MORE than 40 representatives from Department of Health’s IMPACT Health-supported Central Provincial Health Authority (PHA) and other Provincial Health Authorities have attended a two-day assessor training on Public Finance Management (PFM) Assessment & Capacity Building Tool in Port Moresby this week.
The training was opened by NDoH Acting Deputy Secretary – National Health Policy and Corporate Services in the presence of Mr Tom Tiki – Acting Deputy Secretary, Sub National, Department of Finance. It was held from 19 – 20 November under a MOU arrangement between the National Department of Health, the Department of Finance and the IMPACT Health-supported provinces including East New Britain, Central, East Sepik and Simbu.
The MoU was signed in August this year to facilitate the provision of public financial management support through the Provincial Capacity Building (PCaB) Program to provinces, with a focus on the health sector.
The training was aimed at equipping assessors on how to use various tools within the PHA PFM Assessment and Capacity Building (ACBT) framework to conduct a consistent and thorough assessment of Public Finance Management capacity across PHAs.
Tools to be used in the assessment include the PFM Assessment Tool (Part 1), Score Sheet Guide (Part 1), Training Solutions Tool (Part 2) and Non-Training Gaps Tool (Part 3) for quantitative evaluation of PFM processes.
The Training Solutions Tool identifies training needs and matches them with available PFM training programs to address specific programs to address specific knowledge and skills gaps while the Non-Training Gaps Tool identifies non-training related gaps affecting PFM effectiveness such as funding, infrastructure, ICT and resource management.
The training saw an additional 11 PHAs participate in the two-day training including West New Britain, Enga, New Ireland, Gulf, Western, Manus, Oro, West Sepik, Milne Bay, Madang and Morobe apart from Central (a project province).
Participants included CEOs, Directors, Provincial District Support Advisors, Finance and Human resource managers among others.
