UNDP took part in the annual Board of the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Civil Service and Anti-Corruption on February 7, 2019 where government, civil society and international partners discussed the results of the Agency’s work in 2018 and plans for 2019. For the first time, this year the meeting featured an open dialogue with the representatives of local authorities, opinion leaders, media, government agencies and international organizations.

UNDP has been consistently supporting the initiatives of the Civil Service and Anti-Corruption Agency aimed at improving the instruments of state apparatus professionalization and corruption prevention, as well as the projects that respond to the Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on effective public institutions with engagement of civil society.

As noted by the UNDP Resident Representative a.i., Vitalie Vremis: “The rapid development of new technologies and the growing needs of citizens raise new challenges to all governments. They include: (1) attracting and retaining the most talented employees in civil service; (2) digital by default approach and use of modern information systems and big data for quality management decisions in personnel management; (3) enhancing the capacity of civil servants, especially in the regions, and (4) strengthening horizontal cooperation within and between government agencies (Government as One)”.

The joint activities of UNDP and the Civil Service Agency include development and application of new approaches to assessing corruption risks in the ministries and organizations of the quasi-state sector, assessment of public perception of the ethics of civil servants, and the development of new “Framework of Competencies” that allowed for examination of 65,000 civil servants of the B Corp. A factor point scale pay has been introduced to enable more equitable and transparent pay system. The work of the Special Monitoring Groups represented by civil society was supported to observe the implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy in the regions.

The Chairman of the Civil Service Agency, Alik Shpekbayev, highlighted the Agency's breakthrough projects that started in 2018. In particular, he mentioned the “Public Control Map” that allows for citizen’s reporting on violations in the use of budget funds, also the Digital Agent mobile application for assessing the quality of public services and the work of special monitoring groups that identify corruption problems in the regions and propose specific measures to solve them.

He also reported on upcoming changes in civil service system that include introduction of responsibility for illegal enrichment, expansion of the list of subjects eligible for corruption crimes, implementation of the Standard of Communication Competences for public servants, continued optimization of the Agency and budget reductions, and scaling down staff of central office to 40%. There is commitment, expertise and partnerships that the Agency applies to keep working towards building an equitable and socially advanced society.