SPRING 2014
FMI
*
IGF JOURNAL
37
Austerity has returned as the mother of
invention at all levels of government in
Canada. There is renewed urgency to
build the capacity for good governance,
service delivery, and administrative
reform. The prerequisites are effective
leadership, smart policies and practices,
proper institutional foundations, and
strategic partnerships.
It has been suggested that public
sector reform is simply ‘managing
change to achieve a desired end state’.
The literature and practical experience
on change management are extensive
and deep. If it is no more than this, why
do so many reforms disappoint or fail,
while others mark an entire generation?
This article seeks to understand the
critical success factors responsible for this
phenomenon. It highlights international
trends, lessons learned, and implications
for Canadian public sector reform.
Kenya’s Rapid Results Approach is
featured as an international benchmark.
The aim is to inform ongoing enquiry
into ‘what works well, where and why’.
International trends
Over the past two decades, governments
around the world have been reacting to
unprecedented economic challenges and
to rapid changes in political and public
expectations. Responses in Canada have
been remarkably convergent with other
countries, embracing the importance
of citizen and stakeholder engagement,
whole-of-government policy making,
and integrated service delivery. A great
deal of progress has been made, and
knowledge and innovation are routinely
shared across international boundaries.
Deloitte’s 2013 study of East Africa
reforms illustrates the general case.
It revealed that public service, local
governance, financial management,
health, education, and justice are the
focus of most reforms. The predominant
challenge is governance, accountability,
and corruption, which topped the list
at 72.8%. It was followed by concerns
about
resources,
implementation,
government commitment, timing, and
publicity. The keys to successful reform
were seen as behavioural change,
execution capability, tapping into youth,
and a solution economy.
Critical study of public sector reform
shows that developed countries with
strong, stable governments set out
in the initial stages to reform their
bureaucracies. They focused on
developing suitable structures and then
sought to reform public management
by looking at managers’ performance.
These processes occurred simultaneously
and often overlapped. They realized that
structure alone does not deliver results.
The first phase of reforms focused
on public sector institutions, while the
second phase focused on public service
delivery. With the advent of the New
Public Management, public services
were co-produced and co-delivered
increasingly with private sector and
civil society organizations. Given its
non-linear nature, reform became an
iterative process of developing more
efficient structures while improving
service performance.
Governance was a key ingredient
overlooked in these early reforms.
Developing countries followed the
developed countrymodel of dealing with
organizational structure, systems, and
process while hoping service delivery
would improve. Reforms first and
foremost needed to alter relationships
among politicians and public servants.
Tending to the political-administrative
interface enabled new structures to
function as envisaged. Failure to manage
these relationships led to patronage
appointments and corruption in new
institutions.
In view of daunting challenges across
the public sector, reform initiatives
retreated to small sectoral approaches
with minimal impact. Slicing reforms
this way diluted the original idea
and created new problems. Rather
than a solution, it paved the way for
commissioning academic research and
consultancies to prove specific ideas and
cases in public sector reform.
Whereas it may be relatively easy to
adapt or even adopt structures, systems,
and processes, the same cannot be said
about leadership. A lot has been written
about the importance of leadership
in reform—what type of leadership
is needed to steer reforms, and how
such leadership can be developed and
nurtured. Astute reformers pursue
Good Practice in Public Sector Reform
Sylvester Odhiambo Obong’o & John Wilkins
The challenge to government is
to move away from opportunistic
reform toward more strategic
reform: developing a clear vision,
building a constituency, devising
tactics to achieve results, and
communicating this vision and
the anticipated results.
Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development
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