SAARC lawmakers' workshop begins in New Delhi

New Delhi, Mar 30 (ANI): A two-day workshop on Government Performance Management for senior lawmakers of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries began in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar inaugurated the programme, which is being attended by SAARC Secretary General Sheel Kant Sharma and senior officials of India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The workshop faculty consists of a mix of practitioners and academicians, including Member, Planning Commission, Arun Maira, Prof. Raghuram and Prof. Pangotra of IIM Ahmedabad.

Among the senior government officials, Secretary Performance Management, Cabinet Secretariat and Joint Secretaries in the Ministry of Power and Rural Development are participating along with senior representatives of the National Informatics Centre.

The workshop aims to share the knowledge and experience on Government Performance Management practices in SAARC countries.

It has been reported that the brain storming session will focus on building mechanisms towards effective, efficient and transparent governance.

It will also seek to provide an overview of international trends in public sector management and tools and techniques for implementing a results-based management framework in governments of SAARC countries.

The workshop is also expected to explore institutional arrangements for the sharing of the best practices in Government Performance Management across SAARC countries on an on-going basis. The SAARC Workshop on Government Performance Management is being organized by India in response to a decision taken at a meeting of Cabinet Secretaries of SAARC Countries in November 2009.

It is the result of considerable interest shown on India's swift implementation of a sophisticated Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System for Government departments.

Origins of India's widely acclaimed Government Performance Management system can be traced to the announcement made in the President's address to both Houses of the Parliament on June 4, 2009.

Pursuant to this announcement, the Prime Minister approved the outline of the Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES) for Government Departments on September 11, 2009. The essence of the PMES is as follows: At the beginning of each financial year, with the approval of the Minister concerned, each Department prepares a Results-Framework Document (RFD) consisting of the priorities set out by the Ministry concerned and the Minister in-charge decides the inter-se priority among the departmental objectives.

In order to achieve results commensurate with the priorities listed in the Results-Framework Document, the Minister in-charge approves the proposed activities and schemes for the Ministry/Department. The Ministers in charge also approve the corresponding success indicators (Key Result Areas- KRAS or Key Performance Indicators-KPIs) and time bound targets to measure progress in achieving these objectives.

The deliberations over the next two days are expected to go a long way in learning about the best practices and the experiences in the Government Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Systems for the benefit of SAARC member countries towards an effective, efficient and transparent governance.(ANI)