Project News

K-TOP conducted the Third Country Training in Bangladesh from 25 May to 6 June 2013, by visiting JICA technical cooperation "Improving Public Services through Total Quality Management (IPS-TQM) Project" to learn how Bangladesh government tries to disseminate Kaizen to all sub-district offices in Bangladesh to improve public services to the local population. After this visit, IPS-TQM Project invited Kassala State Government to participate in International Kaizen Convention in Dhaka, Bangladesh to make presentation on Kaizen experiences in Kassala, so K-TOP took ten Kassala State Government officials again to Bangladesh from 14 to 23 November 2013.

Among these ten participants, three are the same participants from the previous visit to Bangladesh, but the remaining seven are new to Bangladesh. They are not only the counterparts from five clusters of K-TOP, but also include Director of Training in State Ministry of Finance. Because Kassala State Government realized the important roles played by Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center (BPATC) to train and disseminate Kaizen to all public servants in the previous visit, and started to dream that Kassala State Government would like to establish a similar Public Administration Training Center in near future and train all public servants in Kassala on Kaizen. So in this second visit to Bangladesh, they included Director of Training, who is in charge of training of all public servants in Kassala, in order to learn from BPATC and increase his understanding of Kaizen.

International Kaizen Convention was held at Ruposhi Bangla Hotel on 16 November 2013, and nearly 250 people participated from Bangladesh, Japan and Sudan. From Japan, Kaizen-practicing local government officials from Tanabe City (in Wakayama Prefecture), Kashiwara City (in Osaka Prefecture), Kitakami City (in Iwate Prefecture), Fukuoka City (in Fukuoka Prefecture) participated, along with a university professor who is promoting Kaizen in Japanese local government. From Bangladesh, many high-ranking government officials as well as celebrities such as cricket player, movie star, female climber, poet, cartoonist participated. JICA Bangladesh Office aims at making Japan-born Kaizen to Bangladesh culture by utilizing these popular celebrities in Bangladesh, and publicizing Kaizen widely and timely through its Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JicaBangladesh) as well as IPS-TQM Project's Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kaizen-in-Public-Sector-in-Bangladesh/197212560441482).

After participating in International Kaizen Convention, Sudanese participants received Kaizen training at BPATC from 17 to 20 November and compiled training report and action plan in JICA Bangladesh Office on 21 November, which was presented in TV conference on the same day connecting with Economic Infrastructure Department of JICA Headquarters and JICA Sudan Office. JICA Bangladesh Office applauded Bangladesh-Sudan collaboration on Kaizen as a good practice of South-South Cooperation, and recommended to continue its collaboration regularly.

After the second visit to Bangladesh, K-TOP invited Mr. Enamul, the senior Kaizen mentor in BPATC, to Kassala to facilitate four-day Kaizen Mentor Training and three-day Kaizen Training for Work Improvement Teams (WITs) from Kassala State Government, using Bangladesh-style Kaizen Action Planning formats. As a result of these training, 23 Kaizen mentors were trained in Kassala State Government, and WITs from 5 clusters of K-TOP, Department of Training, and 7 Locality Offices were trained and developed Kaizen Action Plan, which will be implemented for three months from mid-December 2013 to mid-March 2014. In late March, the Third Kaizen Follow-up Workshop is planned for these WITs to report their Kaizen Actions and its impacts on their work, and make recommendation on how to disseminate Kaizen in Kassala as well as in Sudan. Based on these experiences, National Kaizen Seminar is planned to be organized in Khartoum in April 2014 to present Kaizen experiences in Kassala to Federal Government and other State Governments.

K-TOP believes that Japan-born Kaizen will give Sudanese civil servants power to overcome economical difficulties and they can start to think "Even without money, we can improve our work by using ideas from all staff", and eventually improve their public services to the local population. Japanese experts are encouraging our counterparts to think, decide and conduct small Kaizen activities continuously by their own initiatives.

International Kaizen Convention in Hotel Ruposhi Bangla, Dhaka, Bangladesh (16 November 2013)

Sudanese counterparts participating in International Kaizen Convention in Bangladesh (16 November 2013)

Mr. Gamal, Director General of Directorate of Planning and Development, Kassala State Ministry of Finance, presenting Kaizen experiences in Kassala in International Kaizen Convention in Bangladesh (16 November 2013)

Dr. Omer, Director of Planning and Human Resources in Kassala State Ministry of Health, making comment in International Kaizen Convention in Bangladesh (16 November 2013)

Observe low-cost and safe sex pheromone trap to prevent insects against gourd, which was introduced in Kaizen actions (18 November 2013, Narsingdi, Bangladesh)

Observe female student’s dancing in Girls Secondary School, which promotes extra-curricular activities in Kaizen actions (18 November 2013, Narsingdi, Bangladesh)

After TV Conference in JICA Bangladesh Office to report the results of the second training in Bangladesh (21 November 2013)