The Director General of IIAS attended, on 9-13 April, the 2010 conference of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) on the theme “Invigorating Public Service for change” in San Jose, California. During this conference, Mr. Loretan was asked to chair a panel on “Current State and Trends in Public Service Professionalism: International perspectives”. This panel composed of scholars from North and Latin America, from Australia and from the United Nations, provided the starting point for a challenging comparative analysis on International Organisations. In San Jose, Mr. Loretan was also able to personally congratulate ASPA for their new status as Corporate Member of IIAS. The travel back to Brussels was quite perturbed due to the intangible but (it seemed at the time) everlasting cloud of ashes which spread all over Europe and forced the closing of most European airport for nearly a week.
On 29 April, the Director General was cordially invited to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the National Institute of Public Administration (INAP) in Mexico City, Mexico. During this superb commemoration, Mr. Loretan delivered an official speech where he thanked the long-standing cooperation (since 1934!) between INAP and IIAS as well as the forthcoming launching of the Latino-American Group of Public Administration (LAGPA). Mr. Loretan also announced the winner of the first Latin American Prize of Public Administration. This academic prize, which is an INAP-IIAS initiative, had for theme “The Impact of Migrations in Latin American public administration”.
On 12 May, the Director General participated in the 20th anniversary of the National School of Public Administration (KSAP) of Warsaw, Poland. This celebration which was held at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, in the presence of high ranking polish officials, was a great success. This event was followed by the annual conference of the Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central & Eastern Europe (NISPAcee) on the current topic “Public Administration in times of Crisis”. On this occasion, the Director General was able to participate in a panel where representatives of International Organisations reported on the theme of the conference. This event was also an excellent occasion for the Director General of International Institute of Administrative Sciences to reinforce the network which already exists between our Institute and Central & Eastern Europe.