In 2010, the Namibian Government, by way of an Act of Parliament, Act 10 of 2010, established the Namibia Institute of Public Administration and Management (NIPAM) with the clear vision to transform the public sector by fostering a public service with a uniform consciousness imbued with a single-mindedness that would lead to a new and different work ethic. This work ethic would be predicated upon an understanding that serving the Namibian citizens in any sphere of Government is not a right, but a privilege to make a contribution to the noble goals of sustainable development of the country and the nation. This awareness is in the context of a social contract between those who are elected to govern and those who consented to be governed in the atmosphere that those who govern made a pledge to deliver better services to the governed. This contract is what guarantees peace, security and stability for all, and the protector of a democratic system. In order for the country to grow its peace, security, stability and harmony, it is incumbent upon those who work in the name of the Government — be it at national, regional and local levels, from the President as Head of State to the supervisor in the local rural clinic, to adhere to the precept that all public servants work for the Namibian citizens, not a party or an ethnic group or a church. Not even the Prime Minister or the President. It is important to facilitate a process that allows all public servants to internalize that a ruling party at any given time is in power by virtue of having ‘won the tender’ in the last general elections to govern the country on behalf of the citizens for five years. That tender is up for adjudication on 28 November 2014! The party that will be ‘awarded the tender’ by the Namibian voters will govern for the next five years.
Since its inauguration in 2011, NIPAM has been putting the necessary policies and instruments in place to respond to the mandate of building capacities throughout the public service in the land and also to infuse a new culture of service across the State Owned Enterprises (SOE) system which was created by the Government to assist the state with poverty alleviation, job creation and wealth distribution in the economy of a Developmental State. The commitment of the Namibian Government that led to the establishment of the more than 70 SOEs is to grow the economy of the country in a manner that narrows the terrible gap between the haves and the have-nots, which is a real threat to peace and stability that the country enjoys today… Even though it is an SOE, NIPAM enjoys the status of being a sui generis in the SOE family. In this sense NIPAM is a case apart in the SOE family in the country as it is a management development institute that is the interface between the Government and the SOEs and the interface between policy makers and policy administrators in the public sector in the Republic.
At an academic level, NIPAM has begun to offer different training modules in the form of specific programmes to meet particular transformational needs in the public sector mainly along the lines of delineated interventions towards appointment, promotion and transfer across the public sector in the Republic. NIPAM was not intended to duplicate the work of or compete with Unam, Polytechnic, IUM and the myriad of vocational training centres (VTCs). The institute is the government’s arm to assist public servants to deliver the quality, efficient and effective services that the Government has promised the citizenry of Namibia through training and competency building in the public service. Unlike the above mentioned institutions of higher learning, where students enroll on volitional bases for purposes of academic certification, NIPAM‘s programmes are mandatory in the public service and for those who wish to advance in their career in terms of opportunities for appointment, promotion and transfer in the public sector. The philosophy of the Namibian Government, which led to the establishment of NIPAM, is very different from other schools of government on the Afrikan continent where governing parties were frustrated that the citizens did not understand the ruling party. The Namibian Government’s preoccupation with NIPAM is to make sure that the citizens of Namibia receive the services they deserve under a democratic government. NIPAM’s instruction is therefore to be non-partisan, unbiased and citizen-centric. The progranmmes on offer at the moment are:
1. Foundation Programme: meant to impart basic and fundamental understandings of Namibia’s National Philosophy; political economy, democratic values and legislative environment, the ethics of the liberation struggle, the history of public service in Namibia, the machinery of government; the ethics of government services for sustainable development, developing and instilling in the participants the spirit de corps and fostering attitudes necessary to function as civil servants anywhere in the country;
2. Middle Management Development Programme: meant to give participants competencies required at middle management levels in the public sector. This programme is accredited by the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA) at level 5 and recognised by the Namibian Qualification Authority (NQA) and can contribute towards further studies at undergraduate level and further studies at Southern Business School. A good segment of the Middle Management Development Programme is for Regional and Local Government to contribute to the decentralization and improvement of service delivery at regional and local levels of government in the country. This training is tailored mainly for leaders in regional councils, divisional managers of municipal and town councils, housing authorities and village managers and secretaries.
3. Senior Management Development Programme: meant to offer participants the required personal and professional strategic skills in cognitive, emotive and attitudinal scopes of work in order to increase their understandings of: Good Governance in Namibia, Public Finance for Good Governance, Professional Competencies for Good Governance, Leadership and Organisation Development, and Management Applications for Good Governance. This Corporate Governance Training is mainly tailored for Boards, CEOs and Senior Managers in State-Owned Enterprises in Namibia in need of the necessary skills to enhance the performance of their respective enterprise to ensure good service delivery to the citizens through the application of the principles of good corporate governance in the management of SOEs.
4. Executive Leadership Programme: meant to sharpen the strategic leadership and management skills of senior leaders in the public and the private sector sectors.
5. Coaching and Mentoring: Even though it was explicit in the constitutive documents of the institution, the need has been identified that compels NIPAM to develop methodologies as well as personnel to facilitate coaching and mentoring of professionals who will require additional individual growth in identified fields of their own development. These will include financial intelligence, confidence building; public speaking and leadership and management skills.
