By Kazeem Waris
The North East Development Commission, NEDC, has commenced a three-day institutional excellence forum aimed at translating its five international management standards into improved service delivery and stronger accountability across the North-East.
The commission said the initiative was designed to ensure that its certification to five International Organization for Standardization, ISO, management systems goes beyond compliance to become part of its day-to-day operations and development interventions across the six states of the region.
The forum, which began Monday at the Borno State Hotel, Maiduguri, brings together NEDC staff on levels 6 to 13 from its headquarters and state offices.
Declaring the forum open, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NEDC, Alhaji Goni Alkali, said the commission, which started in 2019, had evolved from a new institution into an organisation focused on excellence in delivering its mandate under the North-East Stabilisation and Development Master Plan, NESDMP.
According to him, the forum, which runs from September 14 to 16, is intended to strengthen the systems, people and processes required to deliver the commission’s mandate effectively across the region.
Alkali said NEDC had implemented interventions in health, education, roads, housing, infrastructure, training and capacity building across Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba states.
“NEDC, which started from a scratch, was able to deliver on its mandate across the six states of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Gombe, Bauchi and Taraba. The Commission has impacted positively in the area of health, education, roads, housing, infrastructural development, training and capacity building, among other interventions,” he said.
He explained that the forum was also a platform for staff to examine how quality, accountability, integrity and improved service delivery could be incorporated into their daily responsibilities.
The Managing Director said the exercise followed NEDC’s certification to five ISO management system standards covering Quality Management, Environmental Management, Occupational Health and Safety, Anti-Bribery Management, and Sustainable Development in Communities.
He stressed that the real value of the certifications would be determined by their impact on the quality of development delivered to residents of the North-East.
“For us, excellence must ultimately be measured by the quality of development we deliver to the people of the North-East.
“Our ISO certifications established important standards, but the real work is ensuring that those standards are reflected in how we work, how we serve and how we deliver,” Alkali said.
He urged participants to take the sessions seriously, noting that the programme would involve practical exercises, simulations and real workplace situations designed to strengthen collaboration, problem-solving and service delivery.
According to him, the commission’s ability to deliver roads, schools, healthcare facilities, water projects, livelihood interventions and other development programmes depends significantly on the strength of the institution responsible for implementing them.
“Building capable people, improving internal systems and strengthening accountability are therefore an important part of the NEDC’s wider development mandate,” he said.
Alkali added that the commission wanted its international standards to become embedded in its institutional culture rather than remain requirements maintained solely for certification purposes.
“Through the Excellence Forum, the Commission seeks to ensure that the standards it has adopted are not simply requirements for certification, but become part of how its people work and how the institution delivers,” he said.
