Over the past three decades, African countries have been reforming their public sector with a view to improving efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and transparency as part of efforts to improve the delivery of public services. Reform actions have included privatisation, public/private partnerships, commercialisation and adoption of private sector approaches in managing public organisations. This book, put together by OSSREA, reviews measures by African countries in that regard, the extent to which the measures have achieved their intended results, as well as the factors behind the failure to achieve those results, where this was the case.

Reforming the African Public Sector: Retrospect and Prospectsis an in-depth and wide-ranging review of the available literature on African public sector reforms. It illustrates several differing country experiences to buttress the main observations and conclusions. It adopts a structural/institutional approach which underpins most of the reform efforts on the continent. To contextualize reform of the public sector and understand its processes, dynamics and intricacies, the book examines the state and state capacity building in Africa, especially when there can be no state without an efficient public sector. In addition, the book addresses a number of theories such as the new institutional economics, public choice and new public management, which have in one way or another influenced most of the initiatives implemented under public sector reform in Africa. There is also a survey of the three phases of public sector reform which have emerged and the balance sheet of reform strategies, namely, decentralization, privatization, deregulation, agencification, co-production and public-private partnerships. It concludes by identifying possible alternative approaches such as developing a vigorous public sector ethos and sustained capacity building to promote and enhance the renewal and reconstruction of the African public sector within the context of the New Partnerships for Africa's Development (NEPAD), good governance and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

There is not a single African country that did not attempt public sector reforms in the 1990s. Governments no longer see themselves as sole suppliers of social services, frequently opting for partnerships with the private sector. Efficiency and choice have entered the language of the planning and implementation units of Africa's line ministries, while privatization is no longer the controversial subject it was a decade ago. There have also been moves towards more open and democratic governments. Reforming Africa's Institutions looks at the extent to which reforms undertaken in Sub-Saharan Africa in recent years have enhanced institutional capacities across the breadth of government. To what extent have reforms been internalized and defended by governments? The authors also look specifically at the impact of public sector reforms on these economies and pose the question whether 'ownership can be attained when countries continue to be heavily dependent on external support. The volume is presented in three parts. The first focuses on the issue of reform ownership; on the issues of governance, the political economy of reform ownership, and the contradictions inherent in using aid as an instrument for enhancing domestic reform ownership. Part two examines the nature of incentives in the African civil service and the reforms undertaken in recent years to raise public sector efficiency in Africa. The third part discusses issues related to institutional capabilities in Africa and how they have been affected by the reforms undertaken in the 1990s, including privatization and movement towards political pluralism.

This ground-breaking volume provides a comprehensive review of public sector reforms and the impact of these reforms on the management of the civil service and the political-administrative interface. The focus is a study of how public sector reforms have impacted upon the executive arm of government with reference to developed and developing countries. South Africa, a country which has undergone an enormous amount of reforms, is used as a case study to highlight how public sector reforms have impacted upon the executive arm of government. The book therefore provides an insight into the functioning of government, the relationship between politicians and senior civil servants and an analysis of contemporary public management in a changing global context. It will prove invaluable for a broad range of people studying or working in the field of governance, public management, public administration, development studies and international relations.

Key Principles of Public Sector Reforms contains case studies from Cameroon, Ghana, Grenada, India, Kenya, Rwanda, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania and Trinidad and Tobago on the policy reforms, strategies and methodologies that support national priorities and greater policy coherence for sustained development and growth.

The UK is said to have been one of the most prolific reformers of its public administration. Successive reforms have been accompanied by claims that the changes would make the world a better place by transforming the way government worked. Despite much discussion and debate over government makeovers and reforms, however, there has been remarkably little systematic evaluation of what happened to cost and performance in UK government during the last thirty years. A Government that Worked Better and Cost Less? aims to address that gap, offering a unique evaluation of UK government modernization programmes from 1980 to the present day. The book provides a distinctive framework for evaluating long-term performance in government, bringing together the 'working better' and 'costing less' dimensions, and presents detailed primary evidence within that framework. This book explores the implications of their findings for widely held ideas about public management, the questions they present, and their policy implications for a period in which pressures to make government 'work better and cost less' are unlikely to go away.

In general, three waves of public sector reforms have emerged in Africa over the past three decades. The first generation was implemented as part of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) at the beginning of the 1980s. The aim of the reform was to provide conducive environment for private sector development; the second generation of public service reform focused on capacity building for improved service delivery. The third generation amplified service delivery, in a development prompted by the inadequacies of the first and the second wave of reforms. This study employs Ethiopia and Nigeria as case studies. Ethiopia has emerged from decades of civil war; famine and chronic poverty to embrace PSR as an essential component as the nation's economic reform agenda, with the country showing considerable improvements on governance indicators. The nation's strong economic performance, attributable to economic reforms, has continued for the tenth consecutive year, with real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth estimated at 9.7% in 2012/13. Nigeria has also embraced PSR as a cornerstone of its economic reform agenda. The nation's economic output also featured robust growth in 2013, estimated at 7.4% of GDP, up from 6.5% in 2012. The major objective of this study is to shed light on Africa's Public Sector Reform agenda, which reveals both challenges and opportunities. The paper employs empirical data in the study, revealing a robust public service reform agenda across Africa, with Ethiopia and Nigeria as case studies.