DUSHANBE, August 29, 2009, Asia-Plus — Twenty-nine officials from eight member countries of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) program participated in the first CAREC Institute Executive Leadership Development Program last week in Singapore, press release issued by the Asian Development Bank’s Mission in Tajikistan on August 28 said.
The six-day program was implemented with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and brought together senior government officials from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, the People’s Republic of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
The Tajikistan delegation comprised Muhibali Safarov, Adviser to the President on Economic Policy, Umed Davlatzod, Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Akram Suleimanov, Deputy Minister of Energy and Industry, and Khudoyor Khudoyorov, Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications.
“Development process, globalization and socioeconomic transformations change public environment and place new challenges,” said Makoto Ojiro, Asian Development Bank (ADB)”s Country Director for Tajikistan. “CAREC Institute aims to strengthen the capacity of senior officials to respond to these challenges and function more effectively.”
Working and interacting with professors and practitioners, participants developed state-of-the-art skills in five key areas critical to fostering successful regional economic cooperation: leadership, public sector management, strategic thinking and planning, public sector finance, and negotiation and persuasion. In addition to classroom time, participants engaged in candid conversations with policymakers from Singapore and the region, and visited major government agencies in Singapore to get insights on leadership and public management issues in a practical public sector setting.
“The program was very useful and fruitful. It helped to develop networks of knowledge and cooperation among people and countries in the region,” said Mr. A. Suleimanov, Deputy Minister of Energy and Industry, who joined the program from Tajikistan.
The Lee Kuan Yew School is the premier public policy institution in Asia; it is part of the National University of Singapore. The School was established in 2004, with a mandate to educate and train the next generation of Asian, as well as global, policymakers and leaders.
The CAREC Institute was established as a virtual institute supported by the CAREC Secretariat and CAREC’s six partner multilateral institutions – ADB, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Monetary Fund, Islamic Development Bank, United Nations Development Program, and World Bank. The CAREC Institute prospectus was endorsed at the CAREC Sixth Ministerial Conference in November 2007 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
CAREC is an ADB-supported initiative to encourage economic cooperation in Central Asia. Initiated in 1997, the program to date has focused on regional initiatives in transport, trade facilitation, trade policy, and energy critical to improving the economic performance of the region and the livelihoods of all people—especially of the poor.
