Better performance by govt servants can gear up BD\\\'s growth: Experts

Better performance by the civil servants could play an important role in gearing up the country's growth, said experts Saturday at a workshop held at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in the capital.  
They said there should be a specific goal for the bureaucrats in discharging their duties and responsibilities in a better way for the welfare of the people.
They also underscored the need for coordinated efforts, maintaining chain of command and accountability in the bureaucratic domain to properly implement the government's development projects.
They said government's performance management system should be developed as a mechanism for realising the project policy properly. They said without the effective follow-up of the project-policy implementation there could be no satisfactory outcome.
Their observations came at the workshop titled "Designing and Implementing Government Performance Management Systems" that began on November 12.
The Cabinet Division of the Government of Bangladesh and the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) of BRAC University with the support of the World Bank jointly organised the event.
The core objective of the brainstorming session was to develop the skills of the bureaucrats as to how best they could serve people by carrying out their responsibilities and implementing the projects by applying the developed government performance management system.  
Cabinet Secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan presided over the event on the concluding day while the Secretary in Charge (Coordination and Reforms) of the Cabinet Division Md Nazrul Islam delivered the address of welcome. Executive Director of BIGD of BRAC University Dr Sultan Hafeez Rahman also spoke on the occasion.
Speaking as the chief guest Foreign Affairs Adviser to the Prime Minister Dr Gowher Rizvi said, "If we want to reach the target of our growth, then we have to perform better. We achieved more than six per cent growth over the last few years thanks to our good performance".
Relating to professionalism, he said there should be a goal to enhance the performance of the bureaucrats. He underscored the need for creating an environment that will enable them to play a role for better performance.
He expressed the hope that the workshop, as an effective tool, would help ensure accountability and better performance of the government officials. He thanked the Cabinet Division for arranging such a workshop.
Cabinet Secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said the performance of the government officers would be improved if a performance management system can be introduced.  
He stressed the need for cooperation from all the government officers in introducing a successful performance management system in Bangladesh.
Former secretary of the Performance Management Division (PMD) of the Government of India Dr Prajapti Trivedi shared his country's experiences with the Bangladesh bureaucrats citing examples of the countries which follow the government performance management systems. He praised the role of government policymakers and high-ups for their sincerity in establishing the accountability and good governance in the bureaucratic realm.
Earlier, a book titled "The Proceedings of the Global Roundtable on Government Performance Management" was released by Muhammad Musharraf Hussain Bhuiyan on the inaugural day of the workshop.
The publication summarises the best global practices in Government Performance Management (GPM) by comparing and contrasting practices from several countries with the Indian system.  
It was the outcome of a 'Global Roundtable on Government Performance Management' organised by the Performance Management Division (PMD) of the Government of India in collaboration with the Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE) in December 2013.
The roundtable was a dialogue among experts and decision-makers from across the world. It was designed to draw lessons for improving government performance management and practices in India.   

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