Citra, one of Sri Lanka’s first Social Innovation Labs, through a partnership with the Ministry of Public Administration and Law and Order, co-developed a training program for public officials to be conducted in three phases.
A five-day training session ‘Foresight and Innovation for Public Service Excellence’ was held in October, under phase 1.
The program was conducted in collaboration with the Presidential Secretariat, the Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration, with technical expertise from Nesta, a UK based innovation facility.
This equipped the officials with skills and tools pertaining to problem solving methods, innovation in development, integrated solutions, understanding user journey, and design-thinking strategies.
The program was tailor-made to suit the needs of the public sector to strengthen and transform it to become innovation champions. The participants represented national, provincial and district level administrators across the country.
Secretary to the President, Udaya Seneviratne said, “Learning experiences and programs, such as this will greatly benefit our Public Sector officials. We are pleased to be working with Citra and the other partners involved in this program on this initiative. We look forward to building on this program and carrying out many more interventions with Citra to further the capacity of the public sector.” Country Director of UNDP Sri Lanka, Jorn Sorensen said, “The UNDP is delighted to work with the Ministry of Public Administration and the Presidential Secretariat to co-develop and conduct the program for Public Sector officials.
We see this only as a beginning of our collaborative work with the Ministry and look forward to working with their guidance on introducing other interventions aimed at equipping these officials with the skills and tools to achieve the country’s development goals.”
These discussions took place around the challenges and opportunities faced by public officials and the sector as a whole.
In the second phase to be implemented soon, officials will design and implement a small-scale project using the skills and tools gained through the training.
In the third phase, the officials will reconvene for a two-day recap session to share their experiences and feedback. Following this pilot project, Citra is expected to continue this program in coordination with SLIDA. Citra is a joint initiative between the Ministry of Science, Technology, Research, Skills Development, Vocational Training and Kandyan Heritage, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Sri Lanka.