INTRODUCTION TO CONFERENCE OF AFRICAN
MINISTERS OF PUBLIC/CIVIL SERVICE
By Juster Nkoroi
Head of CAMPS Secretariat
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SCOPE OF PRESENTATION
Background of Conference of Ministers for Public/Civil Service
Vision and Objectives of CAMPS
Administration of CAMPS
Resource Mobilization
Conceptual framework for Programme Implementatio
Development of Management Guides
Long Term Strategy Implementation Framework
The African Charter on Values and Principles of Public Service and
Administration
 Recommendations
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BACKGROUND
 The Conference of African Ministers of Public/Civil Service was
started in 1994 to support public administration in Africa through
initiation of reforms, codes and standards. Since then several
conferences have been held in different regions across the
continent.
 The Conference is held biennially during which ministers elect a
bureau comprising representatives from the five regions of the
African continent. The Bureau provides overall guidance and
strategic leadership for the Minister’s Program
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BACKGROUND…..CONT’D
The current Bureau is as follows;
1.
2.
3.
4.
Chair
1st Vice Chair
2nd Vice Chair
3rd Vice Chair
5.
Rapporteur
- Kenya
- Algeria
- Ghana
- (a country to be elected from
Central Africa region )
Mozambique.
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The Vision and Objectives of CAMPS
 The Vision of CAMPS is “to build capable developmental
States in Africa over a long-term period of 10years”.
 The theme is “Capacity Development for the future
Capability of African Public Service”. The theme is
consonant to and reflects the future planning around capacity
development for African Union (AU) member States.
 The main focus of the ministers conference is development
of capacity of African States to deliver efficient services to
their citizenry
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Objectives of CAMPS
The key objective of the Programme is to;
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Assess and establish linkages between governance and
public administration capabilities and the broader
developmental agenda within the continent; and
•
To share knowledge and learning within the framework of
exchange and capacity development on focused priority
areas within the continental Program.
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Administration of CAMPS
 Due to capacity constraints at the African Union Commission, administration of
CAMPS is left to the Chairperson of the Conference. The Chairperson is
required to establish a secretariat to oversee implementation of planned
activities and provide administration services to the Bureau and the
Conference.
 Since the Secretariat is established at the national level in the office of the
chairperson, it does not therefore rotate with the incoming chair and requires to
be established afresh every time the position of the chair changes.
 In addition CAMPS has not had a constitutive act and rules of procedure to
guide the conduct of business. AUC will be presenting the proposed constitutive
act and rules of procedure in this meeting.
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Administration of CAMPS
 This apparent lack of a defined system is the first challenge the the 6th Bureau
had to address by developing the following two documents to guide
administration of CAMPS
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Roles and responsibilities for leadership and management of CAMPS
which identified players in CAMPS and assigned to each player roles and
responsibilities
Concept of service champions. Service championship is a delivery
mechanism through which a cluster of countries commit themselves to
work collectively on a given thematic area with the aim of spearheading
implementation of program activities, including show-casing best practices,
driving their approaches to benchmark levels, thus providing leadership to
the continent.
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Role of service champions
 The role of a service champion is to provide leadership of a
thematic area by facilitating and coordinating its implementation
within the continent.
 Service champions are therefore expected to;
• Develop plan of action for implementing respective thematic areas
• Devise strategies and mechanisms for implementation
• Mobilize resources
• Develop a programme for exchange and information sharing
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Role of service champions…
 Documentation of programme activities across the continent
 Identify and partner in a collaborative manner with co-champions
in the implementation of respective thematic area; and
 Other necessary incidental activities to support the Ministers
Programme
 In addition, service champions are expected to prepare and
submit progress re[ports to the Chairperson, periodic reports to
the Bureau and final reports to the Conference of Ministers
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Role of service champions…
 In carrying out these responsibilities, the service champions are
expected to;
I. Lead in the implementation of the programme in the
respective area; and
II. Seek information and support from the chairperson and
the ministerial Bureau to facilitate their work.
