Clay G. Wescott

Improving Road Administration in the Asia-Pacific Region: Some Lessons from Experience

Asia-Pacific countries are increasingly working to improve the management of their social and economic resources for development. Although the ADB (1995, pp. 1–7) recognizes a diversity of political systems and institutional cultures in the region, the ADB defines four aspects of sound governance relevant for all countries: 1. accountability (officials answerable to the entity from which they derive their authority, that work has been conducted according to agreed rules and standards, and reported fairly and accurately); 2. participation (allowing public employees a role in decision making; empowering citizens, and especially the poor, by promoting their rights to access and secure control over basic entitlements that allow them to earn a living); 3. predictability (fair and consistent application of laws, regulations and policies); and 4. transparency (low cost, understandable, and relevant information made available to citizens to promote effective accountability, and clarity about laws, regulations and policies).

Public-private partnerships in Bangladesh's power sector : risks and opportunities

The paper will initially review the idea of public-private partnerships (PPPs) as it has evolved over the past few decades first in OECD countries, and then in developing countries. Questions will include: How is PPP defined (it means different things to different people and this is an asset)? How is PPP part of the New Public Management (NPM) agenda (fragmentation, competition, incentivization), and how is it part of the post-New Public Management (NPM) agenda (governance, networking, collaboration)? What are the regulatory challenges? What are the risks of PPPs, including corruption risks and how are they best managed? What has been the effectiveness of PPP in terms of NPM (outputs, efficiency) and post-NPM (innovation practices to solve complex problems, new delivery processes that cut through bottlenecks) metrics? What have been the challenges in transferring the concept from OECD to developing countries? Building on this foundation, a case study will be presented of recent developments in the Power sector in Bangladesh to illustrate these issues in a specific context.

Managing urban growth in Asia

Abstract This article provides perspectives on some key issues countries need to consider in rethinking their priorities to achieve greater social, environmental and economic sustainability from increasing urbanization in Asia. It discusses three areas where such new thinking is needed: improved governance requiring clearer assignment of responsibilities, more extensive use of information and communications technology, and performance and results management to increase urban government productivity. The advantages of establishing a more competitive business climate and increased reliance on markets and market mechanisms for problem solving in Asian cities also is emphasized. The importance of increased infrastructure investment and development are noted, followed by conclusions and recommendations.

Science of Delivery and Implications for Monitoring and Evaluation

Many developing country governments are trying to understand why the policies put in place to reduce poverty and build prosperity are not leading to the results they want. One way forward could be a new form of knowledge, the “science of delivery”. This concept is borrowed from the healthcare field, where the previous emphasis on understanding the causes and consequences of health issues is shifting to give more attention to organizing, managing and financing health promotion. Applied to the field of public management, a “science of delivery” should provide mechanism-based explanations of how and why the implementation capability of countries varies, as well as a guide to action. Key elements of the “science of delivery” are to ensure that projects or interventions have adequate monitoring and evaluation mechanisms built in to the project and to ensure these are linked to feedback loops to ensure continual learning, experimentation, results monitoring, and redesign based on experience.

Evaluating World Bank Support to Budget Analysis and Transparency

BOOST is a new resource launched in 2010 to facilitate improved quality, classification, and access to budget data and promote effective use for improved government decision making, transparency and accountability. Using the Government’s own data from public expenditure accounts held in the Government’s Financial Management Information System, and benefiting from a consistent methodology, the BOOST data platform makes highly granular fiscal data accessible and ready-for-use. National authorities can significantly enhance fiscal transparency by publishing summary data and analysis or by providing open access to the underlying dataset. This paper addresses four research questions: Did BOOST help improve the quality of expenditure analysis available to government decision makers? Did it help to develop capacity in central finance and selected spending agencies to sustain expenditure analysis? Did it help to improve public access to expenditure analysis and data? Did it help to increase awareness of the opportunities for BOOST and expenditure analysis in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as countries outside this region where BOOST has been used (Georgia, Haiti and Tunisia). Evidence has been drawn from various sources. Survey questionnaires were sent to all World Bank task team leaders for Gates Trust Fund supported countries. Completed questionnaires were received from 18 predominantly African countries (Annex 4). These 18 countries constitute the majority but not all of the countries implementing BOOST with financial support from the Trust Fund. Information has also been gathered through a BOOST stakeholder questionnaire targeting government officials, civil society representatives and representatives from parliaments at country level, field visits to Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda, interviews with stakeholders at the Bank and at country level, participation at regional conferences on BOOST in South Africa and Senegal, and document review. Interviews covered participants from some countries that did not complete questionnaires, such as Haiti.The research will help to inform the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Bank, the administrator of the trust fund on the achievements of the program, and the value of continuing support. It will inform client country Governments, and non-Government actors interested in improved dissemination and analysis of quality public financial data. The research should also be useful for vendors of similar products like OpenGov; and to international scholars and experts working to better understand public expenditure management in developing countries.

