PSU officers attend three day training session

While environmentalists were discussing funding, across the hall, public service officers were embarking on a three-day training session. C.E.O. in the Ministry of Public Service, Charles Gibson told us what skills they were acquiring.

Charles Gibson, CEO, Ministry of Public Service
“It’s part of an ongoing process that we have at the Ministry of the Public Service to train and sensitize public officers on policy development and human resource management. It’s a programme which we feel is really needed in the public service at this time because a lot of planning and policy development is happening at this time.”

Dr. Joan Nwasike, Advisor, Commonwealth Secretariat
“What we will look at in public policy, we have a consultant, Dr. Peter Phillips who is a consultant in public policy development, political economy. He has been a minister in Jamaica for the last eighteen years and what he will share with them today is in the areas of policy development, policy process and the importance of monitoring in the development. We will also look at the ethical considerations when you are making policy and he will focus on policies relating to crime control, energy, food and security, things that the region needs at this point in time.”

“The importance of all this is that you don’t make policies and leave them on the shelf; they have to be implemented. And what is necessary for you to have control over that is for you to have a policy unit and within that unit you have the monitoring and evaluation specialist who will have a macro view of the policies and the implementation so that at every point in time you will know what you are doing.”

Charles Gibson
“One of the big things in this course is to look at how the ministry of the public service and by extension the government of Belize can improve on the efficiency and effectiveness of the service delivery to its citizens.”