Master in Public Administration and Government in Latin America. Online

The information corresponding to the new edition of the programme will be updated shortly.

"The democratisation of bureaucracy means we must conceive administrative reform as a political reform where citizens appear as a key political actor. How can civil society gain control over public services? What changes must be implemented in order for state civil servants and the agencies managing them to operate more autonomously in administrative matters and more responsibly in politics? How can we ensure the capacity of civil servants for defending public assets in view of the increase in private interests?"

BRESSER PEREIRA, Luiz Carlos et al., Política y gestión pública. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica; CLAD, 2004.

The Master's in Public Administration and Government in Latin America is intended to provide a response to these questions. Public administration is undergoing significant development, leading to the improved efficiency and efficacy of public actions and promoting the social milieu through territorially integrated development policies. Within this context, the programme is based on three basic axes:

• the study of the specific needs of the context, represented by the social and institutional reality of each country or region,
• the defining of public intervention strategies based on the introduction of political and institutional innovation systems adapted to the socio-political context, and
• practical training based on the methods, techniques and instruments necessary for contrasting theoretical, conceptual and modeller knowledge, with the possibility of actual application in the social milieu.

The systems of government and public administration are currently undergoing significant development in order to achieve an improvement in the efficiency of policies and their management, as well as to promote el sustainable territorially integrated social development. Within this context, we believe the design of the training curriculum for studies specialising in the field of government and public administration should be based on three basic axes:

• The study of the specific needs of the context, represented by the social and institutional reality of each country or region.
• The defining of public intervention strategies based on the introduction of political and institutional innovation systems adapted to the socio-political context.
• Practical training based on the methods, techniques and instruments necessary for contrasting theoretical, conceptual and modeller knowledge, with the possibility of actual application in the social milieu.

The purpose of this teaching initiative is to train professionals from the field of management in public administration and government systems, through theoretical and methodological instruments necessary for updating knowledge within the scope of improvement in political-institutional innovation in Latin America, and for grounding bases for social development, on a national, local and regional scale. This purpose is complemented with the intention of training people familiar with the complexity of development in specific Latin American geographic and cultural areas.

In particular, the aim of the programme is to train specialists in:

1. Institutional design and evaluation of government structures.
2. Reinforcement of governability improvement processes.
3. Analysis of the legal-economic system as a reference point for the introduction of political-administrative improvements.
4. Design, implementation and evaluation of public development policies in Latin America.
5. Introduction to innovation in public administration matters: organisation, human resources, information and communication systems, planning, control and evaluation.
6. Improvement in participation processes and the acceptance of responsibility by public institutions.

The Master in Public Administration and Government in Latin America is structured into three postgraduate programmes:

1. Postgraduate course in Institutional Political Development
2. Postgraduate course in Public Administration and Government
3. Postgraduate course in Design and Evaluation of Public Policies for social and economic development

Participants on the Master in Public Administration and Government in Latin America (MGPALOL) include political chiefs and public managers coming from the various governmental spheres in Latin America, as well as specialists in public administration, co-operation and development intending to analyse in depth the political-institutional reality of Latin America.

The programme is also suitable for graduates wishing to specialise in the improvement and innovation of the dynamics of governability and public administration in Latin America.