NISPAcee Executive Director’s Visit to Astana

Ludmila Gajdosova, NISPAcee Executive Director

The NISPAcee Executive Director, Ludmila Gajdosova, visited Astana after receiving an invitation from the Academy of Public Administration under the President of Kazakhstan on September 24-25, 2014.

The primary purpose of the visit was the preparation of the NISPAcee 2015 Regional Conference which will be organised, in collaboration with the Academy, on September 24-25, 2015. Ms. Gajdosova met with the Rector of the Academy, Bolatbek Abrassilov, and with the members of the conference organising Committee led by Sholpan Esimova, the Vice-Rector of the Academy. Edward Zakharchenko, key expert of the EU project ‘CIVIL SERVICE REFORM AND MODERNISATION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF KAZAKHSTAN’ also participated in the meetings in order to support the Academy in its efforts to prepare a high-level quality conference.

Ms. Gajdosova also met with the team of the EU project. They discussed the various opportunities to utilise NISPAcee’s capacities in Kazakhstan and agreed that both NISPAcee’s experience and knowledge would be very relevant for the country in possible future projects implemented by the project team.

The next meeting was held with the Deputy Director of the Civil Service Agency and Anticorruption Mr. Akhmetzhanov, who confirmed the interest and support of the Agency to the planned conference. He also confirmed their interest in NISPAcee’s experience regarding the ongoing civil service reform in Kazakhstan.

 

Meeting with Sayan Akhmetzhanov (on the left), the Deputy Director of the Civil Service Agency and Anticorruption

 

Kazakhstan leaders are aware of the need for international cooperation and sharing knowledge and experience in selected Asian and CIS countries, and also learning from Central and Eastern Europe and "Western" countries. In direct relation to this, the Regional Hub of the Civil Service in Astana was established under the initiative of the Government of Kazakhstan and UNDP in March 2013. The mission of the Hub is to contribute to the development of effective systems of civil service in the region. Ms. Gajdosova met with the Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Hub, Mr. Baimenov, and other representatives of the Hub and UNDP. They discussed the relevance of NISPAcee’s experience to the Hub and the region. Based on the meeting, the representatives of the Hub confirmed a firm interest in the collaboration with NISPAcee and in signing aMemorandum of Understanding which would create an official framework for concrete activities. These could include joint research projects and support of the NISPAcee Regional Conference in 2015 in Astana and the continuation of this activity in other countries of the region over the next years.

Ms. Gajdošová also visited several universities and programmes relevant to NISPAcee. She spoke with representatives of programmes and informed them about NISPAcee’s activities and opportunities. They all confirmed the need to collaborate with NISPAcee, mainly in terms of international contacts and cooperation, student programmes, foreign experts, research and publications. Based on the information received during the visit, it is obvious that there are many public administration programmes in the country which could benefit from collaboration with NISPAcee and for which NISPAcee can be avaluable resource of expertise and quality improvement. Therefore, the decision made by NISPAcee to be more actively present in this region seems to be very actual and timely.