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Background
Throughout the two decades of conflict,
the South Kordofan Region has been a
contested zone between the Government
of Sudan (GoS) and the Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). The
signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement
(CPA) provided a new opportunity to
recover the basic social and economic
assets and for the reintegration of
the increasing flow of returnees into
the region, and marked a clear transition
from war and insecurity to peace and
stability. system of governance in the
recently established South Kordofan
state, constituted a milestone in the
promotion of good governance and rule
of law. The power-sharing government
was established in April 2006 comprising
22 establishments, including the Office
of the Governor, the Legislative Council,
the Auditor General, 10 line Ministries
and 9 Localities. In December 2006,
the state Government approved the state
Constitution, thus contributing to enhancing
the process of democratization and decentralization
in the state. This year, the Governorship
of South Kordofan passed smoothly from
SPLM to the National Congress Party
in 2007 as stipulated in the CPA.
The planned merger of the two governance
systems, as determined in the CPA, has
been facing several challenges due to
limited capacities and a lack of the
necessary technical expertise to support
effective governance and service delivery
in the state. Most institutions have
limited financial and human resources
and capacities and are unable to manage
an effective public administration to
support the devolution of power, as
stipulated in the CPA. In general, the
decentralization and democratization
process in South Kordofan state faces
other difficulties related to the integration
of different structures and weak operational
and technical capacity within the civil
service, and the continued limited capacities
of civil society organizations (CSOs)
and traditional institutions to engage
in meaningful dialogue with the government
and effectively participate in service
delivery.
In an attempt to foster democratic governance
in South Kordofan state, in January
2006, UNDP launched the Local Governance
Capacity Building project, with the
support of the UK’s Department
for International Development and the
Netherlands.
Objectives
The Local Governance Capacity Building
project in South Kordofan is a five-year
initiative that aims to contribute to
the establishment of effective state
and local governance structures which
are transparent, accountable, accessible,
efficient, representative and sustainable.
The specific objectives are:
• Develop and strengthen the
human resources capacity of governance
institutions at all levels in the
state;
• Develop and strengthen effective
and elaborated working systems, structures
and procedures of governance institutions
with an emphasis on results based
management
• Strengthen the legal and institutional
framework for effective decentralization
and empowerment of local government
Snapshots of the project's major achievements
• The project conducted institutional
capacity assessments of Government organizations
and CSOs. These assessments enhanced
the knowledge of programme staff enabling
them to identify governance capacity
gaps and design appropriate programme
responses. Furthermore, the assessments
greatly helped the establishment of
good working relationships with personnel
in government organisations and CSOs.
Assessments included Institutional Capacity
Assessment of Line Ministries (May 2006);
Review of South Kordofan Administrative
and Civil Service Structures and Wage
Bill (June 2006); Locality Governance
Capacity Assessment (October 2006).
• Implemented extensive training
programmes through which the operational,
managerial and technical knowledge and
skills of 218 Government officials and
CSO leaders were enhanced.
• Organized a state level civil
service reform and a good governance
conference, at which more than 100 civil
servants drawn from the State and Federal
Government participated. The conference
provided opportunities for sharing civil
service reform issues and challenges
and came up with practical suggestions
to the state regarding civil service
reform issues.
• The project staff organized
a learning mission for high-level state
government officials in South Africa
from September 5-12, 2006. The mission
was led by the Wali (Governor) of the
State and 9 high-level officials who
participated in the event. The learning
mission exposed South Kordofan officials
to: (i) innovative ways of system thinking
to develop a vision and a long term
strategy/agenda for development; (ii)
public sector process engineering and
management for optimization of service
delivery in a devolved context; (iii)
transformational leadership and change
management models to strengthen leadership
and political commitment in a decentralized
context; and (iv) inter-governmental
fiscal relations and fiscal decentralization.
• In collaboration with the State
Government, a modern training centre
is being constructed. The State Government
has allocated 12,000 metres of land
for the construction of the centre.
UNDP has finalized the design and a
bidding process is currently underway
for the construction activity. The training
centre will cater for local level capacity
building activities for government,
CSOs and the private sector and for
neighbouring states.
• The project has recruited and
seconded one national civil service
reform advisor to the Government of
South Kordofan. The technical advisor
supported the Government in initiating
civil service reform programmes through
the establishment of the Civil Service
Reform Committee in the Ministry of
Local Government and Civil Service.
The Committee has developed its action
plans for comprehensive civil service
reform in the State.
• An international English language
trainer has been recruited and seconded
to the government and 52 senior government
officials are undergoing special purpose
English language training. Both the
national and international experts have
supported the improvement of work related
skills in government institutions.
• Trained 145 civil servants,
(including 42 from Kadugli Locality,
60 from Selam Locality and 43 newly-recruited
Administrative Officers, of whom 42
were women), in ‘Principles and
Processes of Fiscal Decentralization,
Local Government Financial Management
and Strategic Planning’.
• Trained 115 civil servants at
key policy and decision-making levels
on Strategic Planning.
• Funded the training of 85 civil
servants in English language training.
• In supporting the strategic
thinking and leadership ability of the
political leadership of the State, the
project supported the participation
of the Governor of South Kordofan in
a learning mission to the Philippines.
• Established a State level CSO
umbrella body with a leadership composed
of 13 CSO umbrella body leaders (12
male and 1 female) in strategic and
operational planning.
• Developed Public Policy Formulation,
Implementation, Gender Analysis, Change
Management, Problem Solving and Decision-Making
training modules, which are used for
training civil servants.
• The project completed a rapid
capacity assessment of the traditional
governance institutions and proposed
capacity building interventions. The
needs assessment identified the capacity
gaps and developed a training module
on the role and function of government
and government institutions; modern
versus customary laws; conflict management;
conflict mediation; negotiation; problem
solving and decision making and effective
community leadership.
• Upon request from the State
Government, facilitated discussions
which led to the initiation of improvements
to the State Five-year Strategic Plan
for both the State and sectors.
• Established a State Level Strategic
Planning Macro Task Force consisting
of 13 members and chaired by the Director
General of the Ministry of Economy and
Investment. The Macro Task Force conducted
five regular meetings with actionable
recommendations.
• Established ten Sector Task
Forces at the sector level consisting
of 110 members and conducted in-house
strategic planning training for each
Task Force.
• Provided technical and financial
support for the establishment of the
South Kordofan CSO. The Forum is a registered
organization with 150 members that aims
to strengthen the participation of CSOs
in governance and service delivery.
• The Forum leadership was provided
with technical training in strategic
planning, effective networking and management.
Supported the production of a three-year
strategic plan that will guide the formative
stages of the Forum.
• Developed the Gender Audit tool
and conducted an audit in 9 line ministries.
• A total of 134 (79 (59%) male
and 55 (41%) female) civil servants
participated in the gender audit by
completing the gender audit questionnaire.
• Developed, packaged and translated
into Arabic a Gender training reference
manual and distributed it to the gender
task force members.
• Supported the training of 50
gender task force members (32 female
and 18 male) in participatory training
techniques.
• Supported the training of 35
senior government officials (34 male
and 1 female) in public policy formulation,
implementation and evaluation.
• Developed a Governance capacity
development training impact assessment
tool, which was discussed and translated
into the Arabic language.
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