1. (U) Djibouti conducted a Consular Leadership Day on
Tuesday afternoon, January 25. The entire consular section
met for several hours to discuss issues and challenges
facing our section in the coming year. The theme of the day
was professionalism: the importance of professionalism in a
U.S. Consular Section and how to improve our professional
image to the American Citizens we serve as well as the host
country.



2. (U) The day was appreciated by all involved. Tangible
results included a reorganized weekly schedule in order to
dedicate hours to answering our increasing number of general
inquiries. In so doing, we hope to improve our response time
on handling routine ACS issues as well as improve our flow
for handling IV cases. Also an important change was to set
aside specific hours for training. Due to the relative
inexperience of most of our consular staff, hiring and
training concerns were discussed at length.



3. (U) We also brainstormed strategies to improve the
organization of our workspace. We agreed that the current
layout is an inefficient use of very limited space, which
causes us to waste time searching for files and forms. This
hurts our professional image when it becomes apparent to our
constituents. Reorganizing the consular area to improve
efficiency was agreed to be a top priority for 2005, which
we have already outlined in proposal form to Washington.