Strategic Partnerships: Towards these ends, NIPAM is in the process of strategic consulting with selected Management Development Institutes (MDI) in Afrika and beyond to develop organic partnerships that will strengthen the institute’s state of readiness to respond to its mandate and deliver in accord with the wishes of the Namibian Government.
Supporting National Development Programmes: As a government think-tank and do-tank, NIPAM has to collaborate meaningfully with stakeholders such as the Public Service Commission, the National Planning Commission, Ministries, Directories, and Agencies that have compatible mandates to support the Government in the efforts and programmes of sustainable development. These interventions are made after consultations with policy making and implementation organs of the state, such as the National Planning Commission, Public Service Commission, the National Training Authority, the SOE Governing Council Secretariat and SOE Executives in efforts to craft specialized training programmes for coaching and mentoring. Furthermore, NIPAM is in the process of developing training interventions for public figures in need of assistance with their communication skills in the English language, public speaking and leadership comportment etiquettes generally.
All these interventions are geared towards bringing about a public service in Namibia that is professional and of one mind, dedicated to the development goals of the country as articulated explicitly and implicitly in Vision 2030 and the National Development Programmes (NDPs). The values in all these offerings are those of being: citizen-centric, non-partisan, developmental oriented, empowering of All Namibian Citizens who must believe that to work for the government is not a right but a privilege to serve.
An important consideration in the business of NIPAM as a management development institute is that the Namibian nation has advanced to a stage where it is no longer managing a post-colonial or post-apartheid economy but an economy of a Developmental State, a progressive developmental state. This understanding is critical because in Namibia, as in most countries in Asia and Afrika, the state is the biggest mover of development and it is the government which has the mandate and power to steer the utilization of available resources towards the upliftment of the people. In our context, the state is the driver of development even though at times business is the engine. After all it is the public sector that has the responsibility to respond to the people in accord with the promises made during democratic elections.
Where to from Now? NIPAM has a few challenges that it has to manage in the short, medium and long terms. First, even though the policy makers from the President to the Ministers have given their commitment to training and capacity building, there is consternation at the implementation levels of government in that most Permanent Secretaries do not send their people for training in general and to NIPAM in particular. There is an unhelpful mindset in Namibia that training is of worth only when it is outside of the country. This is coupled with the understanding that when people go outside, they get a daily allowance in the form of S&T, meaning that training is worthy only when they get paid to be trained. The second challenge is that as time goes on, NIPAM might have members on the Governing Council who will not appreciate the original intent of the institute and would want to steer it in a different direction that could easily compromise the mandate for which the institute was created, namely to build capacity in the public service and not generate profit as is the case with other SOEs. The third challenge lies in the misperception that NIPAM is to give its participants certificates and degrees like a university or college would do. When they do not get such certificates, they are not as motivated to go for training. The original intent of the Government was not to duplicate a degree granting institution, but to have a serious training centre as a national resource for people to improve and advance their career in the public sector with the best and most appropriate training while they are in the employ of the state. It is training in response to the needs assessment in the public sector for purposes of better service delivery to the Namibian people. It was not the intention of Government to give degrees.
The training for SOEs is to improve good governance and develop best practices so that the SOES are not enrichment centres for the top executives, but vehicles to assist the state in the second phase of the liberation struggle, namely economic emancipation. If NIPAM succeeds in executing its mandate, Namibia will be the first in Afrika to steer its public service in the right direction purposefully. This conviction is in line with Vision 2030 which calls for a paradigm shift that we must change the way we think about ourselves and begin to do business in an unusual manner with the appreciation that the Namibian people are the most precious resource on this journey. NIPAM is honoured to have this onerous responsibility to serve the nation as a ‘think-tank’ and ‘do tank’ by responding meaningfully to the capacity development of the nation as well as to serve as a research and consultancy repository of change and transformation. To carry out its mandate NIPAM is in dialogue with international sister institutes in, amongst others, Botswana, South Africa, India, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, the USA, France, Spain and Turkey.
NIPAM is the articulation of the Namibian Government’s dream of having an integrated public service that is ready to respond in time and appropriately to the changes in the democratic environment and continue to mortgage Namibia as the most peaceful and most stable country on the Afrikan continent. NIPAM is honoured to be considered to offer a comprehensive induction programme for the next cohort of Members of Parliament, Cabinet Ministers and Permanent Secretaries as they will assume their new roles and responsibilities. NIPAM is poised to be the national training hub for progressive and national development oriented public service in the SADC region and beyond.
In order for our leaders to serve well they need to be assisted in the context of a knowledge economy such that they can anticipate challenges and turn them into opportunities to be a model nation in Afrika. We all need to learn new things as our environment changes all the time in order to be efficient and effective role players in a world based upon new knowledge and competition. The Namibian leadership is convinced that while we are small in size, we can use our big hearts and follow the spirit and boldness the fighters in our liberation struggle possessed during the struggle for national independence and march in unison towards our grand rendezvous with history.
By joseph diescho