scholarly journals Emerging Issues in Public Sector Reforms in Africa: An Assessment of Ghana and Nigeria

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salami Issa Afegbua ◽  
Ganiyu L. Ejalonibu
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Service ◽  
West African ◽  
Public Sector Reform ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Reforms ◽  
Emerging Issues

Public sector reform (PSR) has been quite popular in Africa and in recent years, several African countries have implemented far-reaching governance and public service reform measures. The aim of this article is to consider the historical development of Public Sector Reform in Africa and the philosophy behind the ubiquitous wave of reform in the continent. The article discovers that those reform measures have so far gone through three different phases to promote and/or accelerate the revitalization of the public service. It identifies some major challenges that account for the monumental failure of PSR. Finally, the paper offers suggestions on how African countries can free themselves from the doldrums of current PSR. This article will not only broaden the frontier of knowledge in the field of public administration but also address the present and on-going reality of public sector reforms in the West African sub region. This study uses a ‘Literature Survey’ in examining the issue in question.

IT and Enterprise Architecture in US Public Sector Reform

2012 ◽  
pp. 412-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry F. Buss ◽  
Anna Shillabeer ◽  
Anna Shillabeer
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
Public Sector Reform ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Reforms ◽  
Silver Bullet

This chapter looks at public sector whole-of-government reform from an Information Technology (IT) focused Enterprise Architecture (EA) perspective. The chapter summarizes reforms undertaken under three US presidents—Clinton, Bush, and Obama—and discusses how they have too frequently failed to meet expectations of policy makers, public servants, the public, and other stakeholders. We find that IT reforms in support of larger public sector reform have been ineffective and unsustainable, although many IT reforms have been successful in a narrower context. EA has suffered as a once promising methodology: it has not become the “silver bullet” in managing the IT and information infrastructure to support reform, knowledge management, and decision making. It was also seen as an important tool for reducing information management silos that successive governments have unsuccessfully tried to reduce. This chapter raises the spectre of endemic barriers to reform that must be overcome if EA and IT reform are to realize their potential, and offers recommendations for overcoming these hurdles in the context of whole-of-government public sector reforms.

‘Old brooms can sweep too!’ An overview of rulers and public sector reforms in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya

2004 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Mette Kjaer
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Sector Reform ◽  
East African ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Political Coalition ◽  
Public Sector Reforms

New leaders are often assumed to be better able to push for policy and sector reform because they are less tied in by established patronage networks. The article discusses this assumption by examining public sector reform in three East African countries under different leaders. It finds that while neo-patrimonialism is an important reason why public sector reform is often blocked, this paradigm cannot explain why some public sector reforms are actually implemented. New leaders are not always new brooms, and whether they are so depends as much on formal conditions, such as the existence of a political coalition, as on informal neo-patrimonial factors. The article also finds that in some cases, old brooms can sweep too. When succession is institutionalised, as the Tanzanian case shows, even a relatively weak leader can carry out reform effectively in his second term because he does not have to consider re-election.

scholarly journals Managing the Public Sector in Kenya: Reform and Transformation for Improved Performance

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kempe Ronald Hope
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Public Sector Reform ◽  
Policy Objective ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sector Performance ◽  
Improved Performance

Public sector reform remains a necessary and on-going policy objective for many developing countries. In Kenya, this is being done to overhaul its administrative system to better serve the needs of both government and the citizenry with improved delivery of public services to reduce poverty, improve livelihoods, and sustain good governance. Although the first attempts at the reform and transformation of the public sector in Kenya began in 1965, it was not until the early 1990s that serious efforts were made toward the reform and transformation of the country’s public sector management. This work analytically examines and reviews the public sector reform and transformation efforts in Kenya to improve public sector performance and overall public service delivery.

scholarly journals The role of the ‘centre’ in public service reform

2020 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-40
Author(s):  
Muiris MacCarthaigh
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Public Sector Reform ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Consistent Feature ◽  
Irish Case ◽  
The 1960S

AbstractAmongst his many interests in public administration, the practical and challenging task of implementing and evaluating public service reform has been a consistent feature of the oeuvre of research over Richard Boyle’s career (cf. Boyle, 2004, 2016; Boyle & Joyce, 1988; Boyle & Lemaire, 1999; Boyle & MacCarthaigh, 2011). In this article, the focus is on the role played by the ‘centre’ in public service reform both conceptually and in practice. The article first considers what is meant by the centre in Irish political– administrative life, before reflecting on how we might understand different forms of public sector reform governance and then applying them to the Irish case. The centre-led reforms that occurred between the 1960s up to the late 2000s are reviewed, before more recent efforts from 2011 up to the present are presented. A final section summarises the contribution.

