The Ethiopian context
In the early 1990s, the Transitional Government of Ethiopia came into power. Since then, the Federal Government has been affecting series of reforms in line with international convention. An important area of focus has been the civil service. Hence the evolution of the Civil Service Reform Program aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the civil service. The federal government launched a vibrant capacity building program involving government and support institutions, with special emphasis on self-reliance. The capacity building program focuses on the development of human resources, building and strengthening of institutions, and establishment of effective working practices. In this vein, attention is given to education and training of the civil service at district, regional as well as federal levels.
The strength of the civil service is over 300,000 spreading over the 9 Regions and 2 City Administrative Councils. Furthermore, there are several organizations covering over 70 Zonal and 600 Woreda administrations. It was estimated that less than 20% of the country’s civil servants possessed University diploma and above. This necessitated the establishment of the Ethiopian Civil Service University and other Management Development Institutes to strengthen the capacity of the civil service. In addition, new universities have been established to update the knowledge of civil servants as well as other Ethiopians and the international community. It is therefore imperative to restate that the civil service is expected to build and develop its capacity through these institutions.
Building the capacity of the civil service on continuous basis being of paramount importance to the federal government coupled with the fact Ethiopia has thousands of civil of servants in the regional governments necessitated the federal government to encourage institutions to establish partnership through the use of distance education in order to reach the remote areas In the country. The Ethiopian Civil Service University has contributed immensely both at direct (institution based learning) and the indirect (distance learning) ways of building the capacity of the civil service.