241 Poverty Reduction and Economic Managment August 2004 Findings reports on ongoing operational, economic, and sector work carried out by the World Bank and its member governments in the Africa Region. It is published periodically by the Knowledge and Learning Center on behalf of the Region. The views expressed in Findings are those of the author/s and should not be attributed to the World Bank Group. http://www.worldbank.org/afr/findings Recent Bank Support for Civil Service ReconstructioninPost-conflictCountries The World Bank is engaged in civil service reconstruction efforts in several countries emerging from conflict. How do such efforts differ from traditional civil service reform, and what lessons do they offer for future civil service reconstruction in post-conflict countries? C ivil service reconstruction stilled from the outset--without is important in post-con- having to undo bad ones. flict countries because conflict erodes institutions The Bank provides significant and civil service capacity. And be- support to post-conflict countries cause successful reconstruction-- Nearly a quarter of the Bank's in all sectors--requires domestic member countries--41 of 184--are capacity to implement projects, a weak civil service undermines affected by conflict, and such coun- tries account for 16 percent of Bank overall reconstruction efforts. lending. What role does civil ser- Moreover, donor assistance is cru- cial to a country's rebuilding, and vice reconstruction play in the Bank's post-conflict agenda? What coordinating such assistance re- are the goals of Bank-supported quires a certain amount of civil civil service reconstruction? And service capacity. what interventions can be used to In addition, the Bank has found achieve those goals? that country ownership is essen- During fiscal 2000­02 the Bank's tial for successful projects. But Board approved Transitional Sup- country ownership can be jeopar- port Strategies for nine post-con- dized if international agencies and flict countries: Afghanistan, nongovernmental organizations Burundi, the Democratic Republic (NGOs) dominate reconstruction of Congo, the Republic of Congo, efforts, overwhelming states al- Findings Kosovo, FYR Macedonia, Sierra ready weakened by conflict. Civil Leone, Timor Leste, and Yugosla- service reconstruction offers an via (Serbia and Montenegro). This opportunity to start anew, with little of the resistance to civil ser- note presents the main findings from a review of those strategies and vice reform often encountered of documents for 12 reconstruction from politicians and civil servants. It allows good practices to be in- projects in these countries. Civil service reconstruction has only some of the lessons from that · Increasing accountability. been a high priority experience can be applied to civil · Improving service delivery. service reconstruction. Govern- All nine Transitional Support Strat- The second and third of these are ments often give serious consid- egies included support for recon- common to Bank-supported civil eration to civil service reform only structing civil services and public service reform. But the most com- when the public sector wage bill administrations--placing this ele- mon objective of recent civil ser- becomes unsustainable. But ment ahead of rebuilding human vice reconstruction efforts in post- whereas civil service reform typi- resources, repairing infrastruc- conflict countries, occurring in cally must address the issue of too ture, and developing eight of the nine Transitional Sup- many personnel, civil service re- private enterprises. Moreover, be- port Strategies, was raising civil construction in post-conflict coun- tween fiscal 2000 and 2002 alloca- service capacity for economic man- tries often faces the problem of too tions for projects with civil service agement--a rare objective in civil few--resulting from the emigration reconstruction components nearly service reform. of staff with relevant skills and tripled in the nine post-conflict On the other hand, correcting fis- training. Civil service reconstruc- countries, from 9 percent to 26 per- cal imbalances by reducing the tion in these countries must also cent of total support. public wage bill--a common objec- establish control mechanisms, be- The Bank gives the same prior- tive of civil service reform--has cause peace accords often include ity to civil service reconstruction not been part of recent civil ser- employment guarantees, and in post-conflict countries as it does vice reconstruction efforts. And many former combatants seek to to civil service reform in non-con- changing pay and career struc- fill what they claim were their civil flict countries. During fiscal 2000­ tures, another typical objective of service positions prior to conflicts. 