Based on the strong brotherly relations between the leaderships and the peoples of Bahrain and Palestine, and for effectuating the memorandum of understanding between the two sides, and for the cooperation and exchange of experiences and expertise with the Palestinian National Authority in the field of public administration, and under the auspices of the Prime Minister of the Palestine Dr. Rami Alhamd Allah, the Director General of the Institute of Public Administration “BIPA” Dr. Raed Mohammed bin Shams took part in a conference entitled “the development of the civil service in Palestine: experiences, challenges and risks”, which was held in Ramallah, in the State of Palestine, Dr. Raed delivered a speech before the conference in which he focused on the importance of scientific research in the public administration (represented in the MENAPAR initiative adopted by the Institute recently) and the need for the Middle East region – in light of the current circumstances and the successive transformations – for scientific research in building policies and decision-making.
The conference was inaugurated by the head of the General Personnel Council (GPC) of the State of Palestine His Excellency the Minister Mussa Abu Zaid, where he spoke about the recent developments in the reform of the Palestinian civil service, also in his speech he mentioned the importance of scientific research to support the sustainable administration development, and the need for the search process to include all aspects of the work in institutions to achieve benefits-balance, and to support innovating advanced production methods based on the international scientific experiments, adding that scientific research makes institutions more capable of making strategic planning through analytical study of internal and external structures, and identifying opportunities and challenges through scientific methodology that is based on the facts in a wider way, also the partnership with society sectors has a paramount importance in this area, Abu Zaid called upon all Arab countries to give a wider area of scientific research in their work, calling on the decision-makers in various countries to support this; so that the share of scientific research in the States’ budgets has a tangible value.
On a related matter, the themes of the before-mentioned conference included: development trends in the civil service, modern trends in public administration, quality of public services in Palestine, features of civil service reform in the Middle East countries, international cooperation and the support for the reform of the civil service, in addition to other themes.
Two types of debates took place at the conference; the first was the critical perspective on the civil service reform agenda in the Middle East, and the other about the actual issues in the development of the civil service in Palestine.
One of the main participants and papers presented at the conference was the speech of the Operation Chief at the Office of the Representative of the European Union Mr. Sergio Piccolo, (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, UNRWA), and then the expert of civil service in the European Union, and former Sigma program manager in the public administration Francisco Cardona presented a working paper concerning trends in the development of the civil service in the European Union and neighboring countries. Then, Biapa Peterson who is the team leader of the technical assistance project to support the reform of the civil service in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that was financed by the EU, discussed the modern trends in public administration: the quality of public services and the project of civil service reform of the European Union in Palestine, in addition to the specializing expert of the technical assistance project to support the reform of the civil service in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, financed by the EU, Anthony Pittman who discussed an issue under the title: “features of civil service reform in the Middle East countries”. From the Bahraini side, in addition to Dr. Raed Shams, BIPA’s Senior Advisor and officer-in-charge of consultations and research at the Institute Dr. Sufyan Sahrawi participated in the Palestinian conference.
In fact, aspects of cooperation between both the Bahraini and the Palestinian sides in the field of public administration and the civil service, clearly demonstrated in the Minister Mussa Abu Zaid chairing the main session of the Regional Conference 'Middle East and North Africa for Public Administration Research', known as 'MENAPAR' which was hosted by the Kingdom of Bahrain recently, and the session was entitled 'building research agenda for the Middle East and North Africa' that was attended by 4 of the world experts in this field. The group of the Middle East and North Africa for Public Management Research “MENAPAR” has chosen Bahrain to be its permanent headquarters, after deciding to form its Board of Directors, chaired by the Kingdom of Bahrain, also the state of Palestine is participating in the membership of the Board represented by the GPC.