CERTIFICATE AWARD CEREMONY FOR PUBLIC OFFICERS

Wednesday, March 28, 20079:30 a.m. Radisson Fort George Hotel and Marina

Mrs. Myrtle Palacio

This month, March 2007 marks the first full financial year of business operation for the Office of Governance. What are the products in this business venture?Human Resource Management & Development, Good Governance & Modernization Initiatives, ICT/E-government Projects and Initiativesit is a business like any other. We shared our strategic focus and direction with all and sundry at the beginning of the financial year, and we will be accounting on our stewardship for this time period within the next month. Today, marks the end of Human Resource Development endeavours with the award of certificates to deserving Public Officers who participated in our Capacity Building for Improved Governance & Public Sector Performance Project. In compiling data on all our training programmes for this financial year, we have determined that the Office of Governance has touched some 1,562 in all sectors persons as follows: Performance Management Appraisal System ICT/E-government Introduction to Software Taiwan Project E-government Awareness ICT for Development Governance Awareness Capacity Building 701 83 145 88 30 149 366

Opening Remarks by

If success was to be measured in numbers alone, then there are several partners that assisted in bringing this success to fruition. In the Performance Management Appraisal System (PMAS), Ms. Ruth Meighan of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Ms. Gwen Nunez Gonzalez of the Department of Education, Dangriga and Mr. Jason Neal of the Central Postal Service, along with Mr. Raymond Morris of the Office of Governance, in addition to their usual workload, spent several days criss-crossing the country to bring awareness to the new (PMAS). We partnered with the Belize Defence Force and the

Embassy of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the Introduction to Software, Website Development and other E-Learning/Business topics. CARICAD and the Office of Governance is a marriage made in heaven and CARICAD has responded, among other areas, to the call for the E-government Awareness and the Capacity Building Projects. The message on e-government was brought by Dr. Cletus Bertin, who is back with us to facilitate the consultation process on the Public Sector E-government Policy. ICT for Development was a one-day workshop sponsored by the Commonwealth Secretariat GIDD and included all sectorspublic private and social. Capacity Building for Improved Governance and Public Sector Performance was embraced not only by CARICAD but also UNDP and UNICEF. While CARICAD provided highly qualified, well skilled facilitators, UNICEF and UNDP, along with the Government of Belize (GOB) funded the workshops. In January, we toured every district town with the Governance Awareness Project. This effort of Public Sector engaging citizenry at this level apparently is a first in the Commonwealth and will be documented for sharing with other member countries. The Capacity Building Project consisted of workshops in six topical areas, namely: Organizational Review Strategic Planning Evidence-Based Policy Development Results-Based Performance Management Professional Writing Customer Service For purposes of sustainability, Training of Trainers Workshops were conducted for: Strategic Planning Evidence-Based Policy Development Results-Based Performance Management Customer Service A total of 366 persons were trained, 65 in Training of Trainers and 301 in Methods & Principles. Five of the workshops were facilitated by Consultants from CARICAD, and one in Professional Writing, by Ms. Dianne Lindo, Director, Charles T. Hunter Commission for Social Outreach, St. Johns Landivar in Belize City.

Reliable evaluation of training activities has proven to be very difficult, and the questionnaires given to each participant immediately after each workshop are of limited value; as the responses reflect the immediate impressions of the participants. The success of these training sessions is its long term impact on the various government agencies; and is dependent on top managements support in fostering the implementation of the training content in the day to day work. The Office of Governance will measure the impact through various evaluation strategies, including the response to the present call to Ministries for Annual Reporting, Strategic Planning, the implementation of Management Teams, and the call for the development of a Customer Charter. The strategy is to gather information from a range of points of inquiry: trainees, supervisors, managers and the publicfor eg. Surveys on customer satisfactionindicators, such as number of justified complaints or reverse administrative decisions. According to Change Management Guru, Abraham Maslov, If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. Therefore, the primary goal for the Capacity Building Project is to provide varying management tools in order to improve the professional skills of senior and middle level public officers. In addition, while it is not obligatory, professional development such as these may soon form part of the criteria for promotion for some positions in the Public ServiceHence the certificate. It is a recommendation that the Joint Staff Relations Councils will be submitting to the Cabinet. The Office of Governance will be circulating its certificated training schedule for this new financial year, with emphasis on IT, leadership and change management. We invite you to participate. Lastly, our mantra for this financial year has been, Achieving More With Less, and this we have accomplished. I would like to commend members of my teama small group in size but extremely large in commitment and drive.

Seremei !! Thank you!! Myrtle Palacio Director Office of Governance

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