E. Gyimah-Boadi, Ghana Center for Democratic
Development (CDD-Ghana); and Dept of Political Science,
University of Ghana, Legon
TOPIC: THE SEARCH FOR A DEVELOPMENTAL PUBLIC
SERVICE IN AFRICA:
CHALLENGES AND
PROSPECTS
Introduction
 The
attributes of “developmental”
states and public services are well
known by now. They embody the
following capacities:
 Regulatory
capacity – ability to
establish and enforce rules
throughout the society, including the
traditional and religious realms
 Administrative capacity - ability to
manage the personnel and resources
of the state and to ensure
accountability and efficiency in
service delivery
 Technical
capacity- expertise and
knowledge required to make and
implement technical decisions as well
as the policy tools and instruments
necessary to implement those
decisions effectively
 Extractive
capacity - to raise the
revenues needed by the state to pay
for the expenses of implementing
state policies and goals – which of
course includes the revenue for
hiring, paying, and providing public
servants with the resources to work
with
 Developmental
states and public
services (by the above definition) are
rare in Africa - outside of South
Africa, Namibia Botswana and
Mauritius; the quest for the
developmental state elsewhere in
Africa is understood to have proved
highly elusive.
The emergence of the crisis of
public service incapacity in
Africa: some caveats

Relatively short time span: the
development of a high level of state
and bureaucratic capacity took
several centuries in other parts of
the world:

Compared to other developing
countries, African states are very
new - formed during colonial rule
and emerged as a nation state less
than 50 years ago. (Compare with
most places in Latin America where
European colonialism had ended by
the mid-19th century; or with Asian
societies that can can boast of
bureaucratic traditions that predate
those of Europe).
The colonial factor is also relevant to postcolonial failure to develop developmental
states and effective public services in
much of Africa (outside of the settler
colonies):
The colonial state’s neo-mercantilist
orientations - in which it sustained
itself largely on taxing surpluses
generated by peasant grown primary
commodities, exports of minerals
and timber extracted by foreign
companies, and imports of consumer
goods;
 The
colonial state that relied very
little or not all on direct taxes (and
almost exclusively on the
mechanisms of marketing boards
and other forms of official
monopoly; control over export/
import business through licensing;
and foreign exchange/currency
control) – leading to………….
 Emergence
of a political economy and
politics whose central feature was
contestation for control of the rents
generated by central government
through the control over the trading
activities of the state.
 The
often heterogeneous character of
the state created by the colonial rule
and the many and varied forms of
social loyalties and identities available
to be mobilized politically to make
sectarian claims on the state and to
seek exemptions from regulations,
extractions and bureaucratic
administration (Note the continuous
struggle over the power of eminent
domain between central government
and traditional authorities rulers in
Ghana).
Post-colonial contributions and
aggravations to the crisis of
public service incapacity:
 Vast
expansion of state activities and
public service to cater for nationalist
ambitions and to meet high popular
expectations – well beyond existing
capacities to deliver - and without
commensurate levels of resources
 Extreme politicisation and
accompanying erosion of
bureaucratic restraints and norms in
state organizations.


Complicity of public servants (especially
those in the top and middle ranks) in
bureaucratic corruption and economic
mismanagement.
Flight of already insufficient bureaucratic
personnel and chronic inability to retain
good talent or attract new ones into a
demoralized sector, especially from the
late 1970s.
Requirements for fostering
developmental public sector ion
Africa include:




Re-emphasising and adhering to
Weberian rational–legal bureaucratic
principles (particularly meritocratic
hiring, promoting and rewarding)
Insulating key or strategic units of the
public service from partisan and
sectarian pressures.
Reforming administrative procedures to
enhance clarity and transparency.
Meaningful salary reform/rationalization.
Who should do it? What
incentives?
Government?
 The public service/public servants?
 International development partners?
 Public servants?
 The public/private sector (in multiple
and overlapping roles as taxpayers,
service users, citizens)?

Relative potential to be
agents for reform?
Government
Notionally, governments have an inherent
interest in building state and public service
capacities. But
 African governments lack the discipline to
voluntarily follow the logic of such
capacities: They tend to regard bureaucratic
principles as a form of nuisance. For
instance, meritocratic values undercut short
term patronage advantages available to
them.

They often lack the political incentive and
capacity as well as moral authority to protect
public servants or strategic units from
sectarian pressures;
 They themselves are often the principal
bearers sectarian pressures on the service
for dispensation of favours and granting
exemptions; and
 (Until recently) they largely relied on
cooptation and repression rather than
effective service delivery and popular
acceptance for survival.

Governments also lack the incentive to
promote meaningful salary reforms because it
often entails vigorous internal revenue
mobilization, which could provoke tax payer
revolt and stimulate popular demand for
representation. And
 They have also learnt to expect donors to
provide bail outs: paying for expensive
technocrats and consultants, and thereby
saving them from suffering the full effects of
governmental inaction

Public servants
 They
have a direct interest in
building or restoring capabilities
 But they are not in a good position to
initiate reforms; and
 They tend to resist or sabotage
reforms that threaten their short
term interests.
Donors/development partners




Donors/IFIs have been responsible some of the important
public service reforms in Africa in the past two decades –
rebuilding revenue secretariats, introducing user fees,
salary reforms, admin decentralization, etc.
But effectiveness of donor-driven reforms blunted
‘ownership’ problems.
MDBS and other donor approaches to reforms which
acknowledge the sovereign mandate and aim to enhance
local ownership are generally promising.
But the implicit ceding of external oversight may ignore
persistently weak governmental accountability and inclusion
deficit; due diligence gives way to expediency and
managerial costs savings. Thus, donors relaxing pressure
on govts despite deficits in micro-economic reforms, control
of official rent-seeking and anti-corruption.
The public/private sector as
agent for reform
The democracy advantage?



Democracy generates negative pressures against public
service reforms. For example, it intensifies pressure for
patronage; populist politicians bring pressure to bear on
bureaucratic decision making; social groups and private
sector operators demand exemptions and concessions etc.
But
Democratic politics also enhances ‘voice’ for the public and
demand for accountability and responsiveness. Votes
increasingly tied to performance in competitive elections.
It also generates political legitimacy, which enables
government to introduce and sustain painful but necessary
measures such as vigorous internal revenue mobilization.
E.g., Ghana improving revenue mobilization efforts under
elected governments.
With democratization, Africa may well be
approaching an era of enhanced multistakeholder and multiple opportunities to resolve
its public service reform impasse.
THANK YOU