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Key Text Public Administration Reform

Author: J Mason
Date: 2004
Size: 29 pages (430 KB)

Summary

What makes Public Administration Reform (PAR) a key component in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? What lessons can be learnt from the experience of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in this area? This practice note from UNDP establishes a strategic framework for the support of public administration for democratic governance. It synthesises current thinking and approaches and provides practical guidance and recommendations for public administration programming.

Democratic governance is a key component in achieving the MDGs. An efficient, responsive, transparent and accountable public administration is a central part of democratic governance. It is also the basic means through which government strategies to achieve the MDGs can be implemented. In Less-Developed Countries (LDCs) and post-conflict countries in particular, underdeveloped private sectors require the public administration to play a major role in the delivery of services and the provision of much needed economic infrastructure. Most importantly, an established non-partisan civil service is vital to democracy, as it makes peaceful and orderly political succession possible and thus ensures genuine pluralism.

Many of the more radical public administration reforms attempted in countries such as New Zealand and the United Kingdom are too ambitious and present real dangers for most developing countries. In these contexts, simply getting the public administration to execute the will of its political masters is often a challenge in itself. Capacity development in the public administration needs to be addressed at three levels: individual, institutional and societal. PAR can therefore be divided into four main areas:

Civil service reform.
Increasing the efficiency and responsiveness of the policy-making system.
Reforming the machinery of government, which is concerned with the rules, institutions and structure of the administration necessary to carry out government policy, including new tools for public administration such as e-governance and e-government.
Reforming the public sector revenue and expenditure management system.

Most reforms in government are only partially successful because they never get past the implementation stage. PAR is vitally important but infrequently successful. Learning lessons from experience and applying them is therefore crucial. However, copying from famous models without due regard for environmental differences is too simple and leads to failure. The main lessons from UNDP's experience are:

Keep the scope of change well focused and set realistic and well-defined targets.
Recognise that PAR takes time.
Make sure there is full understanding of the reforms, and support for them, not only at the level of leadership but also at the level of line management and civil servants as a whole and the public.
It is important to show and publicise good results and provide incentives for continued support and achievements.
Make sure there is continued political will and support throughout all phases of PAR.
Remember that donor support, despite its good intentions, can have a perverse effect on the political economy by generating greater resistance to change in all areas of public management.

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Source: United Nations Development Programme, 2004, 'Public Administration Reform', Practice Note, UNDP, New York
Author: Oslo Governance Centre, http://www.undp.org/oslocentre/