Heads of the civil service from ASEAN countries have shared information on national strategies and good practices in promoting effective governance towards fulfilling people’s aspirations and welfare and discussed the post-2015 priority areas of cooperation.

Those priorities are intended to respond to the current and emerging challenges and opportunities for civil service sector in the ongoing ASEAN Community building, they said at 17th ASEAN Cooperation on Civil Matters (ACCSM) meeting in Yangon, Myanmar, last week.

They agreed that the increasing demands for quality public services should be addressed through the promotion of responsive, accountable, effective and efficient public service sector.

Enhancing workforce competencies, building institutional capacity and strengthening leadership were considered as priority areas that remain relevant in the future.

In addition, several new priority areas are explored including public sector reform towards quality service delivery that meets changing demands and rising expectations of citizens currently and beyond 2015, and improvement of civil service competency standards and promotion of government official’s understanding of ASEAN.

Participants emphasised the need to enhance the ASEAN Resource Centre (ARC) training programmes for civil servants through the implementation of nine pilot cooperation projects.

They agreed to work together towards the development of ASEAN Plus Three (China, the Republic of Korea and Japan) projects on civil service matters between 2016 and 2020 in areas of mutual interest.

The 18th ACCSM Chairmanship for 2016 – 2018 will be held by the Civil Service Commission of the Philippines.-VNA