New Gambian Public Service and Human Capital Formation

The paper emphasized the importance of human capital and its formation to the new Gambian public service institutions. It specifically looked at the salient features of the Gambian public service pre-Barrow regime, and followed by the initial interventionist steps towards a new public service that would be efficient and responsive to the citizenry in terms of service delivery; and the critical position being occupied by human capital in driving the reforms of the public service institutions. It also researched into the efforts made towards capacity development to address capacity/skill gaps and the place of the tertiary and higher education systems in this respect. After highlighting the limitations of the key higher educational institutions, categorical imperatives were made towards enhancing the capacity building efforts of the public service institutions. These include the need to give the conduct of comprehensive capacity needs assessment (CNA) in public institutions the seriousness it requires; support the efforts with adequate budgetary allocation; adequately fund the training and educational institution and processes; establish institutional relationship between the capacity building institutions and the agency responsible for the implementation of public service reform programmes; and develop a national training framework that will ensure a more systematic and sustainable approach that allows some peculiar departments to develop their own capacity and manage this basic framework.