Twelve Pacific Island government audit office staff trained as HR Champions
Auckland, New Zealand: The Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (PASAI) in collaboration with the Swedish National Audit Office (Swedish NAO) have completed an 18-month program to develop human resource (HR) management capabilities of staff from Pacific Island government audit offices.
Twelve staff (9 female, 3 male) from 8 supreme audit institutions (SAIs) in the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu have today completed the last of 6 modules in a comprehensive HR Champions program.
The program finished with a 5-day, in-person workshop in Auckland, bringing participants together for a final time after an initial gathering in May 2023.
The program facilitators included senior advisors from Swedish NAO, Ingela Ekblom and Carolina Bjerström, and PASAI Program Director, Sinaroseta Palamo-Iosefo.
Of the partnership, Ms Palamo-Iosefo said, “Swedish NAO is very active internationally in capability development and since 2020 its HR experts have supported many audit offices in our region to develop their own HR strategies and operational plans.
“Their support and expertise have been invaluable to run this broad program that asked a lot from its participants.”
Historical SAI Performance Measurement Framework assessments identified that most Pacific Island audit offices were not well-resourced to coordinate and manage human resource issues ranging from recruitment, appraisal and staff well-being to professional development and training.
Through the HR Champions program, participants have addressed some of the gaps identified in their respective SAIs’ assessments.
The program aimed to create a regional pool of staff capable of supporting their own SAIs and those of others in the region in a self-sustaining model, minimising a reliance on external expertise for HR support.
For Ms Ekblom, ensuring the training had tangible benefits was paramount.
“For us, it wasn’t enough to merely present international good practices – participants had to devote about 20% of their working time to demonstrate how they had succeeded in implementing HR strategies that were practical for their local context.
“We are really impressed with the deliverables and knowledge acquired by the participants,” she said.
PASAI acknowledges the support of Swedish NAO, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).
Program participants and facilitators
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Contact information:
Sinaroseta Palamo-Iosefo, Program Director PASAI, Auckland, New Zealand
E: sina.iosefo@pasai.org P: +64 9 304 1275