A workshop on Annual Performance Agreement (APA) and National Integrity Strategy (NIS) was organized on Saturday (22 January) morning at the Foreign Service Academy in Dhaka.

Conducted by Mehdi Hasan, Director General (Administration) of Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), the workshop was graced by Khandker Anwarul Islam, Cabinet Secretary as Chief Guest and presided over by Ambassador Masud Bin Momen, Foreign Secretary (Senior Secretary).

Ambassador Shabbir Ahmad Chowdhury, Secretary (West); Ambassador Mashfee Binte Shams, Secretary (East); and other senior officials of MoFA and Cabinet Division were also in attendance.

In his welcome remarks, Foreign Secretary talked about the initiatives taken and services provided by his Ministry in 2021, i.e. unified website, digitalizing the consular services through mygov platform, implementing e-nothi and d-nothi, mofa archives, Government Resource Planning (GRP), Branding Bangladesh etc. He also discussed Neural Network - a new initiative of MoFA.

Two officers of the rank of joint secretary presented discussions on APA and NIS. This was followed by a lively interactive question-answer session. The challenges that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs faces to reflect their diplomatic and consular activities properly in APA due to the nature of the work of the Foreign Office and its Missions abroad were discussed precisely and the officers from the cabinet division suggested ways to overcome these challenges.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cabinet division agreed that by having discussions, the challenges can be properly addressed and solved. The importance of proper documentation and ensuring training on APA for officers were also discussed.