Public Administration Reform Practice Note

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Public Administration ReformPractice NotePart 1

• Global Practice Meeting on Public Administration
  Reform

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The Practice Note

• Provides a strategic framework for UNDP Country
  Office staff and Regional Programmes for PAR
  programming
• Provides UNDPs development partners with clear
  sense of UNDPs strategic focus
• Provides a portal to more detailed programmatic
  guidance toolkits including primers, case
  studies other resources.

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UNDP support for PARBasic statistics

• 380 projects in 112 countries
• 7 Promoting a professional, merit base, civil
  service.
• 17 Functional reviews
• 63 Training civil servants
• 13 ICT

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PAR and the MDGs

• More resources in poor countries are freed to be
  used in pursuit of MDG goals
• By increasing transparency and eradicating
  corruption, more scarce resources in poor
  countries are directed towards achieving MDGs
• A responsive public administration, especially to
  women and marginalized people, is critical to
  ensuring the sustainability of MDG achievements
• Increasing the accountability of state
  institutions is essential to closing the
  democratic deficit.

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Process of developing the PN

• Mapping of UNDP activities, lessons from
  experience and evaluations
• Inputs by the Democratic Governance Group, PAR
  Advisers based in NY, Oslo and the SURFs.
• Comments from Network Discussion between October
  8th and October 22nd, involving over 20
  participants.
• Review by the Democratic Governance Programme
  Team over 25 responses.
• Peer review by senior practitioners in partner
  agencies

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Main issues in PAR for UNDP
UNDPs comparative strength is evolving

• Difficult to define a UNDP role compatible with
  its resources.
• Other players have increased their role in this
  field, e.g. World Bank, ADB, IADB, and DfID
• Surveys in Africa, Asia, and the Arab States have
  shown that focus on reform of central government
  declined while decentralization has become a core
  area for UNDP

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UNDPs Niche

• UNDPs twin pillars of a pro-poor and human
  rights-based approach to PAR are a focus on open
  government and decentralization
• UNDP practitioners, informed by this Practice
  Note and accompanying toolkit will be able to
  engage in a dialogue on all aspects of PAR, and
  be advocates for UNDPs pro-poor and human
  rights-based approaches.

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Substance and Scope of PAR

• The PN is built around capacity development at
  the individual, institutional and societal levels
  for poverty reduction in four areas
• Civil Service Reform
• Improving the policy making system
• Reforming the machinery of government
• Reforming the public expenditure management
  system

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Civil Service Reform

• Mission
• Training
• Establishment control
• Management systems career vs. position civil
  service commission performance management
• Pay and compensation
• Gender equity and affirmative action
• Politicization and patronage

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Improving the policy making system

• Growing area of interest
• Politically very sensitive
• Weakness one of the key handicaps to reform

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Reforming the machinery of government

• Functional Reviews
• Information and Communication technologies and
  e-governance
• Democracy enhancing public institutions

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Reforming the Revenue and Expenditure Management
System

• More often the preserve of the IFIs
• But important new approaches pro-poor budgeting
  gender budgeting, etc.
• Critical dimension of decentralization

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PN provides practical guidance for DG
practitioners
Technical guidance on the main areas of PAR (Poli
cy making systems, CSR, etc.) as well as

• Entry points and sequencing
• Winners and losers
• Gaining support and fostering leadership
• Accounting for different administrative
  traditions
• Enshrining the Human Rights Approach
• Measuring Progress

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Regional Trends

• RBA driven by structural adjustment and strong
  donor pressure decentralization focus CSR
  holistic approaches
• RBAP UNDP increasingly crowded out shift
  towards decentralization CSR, institutional
  capacity building, public awareness and pro-poor
  reform
• RBAS few countries, focus on technical reforms,
  anti-corruption, ICT
• RBEC EU accession transitional economy issues
• RBLAC shift from focus on economic and
  financial management (modernization) to more
  ambitious approaches NPM, performance-based CSR,
  and introducing voice

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Next Steps

• Seminar on PAR in Bratislava to
• Build an understanding of and consensus behind
  the positions espoused in the PN
• Elaborate Primers such as
• Lessons from advances in PAR in Francophone
  countries
• Gender mainstreaming in PAR
• PAR in countries worst affected by HIV/AIDS
• Roll out the PN
• Enhance the guidance in the PN for a future