DPMN Bulletin: Special Issue, Volume X, Number 5, November 2003

INTRODUCTION

In this article¹ the critical role of leadership capacity in effectively implementing intergovernmental global and regional commitments at national levels is emphasized. The United Nations Millennium Declaration lays out a development agenda for the next fifteen years that, for all countries, if even partially achieved, will represent a significant step forward in socio-political and economic development. It calls for economic development and the eradication of poverty; the insurance of environmental sustainability; the support of democracy, good governance and human rights; and the maintenance of peace and security. In setting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Member States of the United Nations, including those from Africa, expressed their commitment in this regard. There are other manifestations of intergovernmental commitment to development and poverty reduction that go in the direction of translating the MDGs into regional thematic actionable strategies. They include the Johannesburg Plan of Action and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) as significant commitments at the highest level that show the resolve to get societies out of the claws of poverty. The New Partnership for African Development is particularly relevant to the issues related to leadership development on the African continent, which this article seeks to introduce and discuss. In terms of congruency and convergence, the United Nations Millennium Declaration confirms the global community's readiness to support Africa's efforts to address the continent's underdevelopment and marginalisation.

However, the unfortunate reality that is becoming more and more imposing as efforts of implementing all these commitments get under way, is that in far too many instances, leaders in many countries at various levels and in all sectors (public, private, and civil society) will not have all of the skills, knowledge, attitude, and networks necessary to provide the quality of leadership that will translate the commitments made at global and regional levels into national, local and community level strategies, actions and tangible results.

The logical conclusion from the above observation is that in many countries there is need for effective leadership education and training to enhance the capacity in this respect and enable them to translate the commitments into strategies and actions as well as concrete positive results.

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) is directly concerned with this reality. It has the UN mandate, expertise, and experience to initiate and engage in activities of strengthening public administration capacity around the world. In this regard it has initiated efforts to mobilize partners around the world to plan and implement strategies and programmes for developing and strengthening leadership capacity for the implementation of the Millennium Goals and other intergovernmental commitments.

LEADERSHIP CAPACITY ENHANCEMENT INITIATIVE

One such initiative is the recent United Nations Ad hoc Expert group Meeting on "The New Challenges for Senior Leadership Enhancement for Improved Public Management in a Globalizing World" organized in Turin (Italy) on 19 and 20 September 2002. The objective was to consult a core group of leading experts in public administration and training, with special interest in and knowledge of the education and training needs of senior public sector leadership, on the design of an appropriate methodology for enhancing the skills of the current and future generations of senior public sector leaders. The meeting was intended to promote the exchange of experiences and ideas and create opportunity for new thinking in order to produce an output which would be relevant for guiding countries to provide more effective education and training opportunities for their top-level public sector leadership. The Expert Group Meeting also aimed at identifying the implementation mechanisms of the initiative and the most effective manner of involving relevant regional organizations. Finally, by promoting exchange of country experiences and best practices, the Meeting had the goal of providing guidance to appropriate strategic partnerships and the synergies, which can result from them.

The gist of the conclusions of the meeting was that the strengthening of public administration capacity (especially public sector leadership) is critical for the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Goals. The meeting stressed that leadership is critical to the future of governance, future of democracy and future of people's well-being. This message was reinforced by a letter from the Chairperson of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration, Prof. Apolo Nsibambi, who is also the Prime Minister of Uganda, faxed to the meeting, reiterating the importance of leadership capacity development and calling for particular attention to be placed on specific problems of specific regions, especially Africa, and underlining the relationship between leadership and governance.

One key conclusion from the meeting which is of direct relevance and consequence to NEPAD, and which was mostly underlined by the experts from Africa present at the meeting was that leadership is culture-loaded and situation-specific. As such the UNDESA leadership development initiative should be planned and implemented in close association and collaboration with regional and national training institutes on the African continent. The meeting took this observation to be applicable in all regions where the leadership capacity development initiative will be implemented.

KEY ISSUES FACING SENIOR PUBLIC SECTOR LEADERSHIP

The following six main issues were identified as being key challenges facing the public sector top leadership of developing countries in the next five years:

• Development of future leaders,
• Promotion of horizontal management,
• Assessing and addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS,
• Introducing performance management in the public services,
• Managing rapid change,
• Designing a strategic vision and developing own-thinking capacity.

It is interesting to note that although these issues and challenges were raised in a global meeting, they echo directly the issues and challenges identified and singled out in the "NEPAD at work: Summary of NEPAD Action Plan of July 2002".

The meeting strongly felt that leadership capacity enhancement programmes must be conceived and implemented with the aim of making leaders capable of effectively addressing the key issues facing the world today and that its planning and implementation must be interdisciplinary, international and inter-sectoral (involving public and non-profit organizations). Clearly any initiative for leadership development on the African continent needs to be conceived with the aim of enabling African leaders at all levels in all sectors to meet the challenges facing the African people as identified and expressed in NEPAD. It must be recognized that the current political leaders of Africa, in expressing their commitment to NEPAD goals, have already created a base on which leadership capacity development on the continent can be constructed. They have given the ultimate objective that must be pursued by any leadership capacity development efforts on the continent.

