OSCE Project Co-ordinator and Ukraine’s National Agency of Civil Service sign memorandum to integrate dialogue into government officials’ organizational culture

Henrik Villadsen, the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine (PCU) and Kostiantyn Vashchenko, the Head of the National Agency of Civil Service of Ukraine, signed a memorandum of understanding to promote wider use of conflict management approaches in public service. The signing ceremony took place on 29 August 2019 at a ceremony in Kyiv.

According to the memorandum, the Project Co-ordinator will provide expertise, organize and run dialogue events, deliver training in conflict prevention and management, dialogue negotiating, as well as in mediation to build the capacity of civil servants. To make the effort sustainable, the PCU also will elaborate learning tools for continuous personnel education and re-training.

“Well-organized and professionally facilitated dialogue can be an important tool for officials to plan and implement reforms and policies. It is a good approach to engage all the key stakeholders, even those who strongly disagree with proposed measures,” said Villadsen. “We hope that joint efforts to make dialogue a part of organizational culture for governmental institutions will help increase the transparency and efficiency of state authorities, but also contribute to diminishing conflict potential in their work.”

The PCU-supported efforts to improve organizational culture in the civil service are aimed at further assisting the ongoing public administration reform. As part of its co-operation with the Agency, the Co-ordinator has already provided training seminars on basic dialogue-related skills to its personnel. It has also supported a series of strategic meetings and dialogues for this office to help its staff members to streamline the vision of its mission. Currently the PCU is running awareness-raising events on conflict management for HR personnel of State Oblast and Rayon Administrations.