such as women in leadership, developing effective networks, awareness of gender issues in management and grant proposal writing.

He said interested women must submit their applications before Monday, July 18th.

Prof. Badu said GIMPA continued to provide leadership and governance training from Presidents, members of Parliament and chief justices in developing and growing the human capacity needs of the nation.

"We have worked diligently to re-define education and today GIMPA's name is well-known in Ghana, Africa and beyond as a centre for excellence."

He said the cornerstone of the celebration would be the construction of a 7.5 million-dollar library on the Greenhill Campus, adding that initial fundraising efforts were underway to secure the funds necessary for the project.

Prof. Badu said the United Kingdom newspaper, The Times, in an article entitled: 93Seeds of business will allow Africa to flourish" identified GIMPA Business School as the best business school in sub-Saharan Africa.

He said the institute began in 1961 as a small UN training centre in Ghana and became Management Development Institute and Civil Service Training Institute.

Prof. Badu said the institute had since 2000 been chartered as a public University, running over 13 degree programmes, 10 post-graduate programmes and over 25 competency-based short courses.

Mrs Mercy Bampo Addo, Head of GIMPA@50 Secretariat, said the institute organized a pre-launch concert in April 2011, which brought together the country's top musicians to entertain its stakeholders.

Mrs Addo said as part of the celebration, there would be a special Jubilee Celebration to commemorate the anniversary. She said the congregation would provide an opportunity for the Rector to share his vision for the next 50 years as well as reflections on the past years.