Posts in category: News

WHETHER  it’s the tropical heat, the custom of wearing facemasks courtesy of its the air pollution, or the swift lockdown measures, on a global scale Thailand has done remarkably well in coping with the COVID-19 crisis.

As of mid-June, the country recorded 3,135 confirmed cases and 58 fatalities, ranking it second in the world, after Australia, among the countries with the highest COVID-19 recovery index and first in Asia, according to a report issued by the Global COVID-19 Index (GCI) on June 11, 2020.

Government spokesperson, Professor Narumon Pinyosinwat said Prime Minister and Defense Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha was grateful to all the Thai people for their discipline, strength, and patience in fighting COVID-19, so that everyone could get through the difficult situation together.

The GCI has been developed by PEMANDU Associates in collaboration with Malaysia’s Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MOSTI) and the Sunway Group.

It is driven strongly by big data, and the index scores and ranks 184 countries on how well they are coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the ranking of countries by recovery index, Australia receives 86.34 from 100 points. Thailand receives 83.29, followed by Denmark, 81.75; Taiwan, 79.55; South Korea, 79.25; New Zealand, 79.08; Lithuania, 77.06; Slovenia, 76.12; Iceland, 76.06; and Latvia, 75.46.

Among the 20 countries with the highest recovery index, five are in Asia. They include Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Key dynamic parameters used by the GCI include confirmed cases per population, the proportionate death rate due to COVID-19, and static scores derived from the Global Health Security Index, which was developed to assess a country’s readiness to cope with and handle any epidemic.

By Ellen Boonstra
Source: Business Acumen

Read the full article here.

Nepal was ranked 94 out of 190 economies on the Doing Business 2020 ranking, marking a significant shift for the country into the Top 100 Economies on the Ease of Doing Business. As a part of the government’s ongoing efforts to improve the country’s investment climate reforms, the Office of the Prime Minister & Council of Ministers (OPMCM) and Ministry of Finance, with the support of the World Bank Group, organized a workshop to develop institutional arrangements for the newly formed Coordination Centre in OPMCM and put together an implementation plan for Doing Business reforms.

“A new Nepal is in the making. We are a private sector dominated economy, and the role of the public sector is to unlock bottlenecks for the private sector. Public-private partnership is the key strategy for doing business in Nepal,” stated Honorable Minister of Finance, Dr. Yuba Raj Khatiwada.

“The international best practices that we are learning today need to be customized based on the context of Nepal,” stated Dr. Teertha Raj Dhakal, Secretary, OPMCM. “Implementation and delivery are the areas where the country needs to improve, and we also need to change our behavior and culture to make Nepal more private-sector friendly.”

The workshop organized on 24-25 February looked at global best practices from leading delivery unit practitioners from PEMANDU Associates, Malaysia and Government Partnerships International, UK on the catalytical role of the delivery unit in supporting the Doing Business reforms.

“We need to encourage private sector participation in all sectors,” stated Dato’ Sri Idris Jala, President and CEO of PEMANDU Associates. “This can only happen if we implement radical changes in government regulations to facilitate investors and eliminate cumbersome procedures involved in doing businesses in the country.”

Nepal climbed 16 spots in the global Doing Business 2020 rankings. Four major positive reforms in a single year – construction permits, access to credit, trading across borders and contract enforcement – were a record for Nepal and accounted for a third of all reforms recorded by Doing Business in the last 10 years. At the same time, two reforms that made it difficult to do business – starting a business and property registration – were also recorded for Nepal.

The major outcomes of the workshop included the development of the Coordination Center’s institutional structure based on the global best practices of international delivery unit practitioners tailored to the Nepali context, and agreement with the core ministries and private sector on the short (until April 2020 – the closing window for Doing Business 2021 report), medium (next 15 months) and long-term (next 2 years) investment climate reforms and implementation strategies. These initiatives are intended to mobilize increased private investment in support of equitable growth and job creation.

