Civil service pay reforms in Africa

Abstract

African civil services have been subjected to perpetual rounds of reforms that have in many cases aggravated problems because the core issue of how to pay for quality civil service on a sustained basis has not been given the much-deserved emphasis. Many African countries have lost the capacity to pay for a high quality civil service due in part to the poverty of their economies, the structure of politics and administration, globalization, and wrong-headed reform programmes. A few countries in the region have adopted a strategic performance management approach to civil service reform that aligns the diversity of reform efforts in the public service. This strategy focuses attention on performance and productivity, the attraction and retention of skilled staff and senior management who in turn oversee a new culture of accountable use of resources for results. All of these are core to improving pay and the quantity, quality and performance of the civil service and the state in the region. Points for practitioners New proposals for civil service reform and civil service pay are made after contrasting failed and more successful approaches. These follow a discussion of the key human resource dilemmas presently confronting most of the African civil services.