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Institute of Research and Debate on Governance

Re-thinking the vectors of change

  • Public affairs training

    The quality of governance is linked to a great extent to the training, indeed to the framing that shaped the culture and behaviour patterns of public affairs leaders be they public servants, business managers or civil society leaders. From one continent to the next, the public affairs training styles speak volumes about public action conceptions. In order to give its full measure towards re-thinking training tools, the IRG is piloting, along with the IDHEAP, an Observatory and is taking direct steps in educational actions:

    The international Observatory For education and training in public affairs (OFAP)

    In a relatively uncharted and cursorily surveyed territory, offering, besides classical channels for the training of civil servants, countless new multi-disciplinary training modules such as Masters of Public Affairs (MPA), the OFAP acts :

    - through a census of the programmes within a multilingual reference-site (http://www.idheap.ch/wotpa.nsf).
    - through a research programme surveying the curricula, education and training cross-fertilisation, the worth of accreditations, etc. -through methodological support to those course leaders who wish to set up or fine-tune new training courses;

    Education and training directly run by the IRG :

    - Four cycles of courses: « intercultural approaches to governance » (Sciences Po), « Cross-cultural Communication and practices » (Sciences Po), Cycle on governance in Africa (Columbia University), course at the Universidad Javeriana (Bogota) ;
    - The facilitation of “student workshops” (from 4 to 9 months) : Sciences Po, Columbia, University of Montreal, University of Dakar, UAM Mexico, Universitad de Los Andes and Universitad Javeriana, Bogota, etc.

    Leading project partners : IDHEAP, Sciences Po, CIGI, GPPN, Collective for the study of public servant trainings in China, IIAS, EGPA, CEAN, SIPA, Universitades de Los Andes, Javeriana, UMMSM, UAM, UDEM, UCAC, AAD

    Coordinator : Michel Sauquet (michel.sauquet@institut-gouvernance.org)


  • Analysis and evaluation of governance

    The proliferation of institutional governance evaluation mechanisms and of instruments developed by civil society in this field bear out the fundamental but ambivalent role of evaluation practice.

    The IRG does not scrutinise these mechanisms merely in their technical capacity but rather as tools conducive or not to jointly probing the meaning of public action with a view to reform it.

    Since 2008, the IRG has been organising the parallel scrutiny of evaluation processes across Latin America and Africa in order to promote an exchange of experiences between those two regions:

    - in Latin America, a series of studies in Colombia and in Mexico and a regional seminar (Bogota 2008) allowed the construction of an analysis model to be put into place in 2009 in two national case studies;
    - in Africa, ongoing research and support for the debates concerning the APRM:
    - 2008 Paris round-table and a APRM-West African seminar (2009) Ongoing : compilation of experiences and analysis around the political challenges of the APRM

    The IRG is involved as well in discussion forums addressing new evaluation practices (European Union, UNPD, Epargne sans frontières, etc.)

    Leading project partners : UNPD, MAEE, MAEP, Congreso Visible, Universidad de los Andes, Ambassade de France à Bogota, IFEA, BID, WBI, Poder Ciudadano, ECDPM, SAIIA, ESF.

    Coordinator : Martin Vielajus (martin.vielajus@institut-gouvernance)


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