For
many reasons, sustainable development interventions throughout Africa’s
public institutions have in many instances, eluded, Africa’s leadership and
decision-making. A contributing factor to this challenge, lies in the legacy
of weak African states, whose capacities even today, remain uneven and
constrained in their efforts to reform themselves. One response to this
circumstance has been the New Partnership for African Development [NEPAD] and
its direct call for strengthening Africa’s state capabilities. NEPAD has
placed a strong emphasis on capacity building and on ‘Good Governance and
Public Administration’ for the realisation of its objectives.
This emphasis has been
central in informing South Africa’s agreement to host the 4th Pan African
Conference of Ministers of Public service. In keeping with the overall
orientation of NEPAD, the theme for the meeting has been confirmed as ‘Institutional
Capacity for African Renewal’.
The preparatory activities
for the 4th Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public Service have been
focused on a range of activities aimed at demonstrating intellectual and
collective African leadership on shaping the agenda on Governance and Public
Administration. The orientation of these activities has been two-fold. First,
they have focused on a series of consultative processes to build broad
participation and joint ownership of the process of constructing a
continent-wide Governance and Public Administration agenda. Secondly, they
have given attention to generating substantive research inputs that will form
the basis for a credible Africa driven knowledge platform that is specific to
governance and public administration issues.
The consultative processes
engaged in to date, have been at both the decision-making levels and with
African public administration institutions. This has been reflected through,
the November 1st 2002 consultative meeting of Ministers of Public Services and
the March 24-25, 2003 Heads of Department consultation. In addition,
consultations have taken place with key institutions who are continental
actors within the terrain of public policy and public administration. Within
the context of these consultative processes, enormous efforts have been placed
into presenting the status of the content that will be presented at the 4th
Pan African Conference while also providing participants to enrich and further
inform the evolution of a continental programme on Governance and Public
Administration.
The focus on generating
research inputs that will form the basis of the substance of the Conference is
informed by a recognition, that conducting viable African driven research
interventions is imperative if we are to build a knowledge platform for public
administration decision makers and practitioners on the continent.
Furthermore, active attention to the gaps that exist within Africa’s
knowledge generation efforts and the extent to which its knowledge is the
foremost source that shapes its understanding of itself, its challenges and
its possibilities become fundamental if Africa is truly keen to articulate a
relevant long-term reform agenda. Furthermore, it is critical that our choices
are informed by empirical data and move away from past tendencies of reliance
on anecdotal references. A summary of each of the focus research/ project
areas follows:
Perspectives on Governance
and Public Administration:
In this area, two papers were commissioned from leading African academics. In
finalizing the papers, the academics convened workshops with other leading
academics to discuss the draft papers and to finalise these for presentation
at the Ministers meeting in May. In addition to the two papers, the
Development Policy Management Forum (DPMF) has agreed to make available a
third paper that has been developed through a similar process. It is
anticipated that all three (3) papers will be presented at the second session
of the Ministers meeting and would serve to encourage further debate and
reflections on the state of Governance and Public Administration in the
continent.
Case - Studies on Governance
and Public Administration: In
past forums during the course of the last several years, Ministers and
officials have expressed a need to collect and exchange specific reform
experiences of different governments on the continent. In line with this,
efforts where made to commission case studies from different countries. Ten
(10) cases have been received from across the continent. Thematic areas of
cases range from Institutional Re-engineering, to Developing Human Potential
and Budgeting and Financial Management Systems. When finalized, the cases will
be distributed to all countries and/or will be made available during the 4th
Pan-African Conference of Ministers.
Data on Governance and
Public Administration: In line
with a call that an emphasis be placed on exchanging information across the
continent on Governance and Public Administration, a project has been
initiated to collect and collate descriptive information on Governance and
Public Administration across the continent. To this effect, a database on
basic information has been established and will be presented at the Ministers
meeting. It is anticipated that the database will be a resource for
comparisons and for policy development across regions and the continent.
Analysis of African
Governance Indicators: The
governance indicator project focuses on the collection and analysis of current
governance models and indicator frameworks that have been developed or
underway through other institutions. The key objective has been to collect
data from which consensus can be built for a possible model of indicators and
relevant practical measures for assessing the performance capability of public
administration systems across the continent. Within the ambits of this
activity, engagement has taken place with the NEPAD Secretariat’s processes
for the development of an African Peer Review Mechanism. It is expected that
the outcome of this research will contribute to processes relevant to the
African Peer Review Mechanism in particular, but more broadly to unfolding
continental engagements in identifying a set of indicators that could be
utilized to facilitate the improvement of public administration systems and
institutional capacities. The Pan African Conference will provide an
opportunity for the NEPAD Secretariat and Ministers to jointly engage and
grapple with the current gaps and continued challenges of mechanisms to
support improved performance and delivery of African public institutions.
Study on Donors Support to
Public Sector Reform: This study
was conducted to assist engagements with donors on their support for Public
Sector Reform initiatives. The project has focused attention on collecting
data on the support provided by donors and on providing analysis of the
support and on the likely future efforts of the donors. The project also aims
to assist Ministers in leveraging resources for support both regionally and
across the continent. The preliminary outcomes of the study will be presented
at the Ministers meeting in May in 2003.
Building on the need to
establish a Pan-African Ministers of Public Service Programme on Governance
and Public Administration within the NEPAD fold, a presentation will be made
on a broad programme and an action plan for the period leading to the 5th
Pan-African Meeting of Ministers of Public Service (2005). The programme has
the support of continental and regional partners in Governance and Public
Administration and has been presented to officials during the meeting held in
Namibia from 24th and 25th March 2003.
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