.: Leadership Forum: High Performance in Development, Marseille, France, October 9-10, 2007
In the work to strengthen leaders’ capacity for mobilising change and achieving results, the World Bank Institute organized a Forum on Leadership and Results in Marseille, France, on October 9-10 2007. The Forum brougth together leaders and practitioners from a number of countries in francophone Africa and the MENA region that have experiences to share in this domain.
The Forum aims to examine leadership development interventions as a tool for public sector reform – in terms of leaders’ role in driving and facilitating change and achieving results and what capacity support is effective in such endeavours.
The event will serve as a forum for analysing past and current leadership development interventions undertaken in a number of countries and contexts and is expected to lead to the following outcomes:
1. Developing a body of knowledge: The Forum will provide data on different leadership development interventions - focusing on the following issues and themes:
- The context in which the interventions were undertaken;
- Implementation and approach: methodology, tools and instruments;
- Change, results and impact;
- Sustainability/institutionalisation of efforts.
This information will provide insights into the roles of political and operational arms of government in promoting change for the achievement of results, including what kind of change incurred (in leadership roles, processes, behaviours…), how was it affected, and through whom (change agent).
As part of the preparation for the Forum, country delegations will develop case-stories examining leadership development interventions in their respective countries (along the framework of issues and themes presented above). These cases will be shared with all delegates to the Forum, and may also be published in a more formal fashion following the event. This work will also contribute to a wider study undertaken by a group of donors on the nature and impact of leadership development interventions of this type.
2. Client learning: The Forum is an opportunity for country delegations – those who have been involved in leadership development efforts in the different countries – to gain access to lessons learned from similar experiences in other countries. Organisers aim to facilitate and encourage a frank exchange of ideas, with particular emphasis on lessons learned from the operationalisation of such interventions. Organisers also aim to provide insights into the donor perspective of engaging in leadership development activities.
