BY ALLAN KISIA
Murang’a county has been shortlisted for the prestigious Innovative Management Award, 2024.
The county has been recognised for its Kang’ata Care and Murang’a Youth Service projects.
The county provides free medical care to 20,000 vulnerable households through the Kang’ata Care project.
The second project is an initiative to empower young people across the county with short-term, two months of paid community service, after which they will be enrolled at Technical, Vocational Education and Training colleges for training.
Others in the shortlist are National Health Insurance Management Authority (Zambia), Tanzania’s Ministry of Finance, Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Registrar General’s Department (Mauritius), Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (Uganda) and Ghana’s Code Club Academy, among others.
The award, by the African Association for Public Administration and Management, seeks to promote and recognise innovations that improve performance in the public sector within the continent.
“The purpose of AAPAM-IMA is to contribute to the innovative development of public administration and management practices in Africa through the effective realisation of the African aspirations for the ‘Africa We Want’ as set in the African Agenda 2063 and transform our world with goals determined in the Global Agenda 2030, ‘Transformation of Our World’,” the authority said.
The competition will be held during the 43rd Roundtable Conference in Kampala, Uganda from November 26-29.
The award programme is designed to encourage creativity and innovation in public sector institutions, organisations and ministries at national and local levels.
The award also seeks to facilitate the transfer of innovations and best practices, including digital transformation, as a way of improving the quality of public administration and management in Africa.
Further, it strives to encourage and promote the culture of innovation in public sector governance and service delivery through Information and Communication Technologies.
The award provides a platform for advocacy for innovation and digital transformation, to enhance the delivery of public services and performance of public sector institutions.
Founded over 40 years ago, AAPAM has led efforts to strengthen the administrative and management capacities of African public administration systems.
These efforts date back to 1962, when a group of Permanent Secretaries in charge of public services from several African countries, met to discuss two main problems, among others, facing the continent’s public services then.
In 1971, this network of Heads of Civil Service decided to formalise their assembly, giving birth to AAPAM.