Gaborone, Botswana - 10 October 2017: The Federation of International Civil Servants' Associations (FICSA) with the kind assistance of the President of the WHO/AFRO Staff Association and WHO Botswana conducted a workshop on negotiating in the context of performance appraisals and staff representation. The training, which was hosted in the WHO Country Office, attracted participants from across UN agencies in the 10 African countries of Angola, Burkina Faso, Congo, DRC, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Botswana.
 
The objectives of the training were to provide common understanding of performance appraisals with emphasis on the need to ensure accountability on production of deliverables which sometimes lead to conflict between a staff member and supervisor and finally equip staff representatives with ability to engage and make acceptable resolutions to differences.

The Botswana UN Resident Co-ordinator (RC), Mrs Jacinta Barrins, officially opened the training. She commenced her remarks by welcoming all participants and echoed pleasant sentiments that Botswana is hosting such training organised by esteemed FICSA, an organisation that represents thousands of staff from diversified UN common organizations and institutions, across the globe. She alluded to the importance of the capacitation of UN staff representatives with negotiation skills so as to empower them with mediation skills and ability to reach amicable solutions in the times of need. The RC continued to implore into staff the spirit of objectivity in which one is able to separate the issues at hand with the person. This, she says, is an important attribute that all must have in order to deal with issues appropriately. She further highlighted that while appraisals should not be used as punitive measures, but rather should assist staff to improve performance and in case of disagreements, amicable solutions through negotiations be sought.

Media practitioners also graced the occasion by covering the RC's speech and conducted interviews with WHO AFRO Staff Association President and different countries' staff representatives on the mandate and functions of the FICSA and staff associations. The RC concluded by encouraging  participants to work hard and declared the training open.