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Promoting Good Governance: ADB's Medium-Term Agenda and Action Plan (2000) : III. Implementation of ADB's Governance Policy
D. Developing ADB's Capacity to Address Governance Issues70. Initially, to promote knowledge and interest among staff on governance issues, training workshops were organized for managers (August 1996) and mission leaders (January 1997). In April 1997, a learning group was set up to meet on a regular basis. Through lectures and seminars, the group was exposed to good practices in different areas of governance. In 1998, ADB started a systematic training program on governance and anticorruption. Training sessions on fraud detection and anticorruption have been conducted for directors, managers, and other staff. Two other training courses have been developed to run on a continuing basis: one, on public expenditure management and public administration, and the other on decentralization and local government. A feature of many of these training events has been close collaboration between ADB and MDBs to share efforts and experience to educate their staff on governance. 71. ADB staff also require better conceptual and operational tools and protocols to fully integrate governance considerations into their activities. As a starting point in its action plan for 2000-2004 (Chapter V), ADB has started to develop (i) toolkits for some main areas of governance, and for overall governance assessment for individual DMCs; (ii) indicators of governance, to monitor progress made by individual countries over time; and (iii) in-depth studies of the interlinkages between governance and poverty reduction efforts. These activities are designed to enhance staff members' abilities to mainstream governance issues within ADB's general lending activities. By the end of 1999, ADB had three general governance specialists in the programs departments, and two in the Strategy and Policy Department, the head of the Law and Policy Reform Special Practice Group in the Office of the General Counsel, and three positions focusing on anticorruption in OGA. In addition, there were two specialists in the Office of Environment and Social Development focusing on civil society and participation. In 2000, nine new positions were added in the area of governance-six financial specialists, mostly assigned to project departments, to assess financial systems in executing agencies; one anticorruption specialist in OGA, and two positions for law and policy reform in the Office of the General Counsel. Over the next four years, 2001-2004, ADB will enhance its governance operations by providing more staff resources, new and redeployed, to operations departments to ensure effective mainstreaming of governance policy into ADB operations. In this regard, several new positions may be added in 2001. Future resource requirements will depend largely on the annual assessment on the progress of implementing the governance action plan.
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