The UNITAR Hiroshima Training Programme on Public Financial Management is designed to support provincial and central Chief Financial Directors to strengthen Public Financial Administration at the subnational level. It provides participants with a peer-to-peer exchange with national and prefectural government counterparts and to learn about best practices within Japan and in particular the Hiroshima Prefecture.

The programme addresses Public Financial Management, Budget Planning Models, and Revenue Management Best Practices, with an emphasis on improving Customs and Taxation competencies. It also covers, inter alia, the Organizational Needs Assessment process, Action Plan Development, and Public Sector Leadership Fundamentals.

By the end of the training programme participants will be able to:

• Demonstrate enhanced understanding of government revenue and management systems
• Employ strategies to target corruption
• Translate political priorities into implementable activities
• Describe procedures for effective budget planning
• Assess organisational needs
• Design and implement action plans
• Illustrate processes to manage conflicts
• Demonstrate skills fundamentally important to leadership

The training programme is based on a blended-learning participatory approach and includes:

Interactive Lectures and Group Exercises

Interactive lectures are facilitated by key Resource Persons who examine the themes of the Workshop from a broad theoretical perspective down to case studies examining real world implementation. These presentations are augmented by small group exercises and frequent discussions from the floor, which serve to contextualise the issues being examined.

After-Action Reviews

Representing a key component of the Workshop, after-action reviews takes place within groups at the start of each morning, discussing the main issues raised in the previous presentations, as well as the specific frames of reference as applied to these by participants.

Personal Profile Questionnaires

The DiSC Personality Profile test, a behaviour assessment tool, allows participants to understand more closely their own emotions and motivating factors. This also gives insight into members of their team, and what motivates them, and can improve work productivity, teamwork and communication.

Study Tours

Underscoring the theoretical introductions and analysis presented, study tours form an integral part of the training methodologies utilised by UNITAR. Participants are able to relate to what has been seen and discussed in the training programme with actual examples of policy development and implementation.

Training the Trainer

A focus is made throughout the training sessions to relate the learning being facilitated to the realities on the ground. In addition, each participant is empowered to recreate the training upon their return to their organisation in order to achieve a self-propagating legacy of skills development.