Building Public Service Capacities to Implement the SDGs in Bangladesh with the Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center (BPATC)

    Bangladesh

Bangladesh has incorporated all 17 SDGs into its national plan. This has been an effort of the Ministry of Public Administration and coordinated by the office of the Principal Coordinator of the SDGs in the Prime Minister’s Office. The Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC) — the institute for building public service capacities—has been instrumental in this process. UN DESA/DPIDG hosted BPATC’s Rector during its 2017 Symposium on “Building Effective, Accountable and Inclusive Institutions and Public Administration for Advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” Since that Symposium, BPATC recognized the importance of public service being ‘fit for purpose’ to ensure SDG implementation in the country. It noted the importance of equipping public servants with the necessary values, mindsets and skills to deliver on the many Goals and Targets in the 2030 Agenda, many of which depend on public delivery. Immediately following the Symposium, in December 2017, BPATC adapted the symposium’s outcomes and content to its own context and adopted the theme of “Building Capacity for an Effective, Inclusive and Accountable Public Administration System.” Since then, BPATC has played a pivotal role in training public servants on the SDGs. The Centre reviewed its course curriculum and resource pool, assessed the need for SDG training, organized TOT (Training of Trainers) on the SDGs, and formed a pool of resource persons. In the last two years the BPATC has completely overhauled their system and implemented innovative measures to better equip civil servants for effective public administration. In this period BPATC also continued to showcase its progress through participation in UN DESA events – such as the 2018 and 2019 UN Public Service Forums, and regional symposiums. It also used these platforms to integrate new lessons learned, research priorities and more.

BPATC now runs several core courses for the Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) officials. They include a Foundation Training Course (FTC) for new entrants, an Advanced Course on Administration and Development (ACAD) for mid-career Deputy Secretaries, a Senior Staff Course (SSC) for Joint Secretaries and a Policy Planning and Management Course (PPMC) for Additional Secretaries. As of 15 September 2019, BPATC has trained 1,739 officials from BCS. To make the SDGs training more effective and continuous, BPATC has 77 master trainers on SDGs through TOTs.

URL: http://www.bpatc.org.bd/

(Source: Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center (BPATC))