IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v40y2012i10p1970-1981.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sabotaging Civil Service Reform in Aid-Dependent Countries: Are Donors to Blame?

Author

Listed:
  • Nunberg, Barbara
  • Taliercio, Robert R.

Abstract

International development assistance has focused increasing resources on raising civil service capacity in low-income country administrations plagued by low pay, poor establishment controls, and the absence of merit-based human resource practice. At the same time, donors sabotage civil service capacity development over the longer term. Notwithstanding international accords calling on donors to curtail this behavior, collective action problems constrain donors from dismantling the projectized aid infrastructure that fragments government institutions. We identify practical implications of this collective action dilemma and explore alternative reform approaches. We examine an agency-level civil service reform (ACSR) in Cambodia, in comparative perspective, showing how strategic, incremental introduction of merit-based incentives yielded benefits in one ministry but faltered when the pilot was expanded to other agencies. To the extent that the accumulated ACSR experiences have achieved some, albeit limited, traction, they may offer a small but significant beacon for those seeking to move forward on civil service reform under difficult conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Nunberg, Barbara & Taliercio, Robert R., 2012. "Sabotaging Civil Service Reform in Aid-Dependent Countries: Are Donors to Blame?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 1970-1981.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:40:y:2012:i:10:p:1970-1981
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.05.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X1200112X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.05.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nunberg, B. & Nellis, J., 1995. "Civil Service Reform and the World Bank," World Bank - Discussion Papers 161, World Bank.
    2. Leonard, David K., 1987. "The political realities of African management," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 15(7), pages 899-910, July.
    3. Knack, Stephen & Rahman, Aminur, 2007. "Donor fragmentation and bureaucratic quality in aid recipients," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 176-197, May.
    4. Nunberg, B., 1989. "Public Sector Pay And Employment Reform: A Review Of World Bank Experience," World Bank - Discussion Papers 68, World Bank.
    5. Clague, Christopher & Keefer, Philip & Knack, Stephen & Olson, Mancur, 1996. "Property and Contract Rights in Autocracies and Democracies," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 243-276, June.
    6. Campos, Ed & Pradhan, Sanjay, 1996. "Budgetary institutions and expenditure outcomes : binding governments to fiscal performance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1646, The World Bank.
    7. World Bank, 2011. "World Development Report 2011 [Rapport sur le développement dans le monde 2011 : Conflits, sécurité et développement - Abrégé]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 4389.
    8. Pritchett, Lant & Woolcock, Michael, 2004. "Solutions When the Solution is the Problem: Arraying the Disarray in Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 191-212, February.
    9. Brautigam, Deborah A & Knack, Stephen, 2004. "Foreign Aid, Institutions, and Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(2), pages 255-285, January.
    10. International Monetary Fund, 1997. "Institutional Development: Skill Transference Through a Reversal of “Human Capital Flight” or Technical Assistance," IMF Working Papers 1997/089, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Nunberg, Barbara, 1990. "Public sector management issues in structural adjustment lending," Policy Research Working Paper Series 217, The World Bank.
    12. Hasnain, Zahid & Manning, Nick & Pierskalla Henryk, 2012. "Performance-related pay in the public sector : a review of theory and evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6043, The World Bank.
    13. Nunberg, B., 1990. "Public Sector Management Issues In Structural Adjustment Lending," World Bank - Discussion Papers 99, World Bank.
    14. repec:bla:devpol:v:23:y:2005:i:6:p:643-663 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Morss, Elliott R., 1984. "Institutional destruction resulting from donor and project proliferation in Sub-Saharan African countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 465-470, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Le Fanu, Guy, 2014. "International development, disability, and education: Towards a capabilities-focused discourse and praxis," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 69-79.
    2. Moshonas, Stylianos & De Herdt, Tom & Titeca, Kristof & Balungwe Shamavu, Paulin, 2024. "Increasingly wageless? The political economy of salary supplements in the Congolese civil service," IOB Working Papers 2024.09, Universiteit Antwerpen, Institute of Development Policy (IOB).
    3. Carlitz, Ruth D. & Ziaja, Sebastian, 2021. "Dissecting aid fragmentation: Development goals and levels of analysis," IDOS Discussion Papers 17/2021, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2010. "Aid and Conditionality," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4415-4523, Elsevier.
    2. Faheem Jehangir Khan, 2016. "The Aid Policy Network in Pakistan: An Actor-Network Analysis," PIDE-Working Papers 2016:140, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    3. Dijkstra, Geske, 2018. "Aid and good governance: Examining aggregate unintended effects of aid," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 225-232.
    4. Feeny, Simon & de Silva, Ashton, 2012. "Measuring absorptive capacity constraints to foreign aid," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 725-733.
    5. Yutaka Arimoto & Hisaki Kono, 2009. "Foreign Aid and Recurrent Cost: Donor Competition, Aid Proliferation, and Budget Support," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 276-287, May.
    6. Thierry Kangoye, 2008. "Instability from trade and democracy: the long-run effect of aid," Post-Print hal-00331902, HAL.
    7. Kimura, Hidemi & Mori, Yuko & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2012. "Aid Proliferation and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-10.
    8. Philip Keefer & Christopher Kilby, 2021. "Introduction to the special issue: In memoriam Stephen Knack," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 473-493, July.
    9. Coviello, Decio & Islam, Roumeen, 2006. "Does aid help improve economic institutions ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3990, The World Bank.
    10. Lassou, Philippe Jacques Codjo & Hopper, Trevor, 2016. "Government accounting reform in an ex-French African colony: The political economy of neocolonialism," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 39-57.
    11. Andrews, Matt, 2015. "Has Sweden Injected Realism into Public Financial Management Reforms in Partner Countries?," Working Paper Series 15-063, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    12. Easterly, William & Williamson, Claudia R., 2011. "Rhetoric versus Reality: The Best and Worst of Aid Agency Practices," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(11), pages 1930-1949.
    13. Simplice Asongu & Mohamed Jellal, 2016. "Foreign Aid Fiscal Policy: Theory and Evidence," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 58(2), pages 279-314, June.
    14. Pablo Selaya & Rainer Thiele, 2012. "The Impact Of Aid On Bureaucratic Quality: Does The Mode Of Delivery Matter?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(3), pages 379-386, April.
    15. Lodewijk Smets & Stephen Knack, 2018. "World Bank Policy Lending and the Quality of Public-Sector Governance," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(1), pages 29-54.
    16. Raiser, Martin, 1993. "The no-exit economy: Soft budget constraints and the causes of success or failure of economic reforms in developing countries," Kiel Working Papers 581, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    17. Rachel M. Gisselquist, 2014. "Aid and Institution-Building in Fragile States," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 656(1), pages 6-21, November.
    18. Andreia Olival, 2012. "The influence of Doing Business’ institutional variables in Foreign Direct Investment," GEE Papers 0048, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Dec 2012.
    19. Djankov, Simeon & Montalvo, Jose G. & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2009. "Aid with multiple personalities," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 217-229, June.
    20. Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2007. "Entrepreneurship, Reforms, and Development: Empirical Evidence," ICER Working Papers 38-2007, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:40:y:2012:i:10:p:1970-1981. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.