IASIA Conference 2021

The Department of Public Administration and Management will host the IIAS/IASIA conference from 26-30 July 2021 

Please visit the website for more information or contact: info@iasia-conference2020.org; Dr Steve Troupin (s.troupin@iias-iisa.org) or Prof LC van Jaarsveldt at: vjaarlc@unisa.ac.za

Call for papers

IASIA 2021 now only virtual

The milestone 60th conference of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASA) will now only be hosted virtually only from 26 to 31 July 2021. This comes after stricter measures, which include the prohibition of conferences, forced the organisers to cancel the face-to-face part of the conference that would have been hosted in Bela-Bela. Delegates can still register for the conference.

Public administration in the 4^th Industrial Revolution

The main conference theme is “Public Administration in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. The 12 working groups have received a number of papers with a wide focus that include various aspects from policy, governance, HR, reform, diversity to ethics and many other topics delegates are looking forward to. Presentations are expected from all over the world, including Europe, Brazil and Asian countries. Some interesting panel discussions will form part of this year’s conference.

Panel discussions

One of the panel discussions that delegates can look forward to is the one about the new District Development Model to deal with shortcomings at local government level. The model was first mentioned by the President of South Africa in his 2019 speech. It will focus on 44 district municipalities and 8 metropolitan municipalities to improve the coherence and impact of government service delivery. The panel will consist of representatives from broad categories of stakeholders, such as the National Department (Cooperative Government and Traditional Affairs), that is driving this model; the Waterberg District Municipality, where the implementation of the model is piloted; and Public Administration scholars who are specialising in local government.

Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) and the National School of Governance (NSG) have been involved in the smart city project. PWC has supported the City of Cape Town with its governance and service delivery innovations, while the NSG is involved in capacity development programmes in the public service, among which are the education and training of members of the senior management service. Their combined experience promises an interesting discussion, as members of both institutions will be presenting position papers on the topic. This will be followed by a question-and-answer session.