Has public sector reform been carried out consistently in Africa? Have real wage levels changed? Has accountability improved? Who supports and who opposes reform? This study by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) analyses the impact of public sector reform in eight East and Southern African countries and highlights the importance of the political dynamics behind them. Special attention is given to donor involvement and concerns over efficiency and accountability are identified.
Reform efforts have produced mixed results in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Employment levels and government consumption have tended to decrease across the region, although far from uniformly. Real public employment wages may have stopped falling and wages may even have risen in a couple of countries. A larger share of total expenditures is now used for wages, but this may have negative effects on efficiency because non-wage expenditures remain significantly underfunded. Health and education expenditures in real per capita terms have risen in some—but not all—countries. Military funding trends are also mixed. Accountability measures, such as performance-based contracts, Citizen’s Charters, public complaint mechanisms and service delivery surveys, are being introduced on a selective basis. It is too early to assess actual outcomes, but these depend as much on political factors as on managerial arrangements. Support for the reforms remains mixed, as can be expected with reforms that result in mixed, uncertain or unequally distributed benefits.
There are several implications of this:
- First, fiscally driven reductions of state employment and functions have gone too far and have not led to general and significant efficiency and accountability improvements.
- Second, too little attention has been given to the political dynamics of reform. Not all reform resistance is due to entrenched self-interest of state elites. It is also caused by the mixed—and sometimes severely negative—results of the reform.
- Third, donors are heavily involved in the reform (through conditionalities, funding and technical advice), but their track record suggests that they have no privileged knowledge about how to solve public sector performance problems in the region.
- This points to a final implication: the lack of attention to and understanding of the ‘ground level’ of the public sector.
Most public service reforms are still donor-led, despite the fact that their track record suggests that they have no privileged knowledge about how to solve the existing problems. Recommendations for donors are:
- From a broader efficiency and accountability point of view, a better understanding of the interactions between government agencies at various levels and urban, village and community-based groups is particularly relevant.
- Co-ordinate their reform initiatives with other donors to reduce the burden their actions place on governments. Policy requirements should be in line with real political possibilities.
- Be more accountable to receiving countries, even when they do not suffer the consequences of their own actions when things go wrong.
- Gain deeper understanding of the domestic political dimension of their support and of the ‘ground level’ of the public sector, going beyond the upper levels of national and local government.
- Support efforts to improve political accountability: strengthening the rule of law and the judiciary, promoting democratisation and the role of the media, strengthening anti-corruption measures.
- Acknowledge that their efforts to attract skilled recipient staff to positions and programmes they fund contribute to distorting government pay policies.
