UNITAR and IMO Organize Meeting on Training Platform for Leadership in the Public Sector

7 March 2018, London, United Kingdom – The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) organized a Task Force meeting to review the creation of a new training platform on Leadership in the Public Sector. This initiative is currently under development by UNITAR with expert input from members of an honorary Task Force comprised of senior subject-experts from academia: Emeritus Professor Michael Saks, Dr. Michael Hopkins, Mr. Michael Eldon, and Ms. Tania Hummel.

During the preliminary meeting at IMO’s headquarters in London, the Task Force came together to review the first global course that will be launched at the 2018 United Nations Public Service Forum, organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), through its Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), in collaboration with UNITAR and under the patronage of the Ministry of Administration and Civil Service of the Kingdom of Morocco. For more information, please visit: https://publicadministration.un.org/en/UNPSA2018

Attendees of the meeting at the IMO headquarter in London The session was chaired by Mr. Alex Mejia from UNITAR’s Social Development Programme and Mr. Carlos Salgado from IMO’s Latin America and Caribbean Section. To set the background for the meeting, participants were briefed on the UNITAR-DESA-IMO Portfolio and its Capacity-Building activities. The session continued with presentations about UNITAR and its training activities and about IMO’s Latin America and Caribbean activities related to Agenda 2030 and Gender Empowerment.

Participants from UNITAR presented UNITAR’s e-learning platform and the first course on Leadership in the Public-Sector. The course will be comprised of several modules, covering basic concepts of leadership, leadership in the public sector, political leadership and public policy, organizational culture in government, collaborative leadership in the Civil Service, leadership and the 2030Agenda for Sustainable Development, leadership and the fight against poverty, leadership in the Maritime Sector, and forecasting future global trends in governance and its impact on leadership. During the meeting, members of the Task Force provided feedback on the modules and gave recommendations to be implemented before deployment of this global training initiative.

As part of the meeting, representatives from IMO and UNITAR also explored enhanced collaboration between the two UN agencies related to Sustainable Development Goal 5 and gender empowerment. Through its gender and capacity-building programme, IMO seeks to strategically enhance the contribution of women as key maritime stakeholders. Participants agreed on the beneficial role UNITAR’s new course on Leadership in the Public-Sector could play towards improving the career prospective of senior female practitioners in the maritime sector. Consequently, UNITAR committed to provide support to the training of maritime women during the next meeting of the Red de Mujeres de Autoridades Marítimas de Latinoamérica (Red-MAMLa).

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