IASIA IASIA Annual Conference, 30 June to 4 July 2014, Port Elizabeth (South Africa) - COMING UP The International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration is organizing, in collaboration with Nelson Mandela University, its next conference in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, from 30 June to 4 July 2014 on the theme Good Governance: the position of Students, Scholars and Practitioners. The venue, the provisional programme, the call for papers and any other information will be communicated in due course on the IASIA website.
We look forward to welcoming you in South Africa! Contacts : For any information on the scientific content: Bardhyl Dobra, IASIA Executive Secretary, b.dobra@iias-iisa.org. For any information on the logistics: Anne de Boeck, IIAS Executive Secretary and Events Officer, a.deboeck@iias-IIAS.org n
Joint Working International Group IASIA-DESA on «The Human Capital in Service of Territorial Development”, 1-4 October 2013, Rabat (Morocco) - RETROSPECTIVE From October 1st to 4th, the fourth congress of United Cities and Local Government (UCLG) was held in Rabat, Morocco. As an adjunct to the congress proper, the Direction of Training of Administrative and Technical Executives from the Ministry of Interior organized a side-event on the theme of“The Human Capital in Service of Territorial Development». Within this framework, Mr. Steve Troupin, strategic projects officer at IIAS, was invited to present the work of the IASIA-UNDESA Taskforce on Strengthening Public Administration and Leadership at Local Level for the Achievement of Development Agendas. The Taskforce is a joint initiative of the International Association of Institutes and Schools of Administration and of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Na-
tions. Initiated in 2011, the Taskforce aims to create capacity in local government, in order to attain Millenium Development Goals. Within this framework, the Taskforce is currently developing a publication project, analyzing the demand for training, flowing from decentralization policies, in local governments all over the world, comparing it with the available training supply, and formulating recommendations to adapt supply to demand. In this way, IIAS was able to contribute to the success of the UCLG Congress and related side-events, and to local governance in general. n
PUBLICATIONS Training for Leadership Edited by Geert Bouckaert and Michiel S. de Vries Collection: Administration publique aujourd’hui Editor: Bruylant This book addresses training for leadership in the second decade of the 21st century. If the need for training for leadership is recognized as urgent, we need to ask whether training institutes are doing the right things and we also need to question the effectiveness of training institutions. This book calls for serious and critical reflection on the way in which we conceptualize training for leadership in the second decade of the 21st century. The various chapters reflect the ideas, theories and practices that are dominant today. The thread of the contents shows that something is amiss in such training. In general it does not have the expected effect and it often does not address the needs of recipients. The implication is that training for leadership in the future has to be redefined, taking into account the specific contingencies, problems and complexities that leaders – especially in developing countries – Newsletter 4 Autumn 2013
have to deal with. Leadership cannot be seen as an isolated factor. The different chapters in this book argue that training for effective leadership and good governance practices needs to be combined. All ask for leadership that is less hierarchical and more interactive and collaborative, and that also takes stakeholders outside the public sector seriously. This has serious implications for how leadership training is organized; the different chapters in this volume address this issue from a theoretical as well as from an empirical point of view: developments in theory of leadership, styles of public sector leadership, leadership in turbulent times and the importance of contingences on leadership in changing times. To order the book: http://fr.bruylant.larciergroup.com/ titres/131159_0_0/training-for-leadership. html n
LAGPA Annual Conference of LAGPA and the National Section of the INAP, 24-30 October 2013, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) RETROSPECTIVE Third Plenary session of the LatinAmerican Group for Public Administration (LAGPA). The LAGPA organised its third plenary session from October 23 to 25 at the headquarters of the Fondation Getulio Vargas, in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) The co-ordinator of LAGPA, M. José R. Castelazo, presided, and 30 experts from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru were able to meet. The President of IASIA, Prof. Michiel de Vries and the Director General of the IIAS, Mr Rolet Loretan, were also invited to participate in the debates which centered essentially on the question of the creation of a Latin-American Observatory for Public Administration. At the end of these debates, it was unanimously decided to create such an Observatory and to base it in Mexico City. Incidentally, a new LAGPA co-ordinator in the person of Prof. Bianor Cavalcanti (FGV, Brazil) was designated, succeeding Mr José Castelazo, who has been Coordinator of LAGPA since its inception in 2010. During this meeting, Mr Rolet Loretan, Director General of the IIAS, and the President of INAP Mexico, Mr José Castelazo, signed an MoU governing the resumption of the translation into Spanish and publication of the RISA by INAP Mexico, retroactive from the September 2013 issue. n