The CIP Project Coordination Unit together with FGS representatives from the Office of the Prime Minister, National Civil Service Commission, Ministry of Labor & social Affairs and the Office of the President met with the World Bank’s Task Team Leader Alex Appiah and Somalia’s country representative Hugh Riddell to strengthen their collaboration.
The World Bank representatives commended the spirit of the new government and its approach for willingness and collaborations to the ongoing initiatives of supporting Somalia and mentioned that it is a turning point for the Multi-Partner Fund (MPF), which is where the CIP project is financed.
To ensure the intended objectives of the CIP are met and are on track, the discussion mainly focused around overcoming the existing challenges affecting the implementation of the project activities and to resolve outstanding issues such as the FGS wage bill control that the Ministry of Finance is working on.
This is to optimize what can be done before the Mid-Term Review (MTR) planned in the coming months which the outcome may either positively or negatively affect the project and its donor support.
The Chairman of the NCSC, Hassan Abshirow had proposed a study tour as a sensitization activity for the Accounting Officers providing exposure for the PS/DGs in the FGS. This is so the institutions understand how best they can learn from those countries that may have undergone reform in their public sectors.
Lesson learned
In order to incorporate recommendations on issues such as ‘redundancy’, ‘the job positions of the proposed structures and the existing staff’.
A government policy team under the Office of the Prime Minister is to guide any FGS institutional assessment, structuring and modernization in order to own the process from start to finish to avoid any lapse of the upcoming assessments and structuring on remaining FGS MDAs. Since there is a need to fast track the development of a “Re-deployment Policy” and a ‘Skill-gap Analysis Assessment ‘for all the beneficiary institutions, the hiring of consultants is underway.
The current pending activities
The team is also finalizing the hiring process of a consultancy firm for the HR Audit, a Biometric firm and a Pay & Grading firm for the civil service. So far the activities are going smoothly and hopefully will be concluded as soon as possible and the real implementation is expected to begin thereafter.
The CIP Project Assessment & Mid-Term Review
The ‘Civil Service wide Establishment Control Guide’ and the ‘Re-structuring of the remaining institutions’ will be critically reviewed as these are some of the main benchmarks of the project for the Mid-term review.
The MTR is due to take place on Dec 4th, 2017 to assess the progress being made towards achieving the objectives of the project and map out strategies for addressing challenges that impede smooth implementation of project activities. The FGS as part of its preparation towards the MTR is preparing a comprehensive project status report with the help of a consultant who attended the 10 beneficiary institutions to accomplish this exercise.
The Training Programs Status and Development
A successful 2-day Career Development & Scheme of Service Training Workshop was conducted at the Somali National University. Interactive sessions provided a hands-on approach to key principles and tools for underpinning the career development framework.
The beneficiary institutions believe that this serves as knowledge- transfer to the HR functions and practitioners.
Kenyan school of Government (KSG) is to now train all the civil servants of the government with an agreement to start in the coming months. The Ministry of Labor & Social Affairs is to take the policy guidance and supervisory role of the training programs and after a consultation, a needs assessment will be carried out to decide on what is needed and to also expand the training not only to the 10 Beneficiary Institution’s but to all in the FGS, which is a tremendous win for the FGS.
Download the Full October 2017 Report here (PDF; 10MB)