The Tatweer Program
Ministerial Capacity Building at the National and Provincial Levels
Program Snapshot
- Funding: $299.3 million
- Start/End Dates: July 2006 - January 2011
- Implementer: Management Systems International
- Website: www.tatweer-iraq.com
USAID/Tatweer (USAID's National Capacity Development program) is building capacity in key Iraqi ministries. It aims to increase the effectiveness of ministries through reforming internal operational systems and instituting best practices and international standards. The Program develops public management skills, improves operating systems and institutionalizes training activities at national and provincial levels. Core public administration areas include contract and procurement management, human resource management, project management, leadership and communication, strategic planning and information technology.
The program works with the National Center for Consultancy and Management Development (NCCMD) and ten ministries:
- Health
- Agriculture
- Water Resources
- Municipalities and Public Works Human Rights
- Migration
- Oil
- Electricity
- Justice
- Planning
In addition, USAID/Tatweer works with GOI Executive Offices, including:
- Presidency Council
- Prime Minister's Office
- Deputy Prime Minister's Office
- the Council of Ministers Secretariat
- Prime Minister Advisory Committee
- National Investment Commission
- Labor Ministry's Social Safety Net.
Engagement with Key Ministries and Executive Offices
The USAID/Tatweer program engages its counterparts through ministry engagement teams, a mix of expatriate and local staff, often embedded at partner ministries. The teams focus on:
- Improving the public management skills of ministerial civil servants,
- Permanent and sustainable improvements to management systems and standard operating procedures in the partner ministries, at both the central and provincial level. These include systems related to budget formulation and execution, Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS), Government Assistance Database, and Integrated Supply Chain Management (ISCM),
- Expanding and institutionalization of the GOI's training and consultancy activities at the ministries and the National Center for Consultancy and Management Development, and
- Institute Civil Service institutional and legislative reforms.
Civil Service Reform
Activities related to institutional and legislative civil service reforms started in August 2007 to help the GoI respond to constitutional requirements. The civil service team works closely with the GoI and the Civil Service Committee (CSC) as they draft and revise laws that significantly impact the civil service. The CSC, with USAID/Tatweer support and mentoring, drafted a law to establish a Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), the regulatory body having oversight of Iraq's civil servants, approved by Parliament in February 2009. Buoyed by the success of its efforts to establish the FCSC, the CSC is finalizing a draft civil service law to develop a professional, effective, and transparent civil service system. USAID/Tatweer's civil service advisors are working with ministries to prepare them for a smooth implementation of the civil service law once enacted.
Provincial Outreach - Training and Coaching:
Meaningful in-service training for civil servants must be accessible beyond Baghdad, as roughly two-thirds of the civil servants work in provincial directorates or in national facilities located in the other provinces. At the heart of the institutionalization of the training effort, USAID/Tatweer is working closely with NCCMD and Al Quds School for Computers to expand and revitalize their training capacities in Mosul and Basrah. Despite the security challenges, these regional training centers are now delivering significant training services to the provinces of Ninawa in the north and Basrah, Dhi Qar, Muthanna, and Maysan in the south. The regional training center in Erbil is effectively serving the Kurdistan Regional Government ministries as well as training a significant number of civil servants stationed in Kirkuk, Ninawa, and Diyala. Erbil also supports special multi-province workshops in strategic planning and other topics. By the end of the first quarter in 2009, almost 70,725 civil servants had been enrolled in courses delivered by the project.
In an effort to roll out activities into the provinces, USAID/Tatweer opened regional offices in Hilla, Ramadi and Kirkuk to provide assistance to Directors General and their staff in the provinces in the area of procurement, human resource development and project management. The project will also work to improve communications and clear reporting structures between DGs at the provinces and national ministries, and between the DGs and provincial councils, and institute transparent systems for the overall federal and provincial budget design and implementation at the provinces.
Train of Trainers (TOT):
NCCMD is establishing itself as a certifying agency for public management curriculum and training materials, and has developed and implemented a system of review and certification of the ministries' new trainers. The TOT program has provided a cadre of qualified individuals who are certified to teach skills and concepts in all the core competency areas. With the expansion of ministry TOT-delivered training, provincial training moved beyond the three regional training centers, with large numbers of trainees in the south central provinces of Babil, Karbala, Diwaniyah, Wasit, and Najaf. As a result, seventeen of the eighteen provinces each now have more than 2,000 civil servants newly trained in public administration skills and processes.
Best Practices Tools and Governance Methods
With buy-in from the GOI and driven by staff within each ministry, Tatweer pioneered an Organizational Self-Assessment and Transformation Program (OSTP) which establishes benchmarks and indicators to encourage a culture of excellence, and to identify and address key management problems by applying self-assessment and diagnostic tools. OSTP activities enable government agencies to apply best practices, identify reform priorities, and improve and strengthen their organizations. For sustainability purposes, USAID/Tatweer works with NCCMD's trained staff to institutionalize this self-assessment methodology.
The most important feature of OSTP is that it carries forward to actually implement changes in the ministry, thereby accomplishing permanent and sustainable improvements that will survive the USAID/Tatweer program. Anti-corruption activities aim to establish systems and procedures within the GoI to increase transparency and accountability.
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