“The Government of Nepal is playing a critical role in establishing a conducive climate in which businesses operate and is taking the needed steps to strengthen the environment for private sector businesses and investments,” stated Faris Hadad-Zervos, World Bank Country Manager for Nepal. “The experience of the international experts from Malaysia and the UK provides a springboard for Nepal’s next steps. Their success stories and lessons learnt can help inform the design of appropriate institutional structures and operational framework for the Coordination Center.”

The workshop was actively attended by representatives from the government, regulatory bodies, private sector and development partners.

Source: The World Bank.

Read the full article here.

Unethical labour practices are a risk to business viability. Consumers and governments across the world are demanding higher standards of labour protection, punishing companies who are suspected of bad labour practices. Recently, a Malaysian glove company faced an import ban by the US on allegations of labour law violation.

In light of this issue, PEMANDU Associates, in collaboration with its strategic partner Bluenumber, organised the Forced Labour: Issues & Mitigation conference to enhance the appreciation of labour protection issues in Malaysia. The event featured industry experts sharing their insights on labour protection implications for businesses, the global best practices and possible data-centric solutions for workers’ rights.

The conference, held on 14 November 2019  at Sunway Putra Hotel, was attended by corporate representatives from various industries as well as non-profits with a common interest in improving labour practices in the country.

To find out more on how the Bluenumber Digital ID can assist your organisation to effectively monitor labour protection, contact us at [email protected].

Time is money.

More often than not, the success of an organisation depends on the effectiveness and quality of decisions made by its leadership. Therefore, it is important that one has the accurate, concise information and value-added thinking on potential solutions that are required to make the big decisions!

PEMANDU Associates Learning Academy recently held a one-day workshop titled High Impact Delivery for Effective Decision Making where 30 participants from 14 companies across 5 industries had an opportunity to learn and apply best practices to craft compelling presentations. And while they were at it, participants were also privy to a talk on building a results-oriented strategic communication programme, presented by Alex Iskandar Liew, one of our Executive Vice Presidents & Partners as well as Managing Director of COMMUNICATE by PEMANDU.

This workshop covered:

Module 1: Critical Thinking to Solve Problems
How using the right tools for problem-solving can help you critically evaluate information and address real organisational issues.

Module 2: Getting the Storyline Right
Why structuring the right storyline ensures credibility and helps you deliver impact to capture the attention of decision-makers.

Module 3: Presenting What’s Needed to Get the Decisions You Want
How a clear, concise structure can help to bring the work to life through visual presentation. This session includes a “Gallery Walk” where participants will showcase what they’ve done during the workshop.

Want to get updates on future workshops by Learning Academy? Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn!

Based on Cabinet proposal put forward by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, a programme was initiated to launch and mainstream the strategy for Managing for Development Results (MfDR)/Results-Based Management (RBM) for the public service.

The programme was initiated by the Ministry of National Policies, Economic Affairs, Resettlement & Rehabilitation, Northern Province Development and Youth Affairs, which comes under the purview of the Prime Minister.

A  High-Level Forum on MfDR was held at Hotel Taj Samudra on August 31,  with the participation of Senior Government Officials, Development Partners, Non-Governmental sector and Academia to discuss and formulate an implementation strategy for MfDR.

This initiative was supported by Strengthening Democratic Governance and Accountability Project (SDGAP) under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Grant.

Sagala Ratnayaka, Minister of Ports & Shipping & Southern Development and Chief of Staff to Prime Minister, Kabir Hashim, Minister of Highways & Road Development and Petroleum Resources Development, Alaina B. Teplitz, Ambassador, US Embassy in Sri Lanka, Dr.Indrajith Coomaraswamy, Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), Ms. Hanaa Singer, Resident Coordinator, United Nations Sri Lanka and Mr. V. Sivagnanasothy, Secretary to the Ministry of National Policies, Economic Affairs, Resettlement & Rehabilitation, Northern Province Development and Youth Affairs addressed the High-Level Forum on the importance of MfDR with international and national experiences.

