What is it?

Talent for Governance enables ambitious, young civil servants working for local governments in developing and transitional countries (see country list) to follow an international Talentprogramme in the Netherlands. This Talentprogramme consists of participation in a training course at The Hague Academy for Local Governance in The Netherlands, followed by an internship in a Dutch municipality or province and a Networking event. The Talentprogrammes take three weeks.

Talent for Governance pays for travel and accommodation costs, meals and participation fee. We do also ask a small contribution from our talents, once selected. This shows their commitment and their willingness to also invest in themselves. More specific information on this contribution can be found in the rules and regulations booklet under parapraph 4.8.

The training course attended during the talent programme, gives young civil servants a chance to experience policy practices from a local perspective. Experts in the field of local governance practice will be guiding them through this experience. During the course, the talents will gain knowledge and skills which will be useful back in their workplace. They'll work to write a Back-Home-action-plan in which they incorporate a real-live-case from from their own community. The real-life-case project proposal needs to be submitted with the application form, and the employer needs to approve of the project.

In addition, they will meet civil servants from all over the world. This gives them a chance to exchange ideas and learn from each other’s experiences. Possible topics of the courses are: (female) leadership, citizen participation, municipal management, local economic development, management of natural resources, or the provision of public services like water, health and education.

After the two training course weeks, they will get the chance to visit one of our internship municipalities or provinces in the Netherlands for a week. These local governments will organise an internship programme of a couple of days, during which the talents get into contact with the practical side of local governance. Topics discussed during the course will come back during these days and the programme is linked to their own specific work interests. During this week the talents will meet many Dutch civil servants who work in the same field as they do at home. In this way they are able to really exchange practices with each other.