ITC moves forward: the views of ITC clients and donors are helping the new management team to shape the ITC of tomorrow, in a changing environment for trade development.

• Date: 01 October 2006
• Published date: 01 October 2006

ITC's new senior management is using the recommendations of a major external evaluation of ITC, led by Denmark, as a point of departure to initiate a change management process. The aim is to transform the organization into a centre of technical excellence that responds effectively to its clients in developing and transition economies.

The first step was to set up focus groups at the beginning of the transition process in June 2006, to explore areas outlined in the evaluation report. This has provided useful insights and recommendations for ITC's future orientation and programme of work. It has resulted in some initiatives being launched and decisions being taken.

These include:

* Updating ITC's mission statement and strategic objectives (see box).

* Setting up pilot country teams to review how ITC can have a more strategic, coherent and holistic approach to country projects, using sound results-based principles.

* Strengthening the strategic planning, resource mobilization, monitoring and evaluation function within the Office of the Executive Director.

* Taking measures to strengthen the communications team, including consolidation of communications-related functions under one umbrella.

* Introducing an Operations Committee to review and decide on operations-related matters.

* Reviewing ITC's suite of tools and products to ensure the alignment of ITC's toolkit to client needs, assess possible redundancies or overlaps and...