HOW TO BE A BETTER POLICY ADVISOR, Georgia 2005

Centre for Training and Consultancy (CTC) responds to the challenge of human capital development in public sector by number of ways. As a part of this response CTC in partnership with NISPAcee implemented two consecutive training courses in “How to Be a Better Policy Advisor” on December 16-18, 2005 and December 19-21, 2005 in Likani, Georgia. Trainings were supported by OSCE Mission in Georgia.

The trainings were led by two experienced NISPAcee trainers – Mr. Alfredas Chmieliauskas, Lithuania and Mr. Gyorgy Gajduschek, Hungary.

This course is intended to provide public officials and academics with knowledge and skills, necessary for working in public sector environment and also to bridge a gap between them for further extensive cooperation.

Trainings were aimed to attain following goals:

- To train public servants of leading public institutions and number of recognized academicians in policy advising skills;

- To provide Georgian public policy advisors / potential advisors from different field of public administration with opportunity to create their professional network.

- To make this course available at local market, as CTC intends to incorporate training in policy advising and policy counseling in its core curriculum and provide on a regular bases;

Participants of the trainings were public servants and academicians working in the field of policy advising.

Training sessions were designed in very interactive manner, so participants were able to practice policy advising methods simultaneously.

Generally speaking, trainings held in Likani were a big success. Participants selected for the trainings were highly motivated to learn new approaches to policy advising and their motivation even went higher during the training, as they were given an opportunity to demonstrate their skills and to compete with each other.

The great benefit from these trainings was also the fact that they get introduced with each other and was create a basis for mutual cooperation between academicians and public servants.

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Feedbacks from participants:

Valeri Tkeshelashvili - Chief Consultant, Executive Secretariat of the President of Georgia

Simulating real life policy problems together with people from different governmental organizations and NGOs was very helpful experience for me. In my opinion, policy advisors should be the most valuable resource for any decision-maker, especially in Georgia and this training did a lot to raise necessary skills among our public servants.

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Maka Mdivani - Adviser of the State Minister on Reforms Coordination in Georgia

I want to thank NISPAcee and CTC for the excellent training. I have attended much training over the years and this was one of the best!

I would recommend this training to anyone who works as a policy adviser.

With Gratitude for a very useful and beautiful 3 days.

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Catherine Varshalomidze - Advisor to the chair of the Adjara Autonomic Republic, Georgia

The training course “How to be a Better Policy Advisor” was very useful for me, for my future advisory work, as it contained the both theoretical and practical issues concerning the policy advising. The most important and interesting things discussed during the training course were topics concerning the Policy Cycle and skills of a good advisor. I am sure the experience acquired during the course will help me to identify which skills should I make more complete and perfect in myself and strongly contribute to the improvement of my advisory work and own development as a better advisor.

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Participants

December 16 – 18, 2005

Nata Kasradze

Shorena Khatchapuridze

Lela Khomeriki

Nana Dgebuadze

Sophia Chakvetadze

Levan Kvatchadze

Mari Bughadze

Eka Gabadadze

Maka Mdivani