On Friday 9 October the programme ended with a seminar on "The Financial Crisis - Effects on Norwegian-Russian Relations" and a farewell dinner that very same evening.
The 23 participants of the programme came back from their individual internships Wednesday 7 October. The KS group of 11 participants from the public sector in Russia spent their individual internships in municipalities, counties and other public companies (see the list of hosts in the links below).
Three of our particpants had their top managers visiting. The top managers started their study visit with a general day in Oslo, where they were introduced to the public sector in Norway, KS, as well as the voluntary and private sector, and how the two sectors work together with the public sector. The programme - as for the participants - is developed with the top managers' background and work in mind.
In the evening the first day, the top managers travelled to their respective hosts, where they were met by their employee. And for two days the top managers would have meetings with the hosts.
In addition to this the top managers also had meetings in the Parliament and Innovation Norway.
Having the top managers as a part of the public sector part of the Presidential Programme usually has some good effects in the way that it will be easier to start and implement a cooperation project in the future, and the top manager will get to know the particpants in an other way that might be beneficial for the participant's career - just to mention some examples.
As one of the managers said when talking about her experiences: "It was good for my employee that I also came to Norway and saw everything with my own eyes, because now it will also be easier to implement some changes at our workplace - one is just one person, but now we are two and that is a team."
We also had an evaluation day for all the KS' participants, where they presented their individual internships and talked about possible projects (see the links below).
Overall it was a success, from both the participants' and the organizers' point of view.
For presentations on the seminar "The Financial Crisis - the Effects on Norwegian-Russian Relations" click here.
