GOVERNMENT HOSTS FIRST CARICAD/CLAD MINISTERIAL SYMPOSIUM ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Caribbean Public Service Charter to be developed

MEDIA RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

8 July, 2015

 

GOVERNMENT HOSTS FIRST CARICAD/CLAD MINISTERIAL SYMPOSIUM ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Caribbean Public Service Charter to be developed

 

CARICOM and Latin American Government Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and senior officials attended the first CARICAD/CLAD Ministerial Symposium on Public Administration held at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre on July 16-17, 2015. CARICAD (Caribbean Centre for Development Administration) and CLAD (Latin American Centre for Development Administration) (CLAD) are both inter-governmental organisations specialising in Public Sector modernisation. The symposium was their first joint activity and sought to promote solidarity among regional and international public service managers in developing more effective citizen-centric institutions.

Among the topics discussed by participants were the Caribbean Public Service – Progress and Challenges, the Ibero-American Public Function Charter and Recommendations for the Formulation and Implementation of a Caribbean Public Service Charter.

Emphasizing the need to “create an enabling and supportive environment” which will sustain both the Caribbean and the Iberian-American Charters, Minister of Public Administration, the Honourable Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan noted that “it was important to ensure these ideas, practices, measures and mechanisms do not pass into nothingness,” and stressed that it is important for any Charter “to make sense to us and to others.”

Minister Seepersad-Bachan said, “CLAD has provided an excellent starting point for CARICOM for the development of a framework that will allow us to lay this foundation very quickly without reinventing the wheel. This CARICAD-CLAD symposium convincingly demonstrates the power of collaboration, since it provides us the opportunity to apply the lessons learned from the IberoAmerican Public Service Charter in a way that will enable the Caribbean Public Service Charter to leapfrog CARICAD Public Administration firmly into the twenty-first century.”

A working Committee of Permanent Secretaries has been formed and are committed to completing the Caribbean Public Service Charter for submission to CARICOM by October 2015.