AAPAM AWARDS

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Enhancing Professionalization of Human Resource Management in the Public Sector in Africa: Establishment of the Africa Public Sector Human Resource Managers’ Network (APS-HRMnet)

1:         Background and Rationale
The quality of human resources is critical to the development of any country. Whether it is in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals as agreed during the United Nations Millennium Summit, or other intergovernmental commitments such as the Plan of Action for Sustainable Development as set at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, or regional commitments such as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the various development strategies formulated at every country level, it is imperative that the translation of such aspirations into tangible results be place in the hands of capable human resources. Global, regional and national commitments to sustainable development and poverty reduction need human capacities in the Public Sector to transform these commitments into results. The knowledge, know-how and skills, networks and attitudes of personnel in the Public Sector are at the heart of the performance of countries because it is through them and by them that services are planned and delivered, critical innovations conceived and realized and needed reforms carried out.
Therefore, Public Sector human resource managers occupy a strategic position in the development of a country. However, in many African countries, it has been found out that this strategic position is not recognized in the formulation of strategies and human resource managers in the public sector may not be professionally tuned to the critical role they should play. “While many governments have professional, and sometimes very prestigious, cadres or corps in some areas, with members who include graduates of elite academies…….the human resource management function is commonly discharged by generalist administrators, often coming under an administrative cadre, corps or similar structures, playing  a restricted, bureaucratic and reactive role, confined by and large to routine decisions about staff entitlement to pay increments and the like, very many of which could be “read” off the administrative regulations governing staff behavior ….. with  little or no real input into strategic decisions about staff management, let alone decisions on how to achieve the overall core objectives of government”