UNDP training improves public service capacity

Senior staff in Lesotho's ministry of local government have benefited from a training programme designed to highlight individual responsibility in the workplace. The programme, supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Lesotho, "examined principles of personal vision, trust, communication, and the importance of appreciating how different individuals view the same challenges differently", UNDP said in statement on Tuesday. The local government ministry is responsible for decentralisation, including organising local elections in March 2004, and land management, urban housing and development, which are an integral part of the government's poverty reduction strategy. "The training was important in that we, as public service professionals, were forced to look at our individual responsibility and performance in delivering to the people of this country," director of decentralisation Mpopo Tsoele said. "With a highly educated and qualified workforce, the mantra that there is lack of capacity to design and implement programmes in Lesotho and elsewhere in Africa is grossly misleading. The challenge is using that capacity effectively, and UNDP's strategic area of support is to help reduce this delivery gap, for the betterment of Lesotho's Basotho people," UNDP Lesotho policy team leader Joe Feeney said in the statement. UNDP noted that since the workshop, participants have undergone a full evaluation of professional and interpersonal relationships and drawn up individual action plans. An evaluation of progress follows in November. The UN agency is working with authorities to develop a comprehensive programme, focusing on transforming leadership in public service, with the aim of making institutions more responsive to the needs of the people and facilitating the implementation of the country's poverty reduction strategy.