Abdul-Rahman Dhaiban: “We work hard to meet the managerial needs of the government bureaucracy.” [Archives:1999/15/Interview]
April 12 1999
One of the major bottlenecks of Yemen’s development process has been the inefficiency of the bureaucracy of the state. As many local and international assessment reports indicate, management has never been a Yemeni strong point. As a result, the Government in cooperation with the World Bank and the IMF, is now launching a comprehensive administrative reform.
The only body responsible for manpower training in the public sector is the National Institute for Administrative Sciences (NIAS). Headquartered in Sanaa, it has various branches and offers many training courses in management skills at different levels of the bureaucracy. It also offers training to the management support staff such as secretarial services.
Abdul-Rahman, 49, is married. He has four boys and one girl.
Khairiyah Al-Shabibi talked to him and filed the following interview.
Q: Could you give us some background on the Institute?
A: The Institute was founded in 1963 under the name of the Institute of Public Administration and Secretariat. In 1974 it was renamed as the National Institute for Public Administration. After reunification of the country in May 1990, the two counterparts institutes in Northern and Southern governorates were merged into one institute under its present name – National Institute for Administrative Sciences (NIAS). Its duties and responsibilities are specified under a republican decree issued in 1991.
Q: What exactly are these duties and responsibilities?
A: Basically, NIAS functions as a house of expertise and consultation for the government apparatus in the field of administration. It works to improve the overall system of management and administration of the government bodies. Thus, its duties are to help upgrade government personnel through training and re-training.
We also accept enrollment of non-government personnel in our programs as we believe we need to help up-grade the whole system in the country.
Q: What are the main training programs?
A: The Institute has many long, medium and short term programs. I would like to outline some of them.
1- A one-year qualifying program to obtain post college high diploma in Administrative Sciences.
2- A two-year qualifying program to obtain post secondary school intermediate diploma in the following areas:
– Computer Sciences;
– Accounting;
– Management;
– Library Skills.
3- Short term intensive training programs in different administrative skills.
4- Special tailor-made training programs designed according to the need and requirements of the requesting authorities.
5- Organized seminars, meetings and workshops to equip personnel with the latest administrative techniques.
6- Carry out specific research work to address certain problems of the system, in order to find solutions.
7- Provide consultation on issues related to management.
Q: Do you have permanent staff or how do you work?
A: NIAS has a core group of specialized experts. At the same time, we enlist the services of experts from other local and international organizations. For example, we contract university professors for the execution of certain programs.
Q: How many branches do you have?
A: NIAS has five branches, one each in the following cities – Aden, Taiz, Hodeidah, Ibb, Mukalla. Of course, these are in addition to the NIAS headquarters in Sanaa.
Q: How many trainees are enrolled in your programs. For example, how many are there today?
A: The number of trainees enrolled varies depending on how many courses are executed at any particular time. Sometimes, it is in the thousands, and sometimes it is in the hundreds.
At this time, the total number of trainees in our programs are as follows:
Sanaa:
Aden:
Taiz:
Ibb:
Hodeidah:
Mukalla:
These trainees come mainly from the civil service – government bureaucracy. But there are also many who are employed in public and mixed-ownership corporations, private companies, as well as job-seekers.
Q: Does the institute provide any hands-on-the-job training?
A: The studies offered by the institute are many and different, and they are as practical as they can be. We do have a limited hands-on-the-job programs, but mostly, management is a theoretical concept.
Besides, most of the experts and trainers have an extensive and long experience in the fields of their responsibilities.
We are now pushing for arrangements to assign our interns and training for work in various establishments. This is part of our future plan.
Q: Do the students engage in any projects?
A: There are many projects and studies carried out by the students enrolled in the post college diploma program. These studies are administered and supervised by able staff. There are also studies carried out by the trainers in their various areas to meet the needs of certain administrative units. Often the institute organizes meetings, seminars and workshops in which some of these studies are discussed.
Q: How satisfied are government departments and the public sector with your work?
A: Our relationship with the government bodies is good. We faithfully seek to meet their needs. We do surveys to identify these needs and then discuss possible programs with them.
Recently, the institute held five meetings devoted to the issue of administration development in which the main focus was how to better serve the government bodies. We look forward to further such steps.
Q: How about your relations with the private sector?
A: In the past, this relationship was rather restricted and small. The institute directed its activities and services in a focused way to the public sector and the state’s different institutions.
Lately, we have opened up communication channels with some companies in the private sector and executed some training programs for them. We are committed to doing our best to promote this relationship.
Q: Do you have cooperation relations with counterparts in foreign countries?
A: Yes we do. We have signed more than 20 cooperation agreements with institutes in the Arab world, Europe and the USA. We are now working on ways and means to activate these agreements.
Q: In spite of your efforts, the government bureaucracy continues to show signs of inefficiency and carelessness. How do you explain that?
A: Our job is to equip people with the necessary managerial skills to be used in their careers. How they use, or whether they use them at all, is a matter of the individual’s values.
In addition, management is something that changes a lot. A concept and approach that is useful in a certain context, may be rendered useless with time, and in other contexts.
Finally, management works within a whole system. Unless there is a healthy environment, it is hard for any skills to succeed.
Q: What are your future plans?
A: The main future plan of the institute can be briefed in the following:
– To diversify our training programs so as to respond to the changing market needs and to meet the requirements of the administrative and financial reform effort.
– To expand the institute’s activities by opening new branches.
– To up-grade training methods and tools by constantly bringing-in modern technology. We are also pushing for more hands-on-the-job training.
– To improve skills and abilities of our staff to focus on concepts of transparency & accountability.
– To set up specialized units at the headquarter and branch offices which will focus on issues of local administration and rural development.
– To further expand the institute’s foreign relations with counterpart institutes.
– To look for local and foreign sources of support and finance to enable the institute to carry out its massage satisfactorially.
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