Rs 3.5 billion to be spent on capacity building

The government has launched a project involving expenditure of Rs 3.5 billion to build capacity of public sector institutions and civil servants working in key federal and provincial ministries and regulatory agencies.
According to official sources, the project will be implemented by May 2009 by a project co-ordination unit set up in the Finance Division.
The project has been launched to enhance the capacity of public sector officials, strengthen capacity for improving the quality of entry level civil servants, capacity of key ministries and agencies which are in the forefront of design, implementation and monitoring of policy reforms, strengthen capacity of independent regulatory institutions in effectively regulating their respective sectors, and enhance government's capacity to facilitate broad-based civil service reforms (CSR).
It has been observed that there is a deterioration in the quality of civil services due to absence of a career grooming system to prepare them for higher responsibility, inadequate training system, under investment in human capital, and inappropriate centralisation of decision-making system. The 'public sector capacity building project' by addressing all these issues will lead to good governance.
The focus of the training will be on some strategic areas, including broad spectrum professional development capacity of public servants, strengthening economic management capacity of key agencies of the federal and provincial governments and enhancing capacity to undertake regulatory functions in the Government of Pakistan, improvement in civil services through civil service reforms, strengthening capacity of key economic and planning ministries/ agencies, improvement in tax administration, decentralisation through devolution, strengthening capacity of regulatory authorities, and enhancing monitoring and evaluation of public expenditure.
Under the project, professional training will be provided to at least 500 civil service officers occupying key mid-level positions in domestic and foreign institutes.