In many urban areas around the world, public utilities provide water supply and sanitation (WSS) services. While some of these urban public water and sanitation utilities ("water utilities") perform well, others suffer from the types of performance issues observed in many public sector entities, such as low operating and investment efficiency.
... See More + A framework for turning around poorly performing water utilities will benefit the management of these utilities, governments with responsibilities for water utilities, and those providing technical and financial support for improving the WSS sector. Improving the performance of water utilities is difficult because the problems they face are complex and multidimensional. Problems caused by dysfunctional political environments, combined with an entrenched backlog of inefficient practices, cannot be solved by applying standard technical and managerial techniques. Achieving a sustained turnaround requires a framework that integrates practical steps to increase a utility's operational and managerial efficiency with measures to reverse the dysfunctional political equilibria in which it operates. Using a comprehensive turnaround framework is the best approach to improve water utilities' performance and efficiency, and increase their ability to access finance, including commercial finance. Why does this matter? Evidence shows that water utilities with access to commercial finance are much more likely to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
See Less -
Working Paper 132118 NOV 01, 2018
Soppe,Gerhardus Nicolaas Albertus; Janson,Nils M.; Piantini, ScarlettDisclosed
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 -
