A burgeoning area of social science research examines how state capabilities and bureaucratic effectiveness shape economic development. This paper studies how the management practices of civil service bureaucrats correlate to the delivery of public projects, using novel data from the Ghanaian Civil Service.
... See More + This paper combines hand-coded progress reports on 3,600 projects with a management survey in the government ministries and departments responsible for these projects. The analysis finds that management matters: practices related to autonomy are positively associated with project completion, yet practices related to incentives/monitoring of bureaucrats are negatively associated with project completion. The negative impact of incentives/monitoring practices is partly explained by bureaucrats having to multi-task, interactions with their intrinsic motivation, their engagement in influence activities, and project characteristics such as the clarity of targets and deliverable outputs. The paper discusses the interplay between management practices and corruption, alternative methods by which to measure management practices in organizations, and the external validity of the results. The findings suggest that the focus of many civil service reform programs on introducing stronger incentives and monitoring may backfire in some organizations, and that even countries with low levels of state capability may benefit by providing public servants with greater autonomy in some spheres.
See Less -
Policy Research Working Paper WPS8595 SEP 19, 2018
The objectives of the Strengthening Public Resource Management Project are to improving transparency and efficiency in public resources management by: (i) automating government personnel and payroll information; and (ii) enhancing MOF's capacity in management of public financial information.
... See More + The extension will also allow sufficient time for procurement of consulting services to develop functional and technical requirements for the budget planning module upgrade under the Project’s Part B. It is expected that this activity’s implementation will going beyond the current Closing Date and be completed by the end of 2019. Progress towards the project development objective (PDO) remains satisfactory and according to the agreed time-bound implementation plan all the project activities will be completed before the proposed new Closing Date. The recipient, through its implementing agencies, shall finalize all envisaged project activities within the extended period, as agreed with the donor and reflected in the amended Administration Agreement. Specifically, NCSA, under project`s Part A shall implement first phase of HRMIS/Payroll system for core functions in up to 22 central executive bodies by July 2020, and MoF shall complete all activities under the project`s Part B by the end of 2019. The extension will constitute the first extension of the project closing date.
See Less -
Ratings for the Justice Service Delivery Project for Afghanistan were as follows: outcomes were moderately satisfactory, the Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and the monitoring and evaluation quality was modest.
... See More + Some lessons learned included: the initial approach adopted by the team was reflective of traditional bank projects. Periodic implementation support missions made recommendations to address key issues. However, this approach was largely ineffective in a period of political transition. Shifting the project TTL to Kabul during the project restructuring significantly improved dialogue and performance as a more proximal dialogue was possible. In this case, an intensified supervision program could have restructured the project more quickly. The sustainability of recurrent costs such as legal aid should be considered at the outset, not the conclusion of the project. Over half of Afghanistan’s population lives under the poverty line and cannot afford legal assistance. Projects like JSDP can improve the capacity of the state legal aid system to reach out to a larger number of indigent individuals in need of legal aid, but cannot sustain this in the long run. A hybrid system where NGOs and private lawyers play a defined role alongside the state‐run legal aid may be a more effective approach. This should have been considered in project design. Addressing community based Justice Institutions requires building a stronger consensus on the principles of regulation and integration in the formal justice sector. There has been a clear difference in opinions between different actors in the justice sector on how the role of community based Justice Institutions should be regulated and linked to formal Justice Institutions. The inability of stakeholders to resolve their differences was a key reason that component one ‘partnership for justice’ never gained momentum. Any future effort to improve coordination and synergy between formal and informal justice Institutions therefore needs to recognize these differences upfront and either choose an approach where consensus can be built or plan for an extensive period of dialogue. In this case, agreement was required between the SC and MOJ and between the center and provincial institutions.
See Less -
Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR4475 JUN 28, 2018
