The 2-week Capacity Building Programme (CBP) for civil servants of Maldives was inaugurated at the NCGG campus, Mussoorie. NCGG has signed an MoU with the Government of Maldives to enhance the skills and capabilities of 1,000 civil servants in the field of public administration and governance by 2024. As part of the agreement, NCGG has already imparted training to 685 officers from Maldives. NCGG's efforts align with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, which emphasizes strengthening bilateral ties and fostering regional cooperation with neighbouring countries.

The inaugural session was presided by shri Bharat Lal, Director General, National Centre for Good Governance. Shri Bharat Lal encouraged the participating officers to actively engage and seek clarifications, urging them to take full advantage of this opportunity. He stressed the importance of harnessing the programme’s maximum potential and learning from best practices, which can be modified to suit their own contextual settings.

DG emphasized the crucial role played by civil servants in ensuring essential services to citizens. He implored them to work with speed and scale to ensure access to basic amenities such as housing, cooking gas, education, healthcare, financial services, and skill development, among others. He also highlighted the role of civil servants in ensuring quality education and skill development children and youth, as well as empowering women through the availability of basic facilities like 24-hour water and power supply, and sanitation facilities. These measures are intended to enable women to join economic activities and contribute in increasing family as well as national income. The DG placed great emphasis on creating an environment where women are able to avail opportunities.

He emphasized the pressing requirement for civil servants to fully capitalize on the digital revolution and embrace the latest IT innovations, thereby advancing digital governance. By embracing data-driven methodologies and harnessing the potential of technology, civil servants can enhance their decision-making processes, facilitate effective resource allocation, and ensure the delivery of services to the citizens. He underscored the significance of grievance redressal in real-time, which lies at the heart of good governance, enabling equal opportunities for all citizens.

The DG motivated the participating officers to identify a few significant learnings from this programme that they can adapt and modify to suit the requirements of their work environments. Recognizing their role as agents of change and their profound comprehension of local contexts, he expressed confidence in their ability to successfully implement policies and foster favorable outcomes in their respective domains.

Giving the overview of the programme, Dr. B. S. Bisht, course coordinator said that in the 24^th capacity building programme, NCGG is sharing various initiatives taken in the country.  such as changing paradigm of governance, centralised public grievances redressal and monitoring system, India Maldives relations, Aadhar: a tool of good governance, implementation of public policies, women inclusive governance, innovation in public administration, Digital governance and public service delivery, Smart City development, housing to all, leveraging digital technology, best practices from various development schemes, urban governance, Swamitva scheme, low cost desalination for drinking water, Climate Change, tourism, Jal Jeevan Mission, e-governance and digital India UMANG, leadership, coordination and communication, Mudra Yojana, poverty elimination initiatives, health care governance, sanitation and public health behaviour, circular economy, skill India, anti-corruption strategies, India’s policy towards Indian Ocean region among others.

The participants will partake in exposure visits aimed at observing a diverse range of developmental projects and institutions. These visits will offer them invaluable insights and first-hand experiences of prominent initiatives and organizations, including but not limited to the Central Information Commission, Pradhanmantri Sanghralaya, among others.

The overall supervision and coordination of the 24th capacity building programme will be carried out by Dr. B. S. Bisht, course coordinator for Maldives, along with Dr. Sanjeev Sharma, co-course coordinator, and the capacity building team of the NCGG.

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