Housed within FIUs Department of Public Administration, the Institute for Public Management and Community Service (IPMCS) is proud to work locally and globally. Created in 1994, the Institute has assisted through its training activities thousands of public servants to be more effective, transparent and responsive. Its government modernization projects range from executive-legislative relations and legislative development, to decentralization policy and civil service reform, to the enhancement of citizen participation. IPMCS strongly believes that engaging the international community will strengthen the American administrative experience and vice versa. Consequently, through various activities IPMCS promotes mutual learning between the array of actors involved.
Since 1997, IPMCS has worked with Miami-Dade County to organize the Inter-American Conference of Mayors and Local Authorities, which brings more than 500 mayors and city council members from Latin America and the Caribbean to the annual meeting in Miami. In addition, the Institute provides extensive technical assistance and consulting activities, and has carried out a wide variety of research and training activities.
IPMCS has developed various external funding initiatives and the design and implementation of numerous complex government reform projects supported by approximately $6 million in USAID and other contracts to encourage the transition to democracy in Latin America (with activities in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay), Africa (Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda), Eastern Europe (Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine) and Asia (China, India, Malaysia, South Korea). These efforts involve continued contact with cabinet ministers, leaders of national legislative bodies, prominent business executives, grassroots community leaders and high ranking US government and United Nations officials.