The following issues were singled out as some of the critical ones facing the leaders in the world, at least for the next five years:

Globalization: Globalization needs to be understood in its nature, its impact, in the way it can be harnessed to limit its negative impact, and how benefits can derive from its positive effects on development. This is especially relevant for countries of the South, which have difficulty in influencing globalization.

Strategic approaches to poverty alleviation: Leaders have to develop cross-sectoral approach to solving problems to reduce poverty. The following aspects need attention:

• Financing development
• Developing civic engagement
• Improving service delivery especially in water, health, HIV/AIDS, education, and environment
• Promoting horizontal management.

Conflict prevention and resolution: The specific case of countries in conflict or that need rebuilding was discussed and it was agreed that stability and security are key to promoting sustainable reforms. For those countries, special strategies need to be in place to ensure that the seeds of conflict are not planted again.

Legitimacy of state institutions: Creating legitimacy and trust is critical. This can be done by establishing strong participation mechanisms and by defining in a transparent manner the roles and relationships of different spheres of government. It includes also the development of an administrative culture based on the rule of law and a system that ensures security to attract investment and encourage property ownership.

Leading in a world of increasing interdependency: Taking into account the present political environment in an increasingly globalised world, new areas of leadership competency need to be strengthened, in particular:

• Diversity management
• Knowledge management
• Horizontal management
• Resource and information management
• Partnerships and negotiation skills
• Communication and ICT skills.

Leading large-scale transformations: This challenge involves the following tasks:

• Working with stakeholders
• Balancing and managing long-term and short-term objectives in the context of change
• Communication skills
• Creating a shared vision
• Empowering employees.

Leading with contradictions and paradox: The world is changing so rapidly that many contradictions emerge continuously. It is incumbent on leaders and all employees to be able to deal with more ambiguity. These following areas were singled out:

• Economic liberalism versus social welfare
• People getting poorer but at the same time having more voice
• Managing change while ensuring stability and security.

For African leaders who have gone through the process of designing, discussing, agreeing and adopting the NEPAD Action Plans, these issues are critical but certainly not new. What may be comforting perhaps is that the concerns on the African continent are actually similar to the concerns expressed by other developing countries.

STRATEGIES, APPROACHES, AND TECHNIQUES FOR LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAMMES

Whether it is called training, competency enhancement, development or identified by any other name, leadership training needs to be undertaken with a clear understanding of the ultimate purpose it is pursuing as well as the impact of culture on leadership. The culture of politics varies from country to country.

Given the diversity of administrative cultures and based on a variety of societal environment, each country leadership has to be open-minded and look at all the potential solutions to their own problems. The key element is to develop a sense of direction for the public service of a given country which takes into account its history, its environment and its position in the global world in a realistic manner.

In this sense, the basic guideline on strategies, approaches, techniques and methodologies for leadership capacity development is that each situation, the needs it imposes as well as the composition and nature of the targeted audience should dictate the approaches, techniques, thematic content and training methods to be adopted. In designing, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of leadership development programmes, whether they be in the immediate, short-term, medium-term or long-term, should adopt a participatory approach involving the beneficiaries and target groups of such programmes.

FRAMEWORK MATRIX FOR TARGET AUDIENCES

The meeting essentially concluded that, in many circumstances, leadership capacity development programmes need to target the following different levels:

• Potential leaders who are still at University and other tertiary institutions level
• Junior civil servants
• Senior civil servants
• Other policy makers such as Parliamentarians and Ministers in central and local governments
• A mixed group of leaders from the public sector, civil society, and private sector.

Each of the target groups would require a strategy, an approach and methodologies that are congruent with their needs. Even the thematic content for the programme would vary depending on the target group. A framework matrix incorporating target groups, thematic issues, methodology for a leadership training strategy to prepare young and mid-career civil servants for global leadership was proposed in the meeting. It is presented in table 1. The meeting emphasized that this can only serve as a framework of analysis whose contents can be specified only after careful participatory analysis of target identification and needs assessment.

Table 1. Framework matrix for leadership training of young and mid-career civil servants

Target	Major purpose	Methodology	Thematic content
Young civil servants at central and local government levels	Enhancement of knowledge and skills, and inculcating attitudes and values related to public service	Various methods including formal trainings in management development institutions, universities, seminars, workshops, etc.	Various themes depending on technical fields but with a good mix of public service/administration related subjects; context and content of the NEPAD goals

It was emphasized that universities and management development institutions need to be at the leading position in this initiative to determine the target groups, the methodologies and the thematic content of the training of young public servants on the continent who are the future leaders.

