BY NEW BUSINESS ETHIOPIA REPORTER
Ethiopian government is set to launch a new training program, which will enable it to replace the old higher government officials with the new generation.
The program, which will be launched in September 2010, is said will select and training individuals based on their commitment and interest to serve as government officials replacing the old ones.
Briefing media this afternoon July 14, 2010 on the past five year’s performance of Ethiopian Civil Service Reform Program and the way forward, Director of the program, Bezabih Gebreyes stated that the selected individuals will get trainings which are not offered in other institutes or universities of the country.
The program will be funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the government of France, according to Bezabih who noted that the training will be provided at Civil Service Collage and Ethiopian Management Institute.
He also indicated that in other program, government is planning to identify and train collage graduates with best academic performance that are willing to serve the public being government employees.
“In addition, willingness of the selected students to work as civil servants will also be considered before admission,” said Bezabih.
Recently the issue of replacing veteran Ethiopian government officials with the new generation has become a serious issue as some of the ruling party officials are retiring.
Such training programs are expected to address the issue, according to a close observer of Ethiopian politics who doesn’t want to be named.
The Civil Service Reform Program of the country has been implemented for the past five years as one of the major part of national Public Sector Capacity Building Program (PSCBP).
In addition to Civil Service Reform, PSCBP has five programs under it-Rural Good Governance and Capacity Building, Justice System Reform, Information Communication Technology, Tax System Reform and Urban Administration.
All the programs have been funded by the World Bank, Ethiopian government and other donors for the past five years. To scale-up and sustain the program for the coming three years, the World Bank has recently provided a loan of 50 million USD to Ethiopian government.
