PORT VILA, 30th October 2025. The Office of the Public Service Commission recently released the Institutional Capacity Assessment Report shedding light on the strengths, challenges, and opportunities facing institutions across Vanuatu Public Service.
A comparative analysis across ministries, alongside individual department-level reports, offers a comprehensive and granular view of institutional strengths and priority areas for development across the public service.
Conducted by OPSC’s Organisational Development Unit in August 2025, the assessment used the Institutional Capacity Assessment Grid (ICAG) to collect input from 416 public servants. The results rank all 13 ministries and provide detailed capacity profiles for departments with sufficient responses (excluding those with four or fewer submissions to ensure statistical reliability).
The ICA report showed rankings of each government ministries and the distribution of mean capacity scores across ministries focusing on the top 5 strongest and top 5 weakest capacity categories based on overall performance in the August 2025 ICAG assessment.
The Institutional Capacity Assessment Grid (ICAG), which involved 416 public servants and data analysis, identifies critical areas for improvement in governance, strategic planning, service delivery, and resource management.
Key findings include:
- Strongest areas: Strategic planning, money management, and leadership direction
- Areas that need the most work:
- Human Resource Management (HRM) – hiring, training, and staff support
- Information Technology (IT) systems – modern tools and data sharing
- Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) – tracking results and learning from work
- Infrastructure – buildings, equipment, and facilities
- Working together – between ministries and with NGOs, community groups, and churches
OPSC extends its sincere appreciation to the 416 public servants who participated in the Institutional Capacity Assessment Grid (ICAG) survey. Their valuable contributions were essential to the development of this report.
OPSC also acknowledges the tremendous assistance of the Vanuatu Bureau of Statistics (VBoS) for the digitisation, automation of the data processing and report writing of the ICAG.
The full Institutional Capacity Assessment Report is available at www.psc.gov.vu or contact Tel: 33360 should you wish to access a copy.