The quality of Human resources is critical to the development of any country. Global, regional and national commitments to sustainable and poverty reduction such as the millennium Development Goals (MDGs) need human capacities in the public, private, and civil society sectors to transform these commitments into results. Therefore, public sector human resource managers occupy a strategic position in the development of a country. However, in many African countries, it has been found out that this strategy position is not recognized in the formulation of development plans and programmes, and human resource managers in the public sector may not be professionally tuned to the critical role they should play.

Recognizing the fact that building the capacity of the human resource managers in Africa is a long process that takes time and requires huge resources; and realizing that capacity building would benefit from a continuous exchange of new ideas and best practices among the human resources managers themselves, the importance of establishing a permanent forum for such exchange of ideas became vital. The idea to establish this network was born in Cape Town (South Africa) during the International Public Management Association for Human Resources (IPMA-HR) Conference in April 2007. Following the meeting in Cape Town, a selected group of human resource managers from Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and the African Association for Public Administration and management (AAPAM), established a Working Group to bring about the creation of the African Public Sector Human Resources Managers Network (APS-HRMnet). With the support of UNDESA, the Working Group met in 2007 and 2008 to get the support of senior government officials of the public sector in Africa and to prepare the necessary documents, such as the Draft Constitution of the Network. Such meetings took place in Mbabane (Swaziland) in September 2007, in Kampala (Uganda) in April 2008 and finally in Accra (Ghana) in October 2008.

The Government of Tanzania hosted the launching Conference in Arusha, Tanzania from 23-27 February 2009 where more than 140 participants comprising Ministers of Public Service, Permanent Secretaries, Directors of public service commissions, Heads of institutes of public administration and management development institutes, and other appointing authorities in the public sector met and adopted the Constitution establishing the Network. The Executive Council was appointed by the participants unanimously and the African Association for Public Administration (AAPAM) generously agreed to host the network until such time that the Network obtains sufficient financial and material resources to support its own office.

This site is built by UNDESA as part of its continued support to the institutional development of APS-HRMnet, and its commitment to the professionalization and sustainable development of human resources managers in the public sector. While the primary beneficiaries of the web-site are public sector human resources managers in Africa, this site would also be valuable to all public and private sector human resources managers; civil service commissions; institutes and schools or faculties of public administration, management development institutes; academicians; researchers; students of public administration and human resources management in the public sector; human resources managers in non-profit organizations’ as well as others who are interested in human resources management in the public sector.