University course to serve emerging global civil service cadre

By Alan Osborn, International News Services

A Swiss university has launched a course to bring modern business skills to the elite public servants of tomorrow – the people who run the key international organisations and agencies that increasingly shape the modern world. The International Organisations Master of Business Administration (IOMBA) programme has been set up by the University of Geneva.

Its aim: to correct what the school sees as a major deficiency at present – the lack of proper managerial skills among those who staff these global bodies. “It appeared to be necessary to guarantee a proper exposure to business practices, planning and managerial techniques to those who are put in charge of international institutions,” said a University of Geneva spokesperson.

The IOMBA course consists of a 10-month academic curriculum and a 3-month internship or consultancy within one of the target organisations. The objective is to create “a new class of manager, characterised by a natural inclination towards social causes and equipped with a strong business background.” At present the managers tend to be experienced professionals with a wide and deep knowledge of their technical field but “very little attention has been given to the managerial skills and capacities of those top-level employees.”

Who are the potential employers in this field? The World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the various organisations under the auspices of the United Nations come to mind immediately. Then there are those who work on the Kyoto Protocol – the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and what may follow it next year, officials in the European Union institutions, and the staff of regional organisations such as the African Union.

In many cases at present, the top staff are national experts and authorities seconded by the member governments. But more and more, there is emerging a permanent cadre of high-level public servants with no proclaimed national affiliations and it is these that the Geneva course seems designed for.

The curriculum, says the school, is delivered by an international faculty from leading universities around the world, as well as practitioners and officials from leading global institutions. The methods include lectures, case studies and field research. 

“Student assessment emphasises interdisciplinary group work and the IOMBA keeps group size extremely small, bringing widely varying industry and sectoral backgrounds together for assignments,” says the school. It claims that its programme, taught entirely in English, will provide students with an understanding of the global socio-economic context within which international and non-governmental organisations operate, furnish advanced management training and enable ongoing engagement with international and nongovernmental groups.

*For more information – see http://www.universityworldnews.com and http://www.unige.ch/international/index_en.html