Have Public Sector Reform Programmes (PSRPs) been successful in African countries? Can general recommendations be formed from the experiences of five African countries? PSRPs were first implemented in Africa in 1983 under the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) supported by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The idea of the programmes was to create affordable government through cost reduction and containment measures. Underlying this was a deliberate rolling back of the state in favour of market economics and private sector-led economic growth.
In general, PSRPs have had little direct positive impact on delivery of public services. On the contrary, they have in most instances severely constrained both capacity building and service delivery:
- In all five countries there have been some significant PSRP gains but impact has thus far been limited, especially with regard to improving service delivery.
- Major problems and constraints exist. For example support for the programmes remains narrow and difficult to sustain, and weak capacity and resource constraints often hinder implementation of plans and programmes for improvement of services.
- Some past gains in PSRP implementation have been reversed. This is especially the case with cost-constraint measures.
- Early progress in the form of demonstrable impact on service delivery improvement is crucial to sustain broad support for PSRPs.
The capacity of the public service in the countries examined and in other developing countries will remain relatively low beyond the foreseeable future. Nevertheless some recommendations are possible:
- PSRPs may not effectively impact on service delivery improvement if they are not strongly linked to sector-wide programmes. Donors should move progressively from a project-oriented to a sector-wide approach (SWAp) in supporting PSRPs.
- Donor assistance could be channelled more effectively by reducing the reliance on Project Implementation Units (PIUs) and increasing the use of local and regional expertise.
- While strong, broad-based and sustained support, by both political and technocratic leaders is critical to the successful design and implementation of Public Service Reform (PSR), it is often not readily available.
