COMESA Professional Staff Trained in Results Based Management

Lusaka, 24 November 2011 (ECA)A two-day training on Results Based Management (RBM) for professional staff of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern African States (COMESA) was held from 22-23 November 2011, in Lusaka, Zambia.       

The training organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) sub-Regional office in Southern Africa (SRO-SA) in collaboration with the Office of Strategic Planning and Programme Management (OPM) and Partnership and Technical Cooperation Office (PATCO) was aimed at strengthening the capacity of participants to implement programs using the results-based management approach.

The Officer-in-Charge for SRO-SA Mr. Sizo Mhlanga, welcomed the eleven participants and conveyed the appreciation of the Executive Secretary of ECA to Dr. Sindiso Ngwenya, Secretary General of COMESA, for his strong support and commitment to the partnership between the two institutions.     

He pointed out that it was only through effective management, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and reporting of programmes that we could successfully accomplish the outcomes, results, and impact envisaged in our development frameworks.  He also strongly encouraged participants to take full advantage of the training opportunity to build their capacity, acquire new skills, and expand their knowledge base to better address the challenges of low levels of individual and overall institutional management performance and programme implementation rates.

H.E. Ambassador Nagla El-Hussainy, Assistant Secretary General of COMESA, in her opening address, expressed gratitude to ECA for the training provided to COMESA professional staff to build their capacity in RMB. “The quest to achieve optimal impacts in the face of falling donor inflows calls for clear planning strategies and institutional tools to help COMESA to refocus their energies on development results with special attention on intended beneficiaries” Ambassador El-Hussainy stated.  Further to noting that the training will assist COMESA to concretise and further clarify ongoing efforts aimed at putting in place an online reporting system on status of Regional Integration for member States, and COMESA Secretariat and other institutions, she requested participants to take full advantage of the training in order to improve performance by applying the principles learnt. 

It was a two-day intensive training, in which participants were trained on ten modules of RBM including principles, planning for results (logic models/logframe), M&E, selecting and constructing performance indicators, and conducting group exercises.

The training concluded with participants affirming their resolve to effectively utilize their enhanced capacity in RBM to accomplish the training objectives, their expectations and results in their various programmes.