 The idea of working with service champions has infused the much
needed momentum into the programme implementation and
broadened participation by member States
 The service champions have since risen to Fifteen (15) from the
initial five (5) with eleven (11) being very active in the programme
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Conceptual framework for Programme
Implementation
 The African Ministers adopted the African Charter on Values and Principles of
Public Service and Administration as the key document to guide public service
and administration. The Charter was adopted by the AU Summit in January
2011. It will be opened for signature here in Nairobi on Saturday. It is expected
that your ministers have been given powers to sign the Charter
 The Long Term Strategy on African Governance and Public Administration
Programme was developed by the 5th Bureau to operationalise the Charter.
It was noted by the 6th Conference of Ministers in Sandton, South Africa in
2008 as the basis of the future work of Ministers
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Conceptual framework…cont
The Long Term Strategy identifies six pillars which are key levers of a system that
when transformed will go a long way to achieve the theme of the Ministers
Programme.
These are:
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Service delivery and development;
Human resources;
Information and technology in public service;
Organisational and institutional development.;
Budget, finance and resource mobilization; and
Monitoring and evaluation.
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Conceptual framework …cont
Based on these six pillars, the 6th Bureau identified ten thematic areas
as the basis of activities for the 6th CAMPS.These are;
1. African Public Service Day
2. African Public Service Charter
3. All Africa Public Service Innovations Awards
4. Human Resource Planning and Policy Architecture
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Conceptual Framework…cont
5. Leadership and Management Development
6. ICT as an enabler for service delivery
7. African Public Service Capacity Development Programme
8. Post Conflict Reconstruction and Development
9. Performance Management and Measurement Including
Monitoring and Evaluation
10. Public Sector Anti-Corruption
.
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Long Term Strategy Implementation Framework
 As pointed out earlier, the 6th Conference of African Ministers of
noted the LTS as the basis of the future work of the Ministers
Programme. The Strategy paper recommended that further work
be undertaken in terms of:
• Defining implementation strategies and work plans for each
of the six pillars proposed in the strategy, namely: Service
delivery and development; Human resources; ICTs and the
public service; Organization and institutional development of
CAMPS; Budget, Finance and Resources Mobilization; as
well as Monitoring and Evaluatiom
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LTS…..cont’d
• Recommending institutional framework required for implementation of
the strategy taking into account its relationship, linkages, synergies
and value-addition to the broader AU system as well as relating it to
existing as well as ongoing regional processes; and
• Developing implementation framework for the consolidated strategy
including identifying indicators and timelines.
• The Implementation Framework for LTS was finalised as
recommended above and is one of the documents to be discussed in
this meeting.
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Management Guides
Management guides have been developed to support implementation of human
resources pillar in line with the Implementation framework as follows
1.
Human Resource Planning and Policy Architecture;
2.
Leadership and Management Development; and
3.
Performance Management and Measurement Including Monitoring and
Evaluation.
The guides are meant to;
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Provide practitioners at national levels with a standard code that is an
international benchmark to leverage their respective systems and practices
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Provide an easy to use and regionally applicable tool that can be domesticated
by member States
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Process of developing the documents
 Development of the guides began with two regional
workshops (Swakopmund, Namibia and Abuja, Nigeria) where
participants from member States and stakeholders shared
experiences and built consensus on the content of the guides.
 Consultants were subsequently recruited to support the
champions develop the guides
 Consultants were also recruited to develop the
Implementation Framework for LTS
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Process…
 A reference group comprising of experts from the continent, CAMPS
Secretariat, the service champions and UNDP was established to;
• Serve as a sounding board to review drafts of the consultants’
reports,
• Make recommendations in terms of geographical/regional
representation, tradition and integrity of the data captured in the report
• Advice on the extent of appropriateness/applicability/relevance of the
guides to the thematic areas
The experts from this reference group and service champions considered
these documents and approved them for submission to this meeting of
experts from member States for final discussion and validation for
presentation to the Bureau for approval and to the Conference of
Ministers for adoption.
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Expected deliverables from this
meeting
 Discuss and validate the following
documents for presentation to the Bureau
on Thursday for approval and submission to
the Conference for adoption:
 The Implementation framework for LTS
 Management guides
 Statute and rules of procedure for CAMPS
 Resolutions and Declaration of the 7th
CAMPS
THANK YOU
FOR YOUR ATTENTION
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