Public Sector Management Reform: Toward a Problem-Solving Approach

Yet, how to make the machinery of government work to deliver is a question without an easy answer in many of the World Bank’s client countries. India is one example: the country’s bloated and malfunctioning bureaucracy is seen as one of the biggest obstacles to its sustainable growth (Singh 2004). Pritchett identifies this malfunctioning of India’s public service as “one of the world’s top ten biggest problems—of the order of AIDS and climate change” (The Economist 2008). A very different example is postconflict Afghanistan; whether it will be able to build a public sector that can deliver services, and thus hope, particularly when the international presence begins to significantly withdraw, is a challenge of worldwide concern (World Bank 2012a). This note sets out key ideas from recent discussions inside and outside the Bank on how donors can support governments more effectively in delivering results in public sector management (PSM) reforms. This note also reflects the dis“What will it take?” World Bank President Jim Kim has reinvigorated debate on how the development community can better achieve its mission to reduce poverty. As President Kim has highlighted in his address at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) annual meetings, there is an “urgent need for a science of delivery in development”—to tackle the tough question of how to bridge the gap between designing good projects or policies and implementing them. This challenge lies at the heart of strengthening client countries’ public sector institutions. In the long term, it is client governments and their public administrations, not the development community, that must deliver—that is, provide quality services to citizens, effectively manage infrastructure and other public investments, regulate social and economic behavior, set sector policy objectives, and maintain fiscal and institutional sustainability. How governments manage— how they collect taxes, prepare budgets, and motivate civil servants—is therefore crucial for development outcomes.