Managing Human Resources in a Decentralized Context

by moving government closer to the people, it brings public sector activities and decisions in line with popular preferences. Yet, in practice, the civil service—a critical component of government— rarely enters the decision calculus of decentralization design. The civil service is often recognized as an afterthought rather than seen as essential to successful decentralization. This is lamentable but not surprising, as decentralization is quintessentially a political process. In East Asia, whether it was the desire to quell the forces of regional disintegration in the Philippines and Indonesia, the urgent need to meet the demands of economic transition in China and Vietnam, or pressure to improve service delivery and citizen participation in Cambodia and Thailand, the primary motivation for decentralization has been political—notwithstanding varied proximate causes. The common failure to address the details of civil service management as an integral part of the decentralization package has significant implications. Civil servants form a crucial link between the delivery of financial resources to the government and the delivery of essential public services to the people (World Bank 2003a). The relationship between decentralization and civil service 129 7