Unesco held a four-day intensive capacity-building workshop hosted by HH Sheikha Moza’s Office to help develop the proficiency of 20 officials from the ministries of higher education and scientific research of Baghdad and the Kurdistan region in the areas of quality, project, change management and lean administration.
The workshop attended by 25 officials concluded on Wednesday.
It was based on needs assessment, which came as a response to a need to introduce substantial administration reforms and adjustments for better organisation and governance.
The beneficiaries of the programme are director-generals, directors and department heads from the Iraqi Directorates of Research and Development, Quality Assurance, Fellowships and Cultural Relations, Studies and Planning, Reconstruction and Projects as well as Human Resources.
The facilitators were two international “Six Sigma Black Belt” experts from WZL-RWTH Aachen University, in Germany, Dr Sebastian Schmitt and Stephan Losse.
The duo, in collaboration with Unesco, designed and compiled the course materials for the participants.
The capacity-building programme comes as a major component of the Rehabilitation of Iraq Higher Education System Project and is aimed at, among other objectives, at developing participants’ understanding of crucial and core management skills to shift from being an individual contributor to a well-respected manager able to achieve team success and drive quality performance, strengthen participants’ readiness to work in teams and introduce modern management styles, and manage changes inside the organisation, providing participants with methods and approaches to make use of the best management concepts and tools such as stakeholder analysis, critical path identification, RSI matrix, milestones and quality gates for a better implementation of projects and quality improvement.
The participants showed great interest in the programme and worked on real-life cases of project management, according to a Unesco official who co-ordinated the event.
The workshop is the first in a series aimed at empowering Iraqi beneficiaries with specific know-how on structural and organisational frameworks for the various quality improvement measures needed in administration, management, and leadership.