The Government of Tanzania has made genuine progress in building capacity to design and manage public service reform. So how did Tanzania achieve this institutional and organisational change? This case study prepared for the European Centre for Development Policy Management by the African Capacity Building Foundation examines this process, focusing on the role of the President’s Office – Public Service Management (PO-PSM) unit as a change manager within the public service.
Tanzania enjoys a supportive context for public service reform. The governing elite appears convinced about the need to embrace globalisation as a key part of any national development strategy. A strongly presidential political system, depoliticised policy-making, greater freedom for the press and academics, improvements in the rule of law, and recent macro-economic stability are all positive factors. Additional supporting factors include a relatively homogenous population and improved performance in public services.
Nevertheless, whilst many public service staff welcome the chance to improve performance, there are still significant constraints to large-scale reform. These include a lack of resources beyond international funding agencies, poor logistical support in outlying regions and corruption issues.
The government-wide Tanzanian Public Service Reform Programme (PSRP) was ambitious, well-planned and comprehensive. It involved a number of simultaneous institutional and organisational changes and relied heavily on technical assistance. Capacity and performance improvement focused on reforming existing organisations, rather than creating new ones. Enabling factors included:
- Connectedness and action: The PO-PSM initially functioned as a conventional aid project, and subsequently became an established part of government. This enabled strong connectedness to government and freedom to operate.
- Leadership: The same Permanent Secretary provided guidance for ten years, with widespread connections across government, international funding agencies and networks. Senior managers, operating under strong leadership, were able to think creatively.
- Staffing: The PO-PSM was staffed almost entirely by Tanzanian professionals who found a sense of meaning and context in the office. Commitment, a sense of repsonsibility and motivation stemmed from this source rather than from financial incentives.
- Funders: The international funding community played a generally positive role, accepting the PSRP as a comprehensive, long-term strategy requiring 15-20 years of steady, patient support.
The PSRP combined two approaches to organisational change by focusing on both development performance and developing organisational capacity. Some observations on the Tanzanian approach are outlined below:
- A number of factors combined to produce the direction and energy necessary for reform. In particular, the PO-PSM was given space to develop its identity, capacity and confidence.
- From the beginning, a delberate strategic choice was made to use a transplantation approach using ‘new public management’ (NPM). This may reflect a tendency for institutional structural adjustment to replace economic structural adjustment as the latest universal solution in development cooperation.
- In addition, the NPM was promoted as international best practice and a symbol of modernisation and globilisation. The stress on improving service delivery and empowering citizens resonated with many senior officials.
- Sustaining the current scale of the reforms presents a challenge: whilst the costs are identifiable and immediate, the benefits are ambiguous and delayed. Some promising approaches include building ‘quick wins’ into the programme, marketing the value of the PSRP to the wider public, building up demand from external sources and supporting broader efforts to balance the role of the public service in Tanzania with other institutions, organisations and groups.