Table 2. Framework matrix for leadership training of experienced high level civil servants and policy-makers

Target	Major purpose	Methodology	Thematic content
Parliamentarians  Ministers Top civil servants (Permanent Secretaries and other senior ranks) Local Government councilors and top leaders	Reinforcing the values of leadership and public service Sharing experiences and best practices Inculcating the Millennium goals and NEPAD goals  Enhancing team spirit	Workshops Retreats Exchange visits Coaching Distance learning Teleconferencing	Strategic planning and policy making Sustainable development Globalization poverty reduction strategies Public sector reform

In this there has to be close consultation with the governments and management development institutions at national and regional levels that are in a better position to determine both the opportunity and necessity for this kind of training, its approaches and methodology as well as its content.

THE CRITICAL ROLE OF THE MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTES

In the process of public sector leadership capacity development, Management Development Institutes have a critical role to play. They constitute the infrastructure in their respective countries for management development; they have human resources capable of doing management research, training, and technical advisory work as well as consultancy services in different aspects of management. Governments should count on them for taking further initiatives such as the one that is addressed by this article. These institutes should play a leading role in training needs assessment, human resource policy design, personnel development programme formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. It is understood that some of them, in fact most of them, will require to have their capacities reinforced, but this does not in any way minimize the role they are supposed to play. In addition they have networks at national and regional levels through which they can pool expertise, facilitate exchange of successful practices and share innovative practices. For this they should play a leading role in the public sector leadership capacity enhancement initiative.

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR STARTING THE INITIATIVE

In a brainstorming exercise, the following suggestions were made to improve leadership-training strategies and to serve as a starting point for experts from management development institutions in Africa to discuss the issue of what type of training and for which specific targets:

• Design a week-long flagship training course;
• Combine regional and national workshops;
• Develop training of trainers;
• Experiment with innovative approaches based on real cases and local experiences;
• Disseminate case studies and highlight best practices that use role playing as an effective technique;
• Develop networks enabling leaders to exchange their views (UNPAN could play that role by creating chat groups on selected issues);
• Adopt a vertical system of training aimed at training organisations rather than individuals;
• Further explore the subject by initiating researchers to work on the theme, especially on the way culture impacts on leadership and the way various societies may understand the concept of leadership differently;
• Focus learning on concrete issues, especially for programmes targeting senior civil servants;
• The profile of ideal facilitators should be: (i) A senior person who has respect of the target audience, and (ii) one or two experts recognized for their expertise on the issue at hand. The two should work together and focus on problem solving;
• Support the leadership of national and regional institutions to meet the challenges of design, strategy, marketing and ensuring credibility of management development programmes;
• Pooling together institutions inside and outside a particular region, including making effective use of the networks created by them.

THE NEED FOR RESOURCE MOBILIZATION STRATEGIES AND PARTNERSHIPS TO SUPPORT LEADERSHIP CAPACITY ENHANCEMENT

One critical reality acknowledged is that the kind of leadership capacity enhancement that would enable countries have a critical mass of capable and competent leaders would require a substantial amount of resources especially in financial terms. One of the issues that need to be discussed therefore is how such resources can be mobilized and how various linkages and partnerships can be forged to mobilize the resources. Probably this should be among the issues that a group of management development institutions on the African continent should be encouraged to discuss.

Finally, participants felt that it would be useful to carry out more research on leadership enhancement to make an inventory of innovative initiatives done by training institutions in the field. It was recommended to support local capacity development especially in the area of consultancy services.

THE WAY FORWARD

What has been presented here is an initiative which is global and involving global actors. It requires to be subjected to more regional and national thinking for it to be translated into strategies and actions that respond to national and regional needs and is implemented in ways that fit into the specific conditions. Beyond the 4^th Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service, the NEPAD Secretariat and a selection of Management Development Institutes will hold a session to reflect on this initiative and design an Africa-wide strategy for leadership capacity development in the Public Sector. This session is planned for the end of January 2004. It is anticipated that at this seminar the NEPAD Secretariat and the Management Development Institutes would design and discuss the strategy framework in consultation with the Public Servants present. The guiding `concept note' for the workshop is contained in this Special Issue.

 

---

* Dr. Kauzya is Chief of Governance and Public Administration Branch (GPAB), Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), Department of Social and Economic Affairs (DESA), United Nations, New York.

¹ The article is based on the outcomes of the United Nations Ad hoc Expert Group Meeting on the "New Challenges for Senior Leadership Enhancement for Improved Public Management in a Globalizing World" organized in Turin (Italy) on 19 and 20 September 2002 in close collaboration with the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA) under what is known as the "UNDESA/IASIA initiative". The article borrows heavily from the report of the meeting written by the President of IASIA. However, this should not be construed to mean that the opinions expressed here are those of the United Nations. Nor are they those of IASIA. The author takes responsibility for both the content and form of the article.