Mari Amano, secretary-general of the Asian Productivity Organization, cited the key role that public sector productivity (PSP) plays among APO member countries, saying its importance has spurred the 20-member organization to aim at expanding projects designed to enhance this vital area of concern.
In his New Year’s message he sent out last January 4, Amano said PSP has emerged as an “important theme” among APO member countries as it plays a key role in improving the quality of public services that, in turn, leads to better efficiency in industry. He also said that the public sector often acts as the biggest employer in any country, thus highlighting the important role that it plays even more.
The APO head noted that the APO’s desire to “accelerate” efforts in PSP made it designate the Development Academy of the Philippines in 2015 as the Center of Excellence on Public Sector Productivity. This made it just the third institution to be so honored after SPRING Singapore, which was chosen as the COE on Business Excellence in 2009, and the China Productivity Center of the Republic of China, which was picked as the COE on Green Productivity in 2013.
‘Rapid expansion’
“The new COE will allow rapid expansion of our projects on capacity building to enhance PSP,” Amano declared in his message.
The APO sec-gen also revealed plans of the organization for 2016, including the intensification of efforts to encourage more countries to become members of the group.
“This year, we will further intensify efforts to encourage more countries to become members of the APO,” he said. “In addition, e-learning and IT-based projects will be expanded dramatically so that a wider range of individuals from member countries and elsewhere can participate. I hope that these APO activities in 2016 will contribute meaningfully to the sustainable socioeconomic development of member countries.”
Amano announced that the APO will hold its flagship event for 2016 when the 10th Eco-Products International Fair takes place in Thailand in June as part of its “numerous” green productivity projects, which, he said, are being undertaken to support sustainable development across the Asian region
Interest in green initiatives raised
He said that even more interest in the APO’s green initiatives would be created following the Paris Agreement in December 2015, which adopted a new framework for mitigating the effects of global warming during the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Saying that the international community, in doing so, took a step toward collective measures to “protect our shared environment,” Amano expressed delight at the development as the APO, he said, has been implementing projects “simultaneously aimed at productivity enhancement and environmental conservation” under the concept of green productivity for over two decades.
He said that in 2015 alone, the APO launched the Energy Efficiency Program, a program funded by the Japanese government that sought to transfer Japan’s energy-efficient technologies and experiences to other APO member countries in an attempt to contribute to achieving a low-carbon society.