Modules in this section take participants through the core management functional subjects, ranging from budgeting and financial management to risk management, from resource mobilization and branding to business process improvement and operations.
Managing Resources and Operations
In the fourth term you will elaborate on the following topics:
In today’s international development environment it is clear that no results can be achieved by organizations in isolation. The primary goal of this course is to provide participants with an understanding of the Organization’s profile concept, and how communication, partnerships and resource mobilization need to be consistent and systematically linked to effectively position IOs. In particular, the course explores: stakeholders’ participation mechanisms; principles of developing a partnership attitude and managing incentives schemes; core elements of agile management and behavioral / theoretical aspects
Budgeting and financial reporting are fundamental ‘languages’ to communicate results, operational and funding matters to donors, constituencies and other key stakeholders. The course aims to strengthen participants´ ability to understand the evolving nature of financial management in international organizations and to create foundational knowledge of the technical aspects. In particular, the course will examine in depth the transition from a traditional, cash based form of accounting to a modern, business like type of accrual accounting. The course will enable participants to understand and manage complex budgeting processes, to read and correctly interpret financial information and to independently assess the financial soundness of organizations based on their statutory reports.
This course provides a comprehensive perspective on high impact technologies for International Organizations. In particular, the course analyzes what it takes to integrate the digital strategy and align it with the overall strategy of the organization as well as its core processes. Lastly, the course focuses on Artificial Intelligence & IOT by discussing real case studies on how organization successfully drove change by leveraging on the opportunities generated by this new digital era.
Governing bodies and senior management of International Organizations are increasingly aware of the importance of a holistic, structured approach to enterprise risk management (ERM) and internal controls. These are now being broadly applied as conceptual lenses to assess how the organization aims to achieve its strategic objectives and to minimize the exposure to failure or underperformance. This course systematically explores the basic components of a comprehensive ERM system and presents the most relevant conceptual frameworks (COSO, ISO 31000, 3LOD) utilized by modern IOs. It aims to generate hands-on knowledge on how to set up, implement and continuously improve ERM systems and internal controls fit to and sustainable for IOs.
The course aims at illustrating how to design and improve the operations processes within an IO. It provides a comprehensive framework of methodologies and practices that can be adopted to diagnose and continuously improve core and support processes in order to achieve operational excellence. The main principles of ‘lean management’ are presented and applied to the specific context of large, decentralized and highly operational organizations. The course also explores the challenges linked to logistics and management of operations, focusing on humanitarian and peacekeeping operations logics.
The course aims at raising awareness and sensitivity to the values and ethical issues inherent in ‘mission driven’ organizations. It examines the role played by ethics in IOs and provides the tools and strategies to successfully address their specific ethical issues. The course explores a handful of ethical frameworks, which can serve as launch pads for understanding the role of ethics in IOs and its relation with both individual and organizational aspects. Issues such as conflicts between personal and organizational values/culture; the role of ethics in decision-making processes; and the importance of the development of ethics programs and an ethical culture in an organization will be discussed.