There are very few recent resources addressing performance related pay (PRP) in the central government administrations of developing countries. Several of the experts contacted emphasised that PRP has not been widely implemented in the developing world, and none were able to suggest a case where PRP had been implemented successfully. Most of the work in this area has instead focused on issues such as paying civil servants a living wage, ensuring civil servants are paid accurately and on time, decompressing wage scales, bringing order to complex systems of ‘allowances’, introducing merit-based recruitment and promotion and trying to match private sector salaries. PRP is sophisticated in comparison with these more basic reforms and is considered by many to be too technically advanced for the capacities of most developing countries. Several experts also argue that PRP is inappropriate for the political conditions of patronage in many developing countries.
Many of the resources in this report emphasise that there is no strong evidence to support the idea that PRP improves worker or organisational performance. However, some research shows improvements in the health sector from performance based pay at either a group or individual level.
