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Making Public Sector Reforms Work : Political and Economic Contexts, Incentives, and StrategiesSupporting effective public sector reform is a major challenge that the World Bank and other agencies and stakeholders have been grappling with. It is increasingly recognized that political economy factors play a crucial role. However, beyond this broad proposition, specific questions arise: What country contexts are more/less propitious for public sector reforms and what reforms are likely to succeed where? And can more explicitly taking political economy challenges into account help to pursue public sector reforms even in less propitious contexts? This paper addresses these issues in two ways: first, it draws on the existing literature to identify key propositions about factors that can trigger or facilitate public sector reforms, and those that tend to work against (successful) reforms. Second, it investigates the experience of World Bank public sector operations over the decade 2000-2010. It finds that governments in many developing countries face incentives to initiate public sector reforms, but that at the implementation stage, political costs frequently outweigh potential gains; and hence reforms are abandoned or left to wither. Real breakthroughs have been achieved in countries experiencing major structural shifts and those having political leadership committed to higher-level goals. The review of operations shows that successful projects are significantly more widespread than the literature would lead to assume. Furthermore, it provides tentative evidence that investing in understanding political economy drivers has been associated with better project performance. Key implications are the need to differentiate between country contexts more clearly ex ante, concentrate more on reform implementation during windows of opportunity that are typically of limited duration, and design reforms with a clear plan of engagement with stakeholder incentives.
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Ethiopia Public Sector Reform Approach : Building the Developmental State - A Review and Assessment of the Ethiopian Approach to Public Sector ReformThe objective of this report is to review and recommend improvements to Ethiopia's approach to public sector reform in order to advise the Government and executive institutions on the future of its public sector reform. The report also serves as a think piece for the World Bank, other partners, and policy makers. The report provides important basic information about the features of Ethiopia's public sector reform approach and reviews what worked well and what did not. It draws lessons from other countries' experience to help develop ideas and instruments of future public sector reforms in Ethiopia. Ethiopia's system of decentralization process has been credible in devolving power, improving governance and service delivery well as narrowing the per capital differences among Regional Governments and districts. The second phase of decentralization was 'big bang' and brought some gaps on addressing administrative and fiscal decentralization issues associated with: a) detailed clarity of expenditure and revenue assignments, b) shortage of skilled manpower and lack of incentive in remote areas and inadequate budget for recruitment , c) building local government specific purpose fiscal transfer, d) local government mandate on Public Sector Reform (PSR) and capacity building and e) transfers and f)decentralizing more decision making power to regional states on deciding financial resource for PSR and capacity building implementation. In an effort to link the incentive and pay mechanisms to performance in the civil service, the Ministry of Civil Service (MoCS) has prepared a draft incentive guideline and is waiting for its approval by the Council of Ministers; it is an important step to the way forward. In the future, the guideline has to reflect a systematic and comprehensive incentive and pay reform and performance mechanism and rolled out as it is a prerequisite to the PSR.
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Performance Accountability and Combating Corruptionhis volume provides advice on how to institutionalize performance-based accountability, especially in countries that lack good accountability systems. The volume describes how institutions of accountability may be strengthened to combat corruption. The volume is organized into two parts. The first part deals with public management reforms to ensure the integrity and improve the efficiency of government operations. It outlines an agenda for public management reforms and discusses the roles of e-government and network solutions in performance improvements. The second part of the volume provides advice on strengthening the role of representative institutions, such as organs and committees of parliament, in providing oversight of government programs. It also provides guidance on how auditing and related institutions can be used to detect fraud and corruption. The book highlights the causes of corruption and the use of both internal and external accountability institutions and mechanisms to fight it. It provides advice on how to tailor anticorruption programs to individual country circumstances and how to sequence reform efforts to ensure sustainability. This volume presents the latest thinking of leading development scholars on operationalizing such a governance framework. The focus of this volume is creating performance-based accountability and oversight when there is no bottom line. Each chapter addresses an important dimension of such a framework. The four chapters in part I are concerned with integrity and efficiency in public management. The nine chapters of part II are concerned with institutions and mechanisms to hold government to account.