Challenges of Competence and Confidence Building
On November 19, Mr. Saade Chami, METAC Coordinator, participated in a panel "Challenges of Competence and Confidence Building" organized by the Governance Institutes Forum for Training in the MENA region at the Basel Fuleihan Institute of the Ministry of Finance of Lebanon. In his presentation, Mr. Chami talked about METAC's objectives emphasizing capacity building and reviewed briefly what METAC has been doing in terms of providing technical assistance and training services to the region. He highlighted the critical role of the public service in the implementation of economic and institutional reforms, stressed the role of institution building and listed a few factors that could attract high caliber to the public sector. Given the inherent difficulty in any civil service reform, Mr. Chami suggested that countries should not aim too high as failure will have negative repercussion on the process. Rather, countries should select one agency or ministry for undertaking real reform (without political interference and where hiring is done purely on a merit basis). Having a success story and show casing it would create the necessary momentum for continuous civil service reform and increase the likelihood of success.