Minister Ratnayaka noted that MfDR, as a modern public management tool and is an approach to ensure effective public service delivery in the government. The need for measuring performance to make public service more accountable was also asserted. He further added that the National Audit Act and the Right to Information Act (RTI) have contributed to create accountability in the public sector.

Minister Hashim added the need to complement RBM with the National Evaluation Bill and the need for both accountability and learning was also emphasised. US Ambassador to Sri LAnka Alaina B. Teplitz, stressed on the need for mainstreaming MfDR as a governance tool to improve the public service delivery in order to fulfil the citizens’ needs.

Further, Dr.Indrajith Coomaraswamy, Governor of the Central bank of Sri Lanka set out the importance of performance management through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as a process to improve accountability for results and performance measurement. Ms. Hanaa Singer, Resident Coordinator of the United Nation Sri Lanka, stated the need to align the results target of the Ministries with the National Development Plan and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Mr. V. Sivagnanasothy, Secretary of the Ministry explained best practice models namely, Minnesota Milestones of the United States of America (USA), Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit of the United Kingdom (UK) and Performance Management and Delivery Unit  (PEMANDU) of Malaysia, and noted the importance of the shift of focus from ‘Compliance Oriented Accountability towards Accountability for Results’.

The MfDR process was recognised as a planning and budgeting tool to achieve results and also identified as a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) tool to measure achievements and results. Selecting SMART KPIs at the outcome level with a baseline target was considered as an effective process for results-based planning and outcome-focused budgeting.The High-Level Forum endorsed the piloting of these strategies in (5) five key Ministries carrying important subject areas such as Resettlement and Rehabilitation, Health, Water Supply, Agriculture and Tourism and (2) two Provinces covering North and Uva.

Source: The Sunday Times, Sri Lanka

Read the full article here.

In the thick of what many call ‘the startup era’, aspirations towards effective and innovative entrepreneurship continue to loom large worldwide. And the buzz at the Skolkovo Startup Village 2019 event held in June, is testament that this is no different in Russia.

Organised by the Skolkovo Foundation, the annual event brings together the most innovative, talented and open-minded individuals from the business communities in Russia and CIS countries. Chris Tan, Managing Director of PEMANDU Russia, was invited by the IPChain Association to share a fresh perspective on delivery transformation – specifically how value creation through human capital and knowledge was instrumental in effecting Malaysia’s socio-economic transformation.

Drawing from a crucial aspect of PEMANDU Associates’ Big Fast Results (BFR) – 8 Steps of Transformation© methodology, Chris remarked, “It is critically important to have a program management framework that constantly aligns planning and implementation actions of the implementation community on the ground with the high-level aspirations of the leadership”.

Speaking on how the methodology can be applied to start-ups, Chris illustrated a condensed three-part checklist comprising a) a detailed program of action with clear accountabilities, timelines, and targets, b) a program management framework that guides the transition from planning to implementation, and c) a problem-solving mechanism to make quick decisions at the numerous inflection points a startup can expect to encounter.

Having covered more of the process and systems-oriented approaches of the firm, Chris went on to elaborate on what the firm calls ‘transformational leadership’ to deliver on a start-up’s business objectives, reminding the audience that, “even though most of you are starting up small technology ventures, you will face the same transformational leadership challenges as CEOs of the largest corporations, if not more so.” This was also a chance for the audience to be taken through the firm’s proprietary 6 Secrets of Transformational Leadership © – a holistic framework to help leaders effect tangible change in any organisation, big or small.

These humanistic insights, which included adopting a “Discipline of Action” and “play[ing] the Game of The Impossible” were a refreshing take for much of the audience. But what perhaps piqued the most intrigue was the mention of the sixth and final point on ‘Divine Intervention’ – the acknowledgment of mankind’s limited control over the outcomes of our actions. Chris quickly followed this up with an exposé on the firm’s counterintuitive belief that a leader who knows that he or she is not in ultimate control over every variable is a leader who is more willing to take bold steps required in pushing ahead in the transformation journey in the pursuit of delivering big fast results.