02, 18 percent of support to post- civil service reform, was a compo- Civil service reform and recon- conflict countries went to projects nent of only one civil service re- struction also differ in their ap- with civil service reconstruction construction project. proaches to wage reform. Civil ser- components. During this period vice reform often requires wage projects with civil service reform Reconstruction requires a different adjustments, reflecting fractured components also accounted for 18 kind of civil service capacity grading systems, vertical wage percent of Bank lending. Civil service reconstruction and compression, and salary supple- Some variation occurred among reform have different priorities ments in the form of allowances. the Bank's regions. For example, when it comes to building civil ser- Civil service reconstruction usu- projects with civil service recon- vice capacity. As reconstruction ally requires a completely different struction components accounted begins, civil servants must make, approach to wage reform, because for 40 percent of project assistance implement, and manage policies. salaries are often not adjusted dur- to the four post-conflict countries But during reconstruction the ing conflicts--and frequently fall in Africa--reflecting the high pri- Bank has focused on building policy below subsistence levels. But de- ority given to addressing civil ser- implementation capacity rather spite the urgent need to adjust civil vice weaknesses in the region. than policymaking capacity. In ad- service wages, it is difficult to do Over the past 15 years the Africa dition, only one of the nine Tran- so before determining the size and region has had the largest share sitional Support Strategies (in shape of the rebuilt civil service of Bank projects involving civil ser- Timor Leste) identified the need to and before obtaining reasonable vice reform. increase civil service capacity for projections of future government policy management. revenue. Civil service reconstruction and With implementation capacity reform face different challenges Objectives of recent Bank-sup- building as the main objective, the and goals ported civil service reconstruction most common components of civil include: service reconstruction projects Although the Bank has supported · Raising civil service capacity have been equipment purchases civil service reform since 1978, for economic management. and general management training. sures common to civil service re- Macedonia and Yugoslavia. In Yu- Projects have also emphasized form projects--appeared in only goslavia the Bank's reconstruction building capacity for budget and fi- one reconstruction project. In ad- strategy included changes to the nancial management. And be- dition, only two of the nine Transi- civil service structure (such as re- cause external aid plays a critical tional Support Strategies (for the ducing public employment and re- role in post-conflict reconstruction, Democratic Republic of Congo and structuring ministries) and to per- civil service capacity to manage the Republic of Congo) directly ad- sonnel recruitment and remunera- aid is urgently needed. Donors that dressed the need to increase trans- tion policies. provide support to central budgets parency and reduce corruption, and But FYR Macedonia and Yugosla- are sensitive about how it is used. both were in countries where di- via are exceptions, as both coun- Thus all the Transitional Support version of state resources had tries already had relatively high Strategies emphasize the need for been a major source of conflict. civil service capacity before their civil servants to be able to manage conflict. That fact, along with the aid. Other differences from civil service overwhelming emphasis on build- reform ing capacity for budget manage- Capacity building has preceded Improving service delivery is con- ment, could mean that adjusting accountability strengthening sidered a less pressing need in civil civil service structures and person- Relative to civil service reform ef- service reconstruction projects. nel management practices is a forts, reconstruction projects have This objective was mentioned in less pressing need for civil service placed less priority on strengthen- only one Transitional Support reconstruction in most post-con- ing accountability--and more on Strategy--even though health and flict countries. Instead, the most building civil service capacity. In education needs were urgent and urgent objective is to get money Timor Leste the Bank decided that conflict had seriously eroded social moving through the central budget. only after some success had been capital in every post-conflict coun- achieved in building capacity could try. In contrast, improving service Bank projects have incorporated les- attention be paid to monitoring delivery was the most common ob- sons from previous reconstruction government performance, jective of Bank-supported civil ser- efforts strengthening civil service ac- vice reform in fiscal 2000­02. Although downsizing is a promi- countability mechanisms (such as Deconcentration or devolution of nent feature in Bank-supported systems for citizen complaints), and administrative power is often em- civil service reform, it has not been increasing transparency and integ- phasized in civil service reform, part of recent civil service recon- rity in public service recruitment. but administrative