The NSG together with AMDIN have been developing a postgraduate course African governance course for public servants across Africa. The aim of the course is to provide a broad background for public servants, and other interested persons, on how government works and the challenges faced in the public domain. The course is based on the clearly articulated aspirations of the principal organisations of the continent such as the African Union, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank. The course emphasises that all African countries should be democratic with well run public institutions.
The course sets out the parameters in the relationship between the public service and the political authority, the requirements of accountability to the political authority as well as to the general public, and the tensions that may arise.
There are Eight Modules in the course:
- Module One is fairly short and introduces the Scramble for Africa that followed the Berlin conference of 1884.
- Module Two is a discussion of the institutions of government in Africa.
- Module Three is about the quest for democratic systems.
- Module Four deals with Pan-African Governance.
- Module 5 deals with Regional Integration.
- Module 6 is about the State, Business and the Economy.
- Module 7 is about the Public Service and Society.
- Module 8 is about Africa in the World Economy.
Taking Governance seriously – A postgraduate course for public servants across Africa
The course also interrogates the idea that Africa is rising and what needs to be done for that to happen.
Students are encouraged to grapple with some of these complex issues and relate them to your own environment. Public servants are continually faced with making choices and decisions, and do not have the luxury of mere contemplation, and this course is designed to help them make correct choices.
The course is in the pilot testing phase and AMDIN MDI partners will be used to roll-out the programme on the continent. AMDIN is a networks of management development institutes (MDIs) of Africa. The purpose of AMDIN is to be a network of African government MDIs so as to create a platform for the African MDIs to articulate their collective voice and promote mutual partnerships, peer support and collaboration in the development of leadership and management capacity in response to the needs of the African people and their governments.
