A three million-dollar grant agreement, has been signed by the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) and the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF). The grant would be used to support the second phase of the Master's Degree in Public Sector Management and Training Programme (PSMTP) which is being run by GIMPA. The Rector of GIMPA, Professor Yaw Agyeman Badu, signed for the institute while Dr Frannie Leautier, Executive Secretary of the ACBF initialled for the foundation. He said in 2004, the ACBF assembled a team of scholars and practitioners in Harare- Zimbabwe to review a consultant's report and design a new programme to be offered across Africa. He said six months after, GIMPA was selected among five institutions to host the programme. "Indeed, GIMPA was the first institution to commence the programme in Africa in September, 2005," he said. Prof Agyeman Badu said graduates of the PSMTP could be found in top leadership and managerial positions in the public service of Ghana, The Gambia and Nigeria. He said some of the graduates were helping to rebuild the war- torn public bureaucracies of Liberia and Sierra Leone. GIMPA was assisting partner institutions in the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, to build their capacities to enable them offer short term training courses. Prof Agyeman Badu said GIMPA was expected to enroll about 50 students a year, adding that by the end of the second phase of the PSMTP, "we would have produced 200 top quality public servants in the region." He expressed the hope that the programme would continue for "another 10 or 15 years, to prepare the critical mass of qualified public servants that we need for Anglophone Africa". Dr Leautier said as the leading management development institute in Ghana in the provision of public administration and management education, GIMPA was a strategic partner for ACBF in skills building. She said although Africa was rich in natural resources, the continent was poor in capacity and was facing many developmental challenges. "Delivering equitable growth from the wealth of resources available and ensuring that the high levels of growth truly translate into development results, are among the challenges," Dr Leautier said. She said the ACBF was supporting training institutions in the areas of economic policy analysis, as well as Public Administration Management to help reverse the situation. Dr Leautier said although more than 15,000 people had improved upon their skills through short courses and seminars aimed at addressing specific skill gaps, she noted that with such cadre of people forming up to 30 per cent of the public sector in West Africa, many challenges still remained. "Based on the remarkable achievements of the first phase, the Executive Board of ACBF approved a grant of $ three million to support the second phase of the PSMTP-GIMPA, aimed at benefiting particularly the English speaking West African countries." Dr Christina Amoako-Nuamah, Chairman of GIMPA Governing Council, commended the ACBF and said that: "These efforts at capacity building are making significant contributions to socio-economic development on the continent.” She commended the ACBF and said besides the PSMTP, the foundation was also supporting economic policy management training, civic education, economic analysis and gender mainstreaming among interventions. Fifty -one students have been admitted for the PSMTP class of 2012. They are from Ghana, Nigeria, the Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.