The President of the Republic, Mr Danny Faure, received the head of the World Bank delegation supporting Seychelles on results-based management (RBM), Dr Kathrin A. Plangemann, and the Public Sector Reform Consultant, Mike Stevens, at State House this morning.

The discussion between the President and the World Bank officials focused on the progress made, existing challenges and the road forward on RBM. It also discussed the diagnostic global benchmarking survey the Bank is currently conducting in Seychelles, and the need to strengthen not only institutional but individual performance management.

The President thanked the World Bank for the valuable support received and reiterated his commitment to moving the RBM reforms forward to achieve results for citizens.

“We are firmly committed to RBM as an important reform agenda which will help us deliver better outcomes to our citizens. This is the right time to deepen public sector reforms and to track our achievement of national goals. We need the right strategies, tools, talent management, and incentives to make the reforms effective and sustainable,” said President Faure.

The World Bank commended the President and his administration on the vision and commitment to crucial public sector reform agenda, and the progress made so far on RBM. The World Bank will continue to support the implementation of the RBM policy during the next four years. Following global best practices of other reform-minded countries, this will be done in a gradual approach through policy-advice, management support, capacity-strengthening and change management working across sectors.

The adoption of the Results-based management (RBM) policy in 2013 kicked off an innovative reform agenda embraced by countries around the world by which governments focus on core outcomes to deliver better services to citizens. In Seychelles, RBM is the main strategy to implement primary principles of transparency, accountability and good governance.

This is the progress made in Seychelles so far:

·         In 2014, Seychelles started rolling out RBM gradually, starting with programme-performance-based budgeting (PPBB) pillar, now active in all ministries

·         In 2016, to encourage tracking the achievement of national goals and driving its implementation, a performance monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) pillar was added

·         In 2017, under the strategic planning pillar, the Vision and National Development Strategy was prepared

·         In 2019, DPA started performance management systems reforms, focusing on individual performance, to complement the institutional performance focus

·         To accelerate implementation of these four reform pillars, an open and digital government foundation has been added to unleash the potential of open and digital government to support RBM and other reform agendas

The World Bank has been supporting the administration during the last four years on the various reforms. The objectives of the collaboration are to improve public sector performance to strengthen inclusive growth, economic diversification and service-delivery. In other words, making government work better for the people and improving the quality of life for citizens through better, faster and more cost-effective access to quality services.

As part of the full RBM roll-out and building synergies across pillars and sectors, the government reached out to different stakeholders in the RBM Forum organized on February 14, ‘Doing the right things right: Maximizing results-based management in Seychelles’.

The World Bank delegation was accompanied to State House by the Chief Secretary for Public Service for the Department of Public Administration, Ms Jessie Esparon, and the Principal monitoring and Evaluation Officer responsible for Performance Management Systems, Ms Jill Tirant.