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Public Sector Reform: What Works and Why? An IEG evaluation of World Bank SupportThe World Bank support for public sector reform has grown notably in recent years. To address the questions of what is working and why in this area, the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) has examined Bank lending and other support for public sector reform in four areas: public financial management, administrative and civil service, revenue administration, and anticorruption and transparency. A majority of countries that borrowed to support public sector reform improved their performance in some dimensions, but there were shortcomings in important aspects. Middle-income borrowers saw improvements in their public sector quality more frequently than low-income borrowers, even though the low-income group usually had greater needs for public sector improvement. Performance usually improved for public financial management, tax administration, and transparency, but not for civil service. Direct measures to reduce corruption, such as anticorruption laws and commissions, rarely succeeded, as they often lacked the necessary support from political elites and the judicial system.
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Strengthening Local Government Budgeting and AccountabilityIn many developing and middle-income countries, decentralization reforms are promoting changes in governance structures that are reshaping the relationship between local governments and citizens. The success of these decentralization reforms depends on the existence of sound public financial systems both at the central and local levels. This paper focuses on the role of budgeting as a critical tool in reform efforts, highlighting problems that might impede successful local government budget development and implementation. The attainment of effective local government accountability and transparency is not an end itself, but rather it represents the means to support better decision-making on national and local budgeting. Community based schemes for enhancing local government accountability need to combine legal, political, and administrative mechanisms with proactive community involvement. Of particular importance are the legal and budgetary instruments that require input from local community members on certain local government decisions and instruments that increase accessibility for the press or the general public at large to information on government activities.
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Roots for Good Forest Outcomes : An Analytical Framework for Governance ReformsPoor governance is a major impediment to achieving development outcomes of the forest sector. It results in losses of income, employment, government revenues, and local and global environmental services. However, at present, no comprehensive guide to reforming forest governance has been developed. Although usually it is relatively easy to recognize that the forest sector in a country is failing to deliver all its potential benefits, the lack of an appropriate analytical framework makes it much harder to identify the major shortcomings and to propose a fitting response. This economic and sector work (ESW) is the first step in creating a reformer's tool to diagnose forest governance weaknesses and pinpoint appropriate reforms. Section one of these studies explores the consequences of poor governance and the need for and the track record of forest governance reforms. It highlights some key gaps in our understanding of the governance challenge that provide the rationale for this report. Section two reviews the available literature and extant initiatives on describing and measuring governance. It looks at existing general indicators of governance and an indicator aim specifically at the forest sector and highlights the main lessons learned. Section three presents a comprehensive conceptual framework with which forest governance diagnostics can be undertaken in a country. Finally, section four summarizes the material and offers conclusions.