As the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria (ASCON) nears its 50th anniversary, the Director-General, Mrs Cecilia Gayya, says it has contributed immensely to human capacity building on the African continent.
Gayya said in Badagry, Lagos State that the college, which would clock 50 in 2023, had made impact beyond the nation’s shores in carrying out its mandate.
She said that the management development institution had helped in shaping public sector manpower in Liberia, Zimbabwe and Gambia, among other African countries.
She added that the college was also working on a new initiative with Namibia.
The director-general said that ASCON had helped in putting Liberia’s public sector back in shape after the war threw it into disarray.
She said that the college developed a relationship with Liberia Institute of Public Administration to effect the transformation.
“Because of the war that took place in Liberia, its public sector was completely in disarray.
“So, the Directorate for Technical Cooperation in Africa funded a project through ASCON to train public servants in the Liberian Institute of Public Administration, and then local government councils in the war-torn nation.
“ASCON sent a team of three staff from here to Liberia for three months to help them design programmes and things like that,’’ she said.
ASCON, according to her, also has a working relationship with The Gambia Institute of Administration, and helped to set up the Zimbabwe Institute of Public Administration.
In Namibia, Gayya said that the college was working on a symbiotic relationship with the Namibian Institute of Public Administration under a new initiative.
“The reason we started it was that the Institute was of the view that they needed staff in the area of public administration and governance, and then, I think, leadership, and we determined that we needed expertise in ICT where they are very strong.
“So, we have entered into an agreement that before the year runs out, they will send us a list of the expertise they want and we will send them the list of ICT expertise we need.
“We will then send our staff there and they will now send their staff here to work,’’ she said.
Gayya said that as a management development institute, ASCON staff must also be well trained because they cannot deliver what they don’t have.
She emphasised that training and retraining of its staff also had to be on a continuous basis, hence its collaboration with others on such needs.
“We have collaboration with the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) as well as organisations such as the African Association of Public Administration, African Management Development Institution Network and the West African Management Development Institution Network.
“We have a collaborative relationship with Directorate For Technical Cooperation in Africa (DTCA) in the foreign Affairs ministry in Abuja.
“We signed an MOU with them in February. We had an agreement with them (DTCA) which had expired. We looked at it again and signed one in February.
“Then, that of GIMPA, we started with the African Capacity Building Project, which is a Master dDgree in Public Sector Management,’’ she said.
According to her, several ASCON staff have benefited from that programme funded by the African Capacity Building Project under the African Development Bank (AfDB).
She explained that the college maintains a relationship with the Institute which is situated in Ghana and that every year, ASCON had the opportunity to send at least two or three people to undertake studies there.
“Many of our staff, who may have had a first degree, have utilised the opportunity to acquire second degrees at very little cost to us because of that relationship,’’ she said.
On her projection for ASCON in the next 10 years, she said that she looked forward to an organisation with a very strong corps of staff to deliver on its mandate of training, research and consultancy.
She also hoped for an organisation with a stable power supply to carry out its responsibilities and one that would, aside from carrying out its mandate, tap the tourism potential in its environment to generate resources for the government and its survival.