decentraliza- struction interventions. This dif- Accountability strengthening, an tion was an objective of civil ser- ference may reflect a 1998 finding objective of civil service recon- vice reconstruction only in Sierra by the Operations Evaluation De- struction in four of the nine post- Leone, which already had a decen- partment that the Bank's post- conflict countries, has also been tralized administrative structure conflict reconstruction efforts paid designed differently than in civil well before its conflict. One reason inadequate attention to political service reform. Most accountabil- for this could be that centralized realities (OED 1998). In Cambodia, ity efforts in civil service recon- management is preferable where for instance, the Bank pushed for struction have sought to local capacity is weak, as is usually downsizing the civil service even strengthen capacity for financial the case in post-conflict countries. though the political coalition cre- management. Other interventions In another departure from civil ated by the country's peace accords to strengthen accountability--such service reform projects, improving was partly based on expanding the as publishing government ac- human resource management was civil service to absorb a large num- counts and contracts, closing spe- a rare objective among civil ser- ber of functionaries from incoming cial accounts, creating external vice reconstruction projects, in- parties. audit agencies, and other mea- cluded in just two countries: FYR Recent projects in post-conflict There is a strong need for con- Further reading countries have also not transferred tinued Bank support for civil ser- noncore government functions to vice reconstruction. Although Mukherjee, Ranjana, and Nick the private sector--perhaps partly many countries emerging from Manning. 2002. "Recent Trends in because the 1998 OED report criti- conflict are poor and require Pov- Lending for Civil Service Reform." cized the Bank for promoting erty Reduction Strategy Papers, PREMnote 71. World Bank, PREM sweeping privatization in post-con- they often have insufficient admin- Network, Washington, D.C. [http:/ flict countries without taking into istrative capacity and statistical /www1.worldbank.org/prem/ account cronyism between the pub- information to develop strategies. PREMNotes/premnote71.pdf]. lic and private sectors. Civil service reconstruction is OED (Operations Evaluation De- also important to enable such partment). 1998. The World Bank's Future work on civil service countries to participate in the Experience with Post-Conflict Re- reconstruction Heavily Indebted Poor Countries construction. Report 18465. Wash- ington, D.C.: World Bank. Because most of the Bank's recent (HIPC) initiative--sponsored by the World Bank. 2002. Review of civil service reconstruction Bank and the International Mon- the Poverty Reduction Strategy projects are still active, it is too etary Fund--because most post- Paper (PRSP) Approach: Early early to evaluate their effective- conflict countries are heavily in- Experiences with Interim PRSPs ness. Thus, this review has fo- debted. Obtaining debt relief from and Full PRSPs. Washington, D.C. cused on the Bank's reconstruc- the initiative requires establish- [http://www.world tion priorities. In preparing future ing economic discipline, and thus bank.org/poverty/strategies/ civil service reconstruction, it a civil service capable of formulat- review/earlyexp.pdf]. would be logical to evaluate the ing and implementing policies and Bank's strengths in the areas iden- programs that achieve that goal. tified in this note--including as- Government officials must be able sessing and (if necessary) aug- to establish a statistical base for menting staff skills and capacity. calculating debt sustainability and This note first appeared in print Approaches to increasing ac- determining HIPC eligibility, to de- as PREMnotes No. 79 in October countability should also be tested. velop a strategy for reaching the 2003, and was written by Ranjana It would also be useful to determine HIPC decision point, and to Mukherjee (Consultant, Public whether it has been by design or strengthen public expenditure Sector Group, PREM Network). This default that the Bank's reconstruction management to ensure effective note benefited from comments priorities do not include strengthen- use of funds freed by debt relief. from Ian Bannon, Nick Manning, ing policymaking, promoting admin- During fiscal 2003­04 three post- David Sewell, and Helen Sutch. istrative decentralization, improv- conflict countries (Burundi, Demo- This note series is intended to ing human resource management, cratic Republic of Congo, and Re- summarize good practices and key and making the civil service more public of Congo) are scheduled to policy findings on PREM-related top- responsive to civil society. undergo HIPC tracking assess- ics. The views expressed in these ments by the Bank. notes are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank. PREMnotes are widely distributed to Bank staff and are also available on the PREM Website (http://prem).