UKZN Academic Returns from Brussels

Professor Purshottama Reddy of the School of Management, IT and Governance has recently returned from Brussels where he attended the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) Public Governance week.

The event brought together thought leaders and partners to discuss and delve into the latest developments in public governance internationally.

Reddy, who is the IASIA’s Vice-President for Programmes and Project Director of the Working Group on Subnational Governance and Development, participated in the IASIA Board of Management meeting and was part of a panel critiquing the role of research groups.

Thematic areas covered by the panel were internal governance and research groups, publications and projects, collaborations and opportunities for joint action.

The collaboration opportunities included extending the call for publications to other organisations to enable greater communication with leadership of other research groups working on similar themes. It was also agreed that joint sessions with other IIAS groupings would be held as there was a need to reach out to the “younger generation” and PhD graduates through scholarship.

The four-day event featured workshops on the internal and external governance of the IIAS and its entities. There were also roundtable discussions on funding for research, capacity building in public administration worldwide, and financial management of the IIAS and similar organisations, among other topics.

The highlight was a keynote address by Mr Karl-Heinz Lambert, the President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) and member of the Belgian Senate, representing the German speaking community. His address titled: Multi-Level Governance for the SDGs, stimulated robust debate given that the notion of ‘multi-level’ governance was not entirely a new concept. 

Reddy said the governance week was an opportunity for all the entities involved in IIAS to get to know each other, familiarise themselves with each other’s activities and develop a joint strategy to take the organisations forward.

‘The event benefitted the organisations mutually and inspired them to function more efficiently and effectively so that the impact would be much greater moving forward. It will also enable them to develop organisationally and be more responsive to their members and international partners in terms of addressing public governance challenges globally,’ he added.

Words: Lungile Ngubelanga

Photograph: Supplied