*** ----> Developing Bahrain government services through innovation | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN

Developing Bahrain government services through innovation

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

The Institute of Public Administration (BIPA) seeks to implement the ambitious government vision of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, to employ innovation as a key approach in all his plans and programmes.

This was according to BIPA Director General Dr Raed Mohammed bin Shams.

It is in line with the directions of developing work in the Kingdom of Bahrain in making innovation a permanent government culture that raises the competitiveness of the government sector and contributes to achieving national aspirations and visions.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Kingdom was cooperated with to enhance the structure of the “National Government Leadership Development Program”, aiming at including innovation as a key component in its various programmes, and in proportion to each segment of the participants in the programme.

 Dr Bin Shams praised the constructive and fruitful cooperation between the Institute and UNDP, pointing out that BIPA is seeking today to promote innovation among Bahraini government leaders and raise their ability to come up with innovative initiatives that serve public sector projects and raise the efficiency of government services.

He added that the process of developing the model took into account the different functional levels in government institutions, where innovation was employed in all six programmes in the national programme model, namely: “Taasees”, “Benaa”, “Takween”, “Qiyadat” and “Qiyadat Ulya”, in such a way that new staff and even senior leadership can use innovation tools in line with the nature of the work and administrative responsibilities.

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UNDP Resident Representative Stefano Pettinato said: “We at UNDP are pleased to be part of this initiative, which comes as a component of a broader collaboration to promote innovation in public administration.

Through this mission we seek to support BIPA, and all government institutions that make use of BIPA’s training services, in integrating innovation techniques, tools and criteria to execute an enhanced curriculum of the National Government Leadership Development Programme.”

The expectation is that this will lead to a more widespread culture of innovation within the Bahraini public administration.

Innovation is needed now more than at any time in the past, to accelerate productivity, reduce costs, and improve quality of services, while facing a reality of emerging challenges and increased demands by citizens, expecting state-of-the-art government services.

 Dr Bin Shams explained that in programme “Taasees” course, the Institute will work to raise the awareness of the public employee about the importance of innovation in institutional work through simple educational and training doses, so that the concepts of innovation in the new employee are strengthened and become linked to the mentality and style of work.

The programme “Benaa” will focus on introducing the employee to the culture of innovation in depth.