How Effective are International Development Partnerships

Over the past two decades the international development landscape has seen a rise in global partnerships, a relatively new mechanism for tackling poverty and improving social and human development. Their rise in international development is due to a confluence of factors ranging from the development effectiveness agenda to the idea that pooled resources and leveraging other partners strengths will lead to the best development results. In addition, levels of donor funding have been inadequate in responding to development needs which has led to the rise of partnerships among an increasingly wider range of actors from civil society, private organizations, and the public sector. This context saw the rise of a number of global partnerships such as the Global Fund to Combat Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Global Vaccine Alliance Initiative, the Global Partnership for Education and others.This paper is the first step of a research program building on theories of collaborative management to analyze the effectiveness of partnerships among international development agencies. Beginning with a history of how and why such partnerships came about, it summarizes the findings of existing work on the benefits and challenges. It then looks at preliminary evidence on the effectiveness of nine of the most prominent partnerships, and concludes with suggestions for future research.

Evaluating Social Safeguards Protecting Indigenous Peoples

Developing countries adopt policies to achieve certain results, such as reducing poverty and building prosperity. Why do many such policies not seem to work? A recent World Bank evaluation highlighted one possible reason: projects don’t adequately protect community impacts, labor and working conditions, and health, safety and security issues. This paper will focus on a crucial part of the social and cultural landscape: indigenous peoples. It will explore how the World Bank has supported projects in areas that affect indigenous peoples. Based on good practices and lessons learned, investing in such areas can turn up alternative ways to re-think the challenges of social development and find better ways for sustainable growth. By supporting different forms of participation with policymakers, strategic timing, and real time feedback loops in learning, evaluators can contribute to advancing safeguard issues.

Institutional and Cultural Development in Baroque Santa Fe, New Granada

In 17th and 18th century Bogota, Colombia (formerly called Santa Fe, New Granada), intersecting developments of social, political and cultural institutions worked together to create a colonial society. The approach was to use the relatively large indigenous population, along with imported African slaves, as the basis for extractive institutions to capture rents for the ruling elites. There also emerged a substantial population of mixed cultural heritage and racial descent, best known as mestizaje. To maintain control, Spanish colonizers maintained a strict caste system, with categories ranging from European born, to mestizaje, to indigenous and African. Colonial control was further maintained by corporate and other organizational forms, including urban centers built on a common architectural model unlike prior indigenous settlements. The Catholic Church had started on a path to reform exemplified by the 16th century Council of Trent, and played an important mediating role between state and local and mestizaje population in the Americas. Religious festivals based on the Catholic calendar were important in clarifying roles and responsibilities for all castes, guilds and corporations. In addition, anonymous composers took the musical form of the liturgical carol, originally inspired by the songs and dances of 15th century Spanish peasants, and added a melange of indigenous, mestizaje, and African elements from the Americas. These carols played a crucial role in constructing behavioral models and values for men and women. There was a particular emphasis on constituting gender roles for women, based both on perceived differences and power relationships. The following will analyze how these institutional and cultural developments worked together to build, reinforce and legitimize an extractive governance structure in Santa Fe. It will also suggest how this structure laid the seeds for governance challenges facing modern Colombia today, and also helped to provide the basis for possible solutions.

Chapter 1 Corruption, anti-corruption policy and management reform

During the last decade, globalization and democratization have been the major forces that helped transform the structures, functions and processes of Asian public sectors. These transformation efforts of Asian countries vary considerably depending on local context, and have met with different degrees of success. Some countries experienced smooth transformations. For others, the reform process has been more volatile. These issues were explored at a conference 7–9 July 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand, hosted by the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, and co-sponsored by the International Public Management Network, the Asia-Pacific Governance Institute, and Thailand Democracy Watch. This book presents some of the works contributed by participating scholars and practitioners at the conference. The contents fall into three categories: corruption and anti-corruption initiatives, public financial management (PFM) and public management reforms with emphasis on performance and results.

Strengthening Performance in Public Sector Management in Asia

In recent years many developing countries are choosing to follow patterns that have emerged in businesses and in some developed country governments over the last several decades of establishing results-oriented monitoring frameworks that report on progress against strategic plans, budgets and sector strategies. This paper addresses five key elements of this new orientation: (i) clarifying the language of performance, (ii) defining indicative performance indicators, (iii) exploring tools for performance measurement, (iv) making changes to improve performance, and (v) creating the performance and knowledge culture in organizations. It then gives examples of these elements from Asia.