Civil servants get leadership training

March 28, 2019

Shaila Khan, Assistant Resident Representative and Advisor, Business Development and Partnerships of UNDP, conducts a session on UN reform and change management. Photo: UNDP

Every civil servant plays a leadership role in their job to mobilise stakeholders and financial resources, infuse motivation and encouragement at different levels and steer processes.

However, rapid changes in internal and external economic, social and political context and processes have created a need for initiatives to ensure that the leadership roles of civil servants are effectively aligned.

In this backdrop, Economic Relations Divisions (ERD) with support from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) organised a daylong training for officials of ERD and relevant ministries and departments on March 28, 2019 at Bangabandhu International Convention Center (BICC).

Fifty-two government officials, mostly at the levels of additional secretary, joint secretary, joint chief, deputy secretary, deputy chief, senior assistant secretary, senior assistant chief, joined the training. 

The inaugural session was chaired by Sultana Afroz, Additional Secretary, Wing Chief (UN), ERD and National Project Director of Knowledge for Development Management (K4DM) Project.

“This training will clarify the participants’ concepts on different aspects of leadership, identify leadership moments. It will help them acquire necessary skills to steer processes to achieve development targets declared by the government, and overcome emerging challenges along the way,” she said in her speech.

The training was facilitated by Sutapa Bhattacharjee, Associate Professor, Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka.  She took three interactive sessions on Leadership and Change Management, Effective Leadership and Change Management and Leadership in the Context of Global Power Structure and Economic Order.

The facilitators presented different qualities and skills for effective leadership.

The last session was facilitated by Shaila Khan, Assistant Resident Representative and Advisor, Business Development and Partnerships of UNDP, on UN reform and change management where she explained the recent three major reforms and seven initiatives to improve. She also highlighted how the UN serves Member States and people and the context of reform.

“The reforms created better accountability and improved coordination in the UN system to introduce state of the art development approaches. This way, UN agencies can make a bigger impact and contribute effectively towards attaining Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,” she said.

On the previous day, ERD organised another training as part of K4DM, that focused on capacity building and negotiation.