On Reform

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. W. Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Observational Methods ◽  
Public Sector Reform ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Efficiency And Effectiveness ◽  
Variable Success

This chapter, an exercise in applied anthropology, asks two questions. What lessons about reforming the British civil service can be learnt from using observational methods to study British government departments? What are the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach in the reform of public services? The chapter summarizes the main characteristics of public sector reform over the past decade; namely, evidence-based policy-making, managerialism, and choice. It compares the reform proposals with the fieldwork reported in Rhodes (2011a), identifying plausible conjectures for would-be reformers. It then outlines an approach to reform, focusing on dilemmas and finally discusses the prospects and limits of this approach, both in the study of public administration and for public sector reform. It concludes that attempts to impose private sector management beliefs and techniques on the public sector to increase its economy, efficiency, and effectiveness have had at best variable success.

scholarly journals The Search for a Result-Oriented Public Sector Reform in Ghana: A Myth or Reality?

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 136
Author(s):  
Akpeko Agbevade ◽  
Desmond Tweneboah Koduah
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
National Development ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Public Sector Reform ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Donor Funding ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Reforms ◽  
Expected Outcome

The Article Examined Whether Public Sector Reform In Ghana Is A Myth Or Reality. It Emerged That Since Independence In 1957, Successive Governments Implemented Both Socialist And Market-Oriented Public Sector Reforms; However, None Of These Reforms Yielded The Expected Outcome. Hence, The New Patriotic Party On Winning Political Power Initiated The National Public Sector Reform Strategy. This Reform Aimed At Using The Public Sector As The Catalyst To Stimulate The Private Sector For Job Creation And National Development. The Study Found That The Reform Made Some Gains. However, Excessive Partisanship, Narrow Political Commitment, Donor-Funding, The Time Boundedness Of The Reform And Focus On Only 16 Ministries, Departments And Agencies Militated Against It Success Hence Public Sector Reform Is A Myth In Ghana.  The Article Recommends Commitment To The Directive Principles Of State Policy As The Panacea To Effectiveness Of Public Sector Reforms In Ghana.

Public Sector Reform and the Public Servant

2021 ◽  
pp. 359-379
Author(s):  
Avery Poole ◽  
Janine O’Flynn ◽  
Patrick Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Sector Reform ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Servant

“Representative bureaucracy as a leadership issue: the Canadian case”

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-410
Author(s):  
Tim A. Mau
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Representative Bureaucracy ◽  
Gender Representation ◽  
Administrative Leadership ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Leadership ◽  
Federal Public Service

PurposeThe public administration literature on representative bureaucracy identifies several advantages from having a diverse public service workforce, but it has not explicitly focused on leadership. For its part, the public sector leadership literature has largely ignored the issue of gender. The purpose of this paper is to rectify these limitations by advancing the argument that having a representative bureaucracy is fundamentally a leadership issue. Moreover, it assesses the extent to which representativeness has been achieved in the Canadian federal public service.Design/methodology/approachThe paper begins with a discussion of the importance of a representative bureaucracy for democratic governance. In the next section, the case is made that representativeness is fundamentally intertwined with the concept of administrative leadership. Then, the article provides an interpretive case study analysis of the federal public service in Canada, which is the global leader in terms of women's representation in public service leadership positions.FindingsThe initial breakthrough for gender representation in the Canadian federal public service was 1995. From that point onward, the proportion of women in the core public administration exceeded workforce availability. However, women continued to be modestly under-represented among the senior leadership cadre throughout the early 2000s. The watershed moment for gender representation in the federal public service was 2011 when the number of women in the executive group exceeded workforce availability for the first time. Significant progress toward greater representativeness in the other target groups has also been made but ongoing vigilance is required.Research limitations/implicationsThe study only determines the passive representation of women in the Public Service of Canada and is not able to comment on the extent to which women are substantively represented in federal policy outcomes.Originality/valueThe paper traces the Canadian federal government's progress toward achieving gender representation over time, while commenting on the extent to which the public service reflects broader diversity. In doing so, it explicitly links representation to leadership, which the existing literature fails to do, by arguing that effective administrative leadership is contingent upon having a diverse public service. Moreover, it highlights the importance of gender for public sector leadership, which hitherto has been neglected.

scholarly journals Exploiting conditionality: EU and international actors and post-NPM reform in Ireland

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
Muiris MacCarthaigh ◽  
Niamh Hardiman
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Reforms ◽  
New Public ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
Administrative Elites

Between 2008 and 2015, Ireland undertook unprecedented and systemic public sector reforms in a polity not traditionally considered a prominent reformer. While some of these reforms comprised part of the loan programme agreement with EU and international actors, many others did not. This article argues that the crisis in Ireland provided a window of opportunity to introduce reforms that political and administrative elites had previously found difficult to implement. The authority of the Troika was invoked to provide legitimacy for controversial initiatives, yet some of the reforms went further than the loan programme strictly required. A number of these concerning organisational rationalisation, the public service ‘bargain’ and transversal policy coordination are considered here. Agreements were negotiated with public sector unions that facilitated sharp cuts in pay and conditions, reducing the potential for opposition to change. The reform effort was further legitimated by the reformers’ post-New Public Management, whole-of-government discourse, which situated considerations of effectiveness and efficiency in a broader framework of public service quality and delivery.

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