MAPUTO, Mozambique – A three-week long mission aiming to provide technical support for implementing the WHO Country Office Management Toolkits as well as staff training sessions concluded. IT, Project and Performance Management Officer from the WHO Country Office in Mali, Yahya Coulibaly, shared his technical knowledge and professional experience with all the staffs to pave the way forward for documentation practices.

The Toolkits created by Yahya Coulibaly is based on the concept built by Management in Mali Country Office since 2016 for better WHO Budget Center Management and consists of three major parts: e-Registry, PerfMon and SmartIOM. They respectively facilitate filing, monitoring evidence-based deliverables and interactive Memo implementation for accountability.

The strong features of each Toolkit are as follow:

• e-Registry
  • Electronic archiving 
  • Quick search for documents including physical locations
  • Routing and tracking
  • Statistics and reporting (applies to all Toolkits)
  • Support decision-making (applies to all Toolkits)

• PerfMon
  • Monitoring the implementation of activities, products, services and output
  • Synthesized monitoring of budgets (during implementation)
  • Highlighting the contribution of staff to an objective
  • Monitoring progress to office goals
• SmartIOM
  • Memo development (admin and program)
  • Integration of the Work Plan and Budget of the GSM
  • Control of the budget implementation 
  • Highlighting the contribution of Program to GPW13’s objectives, KPIs, SDGs objectives, UHCs

The staffs can proactively monitor their performance within the system and solely focus on the initially agreed objectives without wasting resources, which leads to a significant improvement of office performance. Another principle for the Toolkits is to facilitate the development of a memo by using an interactive tool to insert all the concerned aspects, such as strategic and operations objectives.  

Among justifications for this mission was the need to strengthen the filing and documentation system. Improvements to the documentation system were agreed on to enable the country office to more efficiently keep track of the process. The Toolkits will allow everyone to easily access to required documents more quickly and effectively.

In the training sessions over the last three weeks, all the staffs including technical officers and program assistants showed their willingness to adapt themselves into the newly implemented system for better office management. Dr Djamila Cabral, WHO Representative in Mozambique said, “The first step is always the hardest. Since we are in the learning process, accountability and commitment are key to ensure we utilize the Toolkits as effectively as possible.”

It is highly expected that if properly implemented, the Toolkits will streamline the efforts and enhance overall performance at the office level.