Management is challenging and fascinating, even more so in a multicultural setting.
A manager has to deal with many different people, situations and an ever-changing context. In a setting with many stakeholders, collaboration and genuine teamwork are crucial to achieve common goals in an effective and efficient manner. To this end, a manager needs to master a wide variety of tools, methods and skills covering the human, financial and organisational dimensions of management.
We offer several courses in different areas of management and varying from junior up to senior staff level.
HRM policy and HRM systems
The performance of an organisation directly depends on the availability of qualified and committed staff. Human resources are for most organisations the most important asset they have. Many elements play a role in their management. In order to have personnel that dedicates 100 percent of their capacity to the organisation, management needs to be based on guiding rather than directing, empowering rather than controlling, and allowing people to learn from instead of punishing them for their mistakes. A solid HRM policy and system are essential for the effectivity of your organisation. MDF offers assistance in their development and implementation. We can help you developing the most appropriate structure for your organisation and provide (in-company) training in skills required to manage staff effectively.
Programme and Project Management
The days of relying mainly on projects as the principle means of development assistance are over. Funds available for development assistance now cover several areas and modes of delivery: small-scale activities; projects; programmes; basket funding; sector programme support; capacity development support; technical assistance, budget support programmes, etc. Most development organisations entrust the supervision and management of such diverse portfolios of interventions to desk officers, programme officers or task managers. Portfolio and project cycle management require a range of both technical and communicational skills to ensure effective and efficient portfolio management. The Project Cycle Management approach supports to accomplish this.
Managing for Development Results
Since the international round tables in Marrakech and Paris on results and aid effectiveness, the development community has been focusing on managing its work to achieve the maximum results. This has led to a growing interest in questions related to changing organisations and their institutional context and making them more result-oriented, by linking planning and budgeting, defining results, monitoring progress and take appropriate decisions to actually achieving the desired development results. The origin of MDF is in the heart of this new thinking about results. We were established in 1984 because it was felt that in international cooperation insufficient attention was paid to organisation and management, resulting in ineffective and inefficient development interventions. Organisation, management and capacity development has been our core business ever since. Five recent examples illustrate how MDF has worked on managing for development results in practice, click here to read them ...
In the years to come, we will continue to contribute to better performing organisations. We will do this by helping them to effectively position themselves in their institutional setting, improve their management practices, human resources management, strengthening general planning and monitoring capacities, and their financial and administrative procedures and systems. Above all, we emphasise a clear focus on key competences of staff because in the end it will always be people that make organisations change.
