Capacity Building and Public Service Delivery in Nigeria: A Critical Appraisal

Abstract

The essence of government at whatever levels is to ensure efficient service delivery to the citizenry. Efficient service delivery depends largely on the training, expertise and entire staff development. Mediocrity, redundancy, low level of productivity and inefficiency are some of the features in the Nigerian civil service that have impaired viable capacity building in the public sector. There is a nexus between staff development, capacity building and service delivery. Appropriate skills, knowledge and ideas can be acquired through seminars, workshops and training. The acquisition of these skills will help to equip civil servants to perform their daily routines and tasks in the most efficient manner. This paper therefore takes a critical examination of capacity building in the Nigerian civil service with the view to re-invigorating the service to meet the challenges of the 21 st century. It utilizes historical and descriptive approach to analyze the patterns of public service delivery in Nigeria. The paper concludes that capacity building in the public sector has been subjected to numerous critical analyses; while particular attention should be focused on how more empirical works are to be carried out and more resources can be deployed in public sector capacity building in the country. Keywords: Public Service, Capacity Building, Service Efficiency, Challenges DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/10-4-04 Publication date: April 30 th 2020