Leadership and management skills relevant to the South African diplomat in the global context : an overview of a South African diplomat

Abstract

The role that South Africa has played in international affairs has grown immensely since the first democratic elections that were held in April 2004. The country’s commitments in international affairs are guided by its foreign policy which is based on ensuring an equitable share of global decision-making between the countries of the north and south, and the economic and social development of the African continent. These foreign policy objectives have created a lot of capacity challenges on the South African Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) which is mandated to guide the formulation and implementation of South Africa’s foreign policy. In this study, the South African’s foreign policy objectives and its institutions responsible for implementing its foreign policy are discussed. Furthermore, the challenges that the country’s diplomats encounter in the global context in the implementation of the country’s foreign policy objectives are explored, especially the capacity required to successfully execute their mandate. The Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which is tasked with providing training to public administrators identified for Foreign Service, especially the content of its training programmes are the focus of this study. The data presented in this thesis are mainly derived from interview responses to a questionnaire that was developed for the purpose of this research study. The questionnaire was completed by individuals in the country’s Foreign Service (FS) who attended the FSI training programme and have been assigned to their first posting. Findings of this study indicate that the FSI training programme, in its current format, fall short of achieving its intended objective of equipping South African diplomats with the relevant diplomatic skills that are necessary for the effective and efficient execution of the country’s foreign policy. It is, therefore, recommended that FSI training programme be remodelled to address the actual challenges that the country’s diplomats face and thus emphasise the development of a uniquely South African training programme. This study concludes with recommendations for the DFA action on the future development of a remodelled FSI training programme for the FS, with the aim of enabling the institution to address public administration skills required for the successful implementation of the country’s foreign policy objectives.