Sector Reform Policies Research Articles

The influence of research and local knowledge on British-led security sector reform policy in Sierra Leone

Externally-led security sector reform (SSR) in conflict-affected countries may require an array of different and timely interventions to restructure the whole security architecture of a state. Whilst the intent of these efforts is political, their nature is usually technical, operational and targeted at military, police, justice or intelligence actors, or relevant groups in the civilian policy sectors. Because of their urgency, there is seemingly little or no room for research to influence the implementation of these activities. Nevertheless, academic studies on SSR have flourished in recent years, and case studies, ‘lessons learned’ and recommendations for policy-makers now enrich this burgeoning literature. This paper analyses one of the early cases of an externally-led SSR intervention, namely the United Kingdom (UK) assistance programme in conflict-affected Sierra Leone. It seeks to understand whether and how research and knowledge on topics relevant to SSR influenced the development and implementation of the UK's SSR assistance policy in this country. Building on the Sierra Leonean case study, it then examines some general issues and themes, which characterise the use of research in SSR policy in conflict-affected environments.

The politics of security sector reform in ‘fragile’ or ‘post-conflict’ settings: a critical review of the experience in Timor-Leste

Security sector reform (SSR) policy has, for the better part of a decade, been viewed as instrumental to the larger international project of improving and strengthening the ‘capacity’ of post-conflict and ‘fragile’ states. The current policy approach, which represents a merging of security and development agendas in the post-Cold War era, is based on the premise that fragmented, ineffective, poorly managed and politicised state security institutions threaten political stability and undermine poverty reduction and sustainable development goals. The objective of this article is to examine aspects of what has been described as the ‘SSR policy-practice gap’ that arose in the course of implementing SSR policy in Timor-Leste by analysing the systemic basis of the gap. An analytical framework that untangles the relationship between SSR policy objectives, targets and outcomes is presented in concert with a discussion of the social and political circumstances that confronted international organisations and donor countries when they sought to implement SSR policy in Timor-Leste. By using the analytical framework to assess the policy coherence between SSR objectives and the SSR programme contained in UN Security Council Resolution 1704, the ubiquitous disconnect between SSR ‘Gospel and Reality’ is pulled more sharply into focus.

The Implementation of Domestic Violence Death Reviews in Australia

In Australia, a significant proportion of homicides occur in a domestic context, many following an identifiable history of domestic violence. For this reason, many domestic violence homicides are considered to be preventable. Sector advocacy and policy reform has reframed domestic violence as a serious social issue. In keeping with international trends, domestic violence death review teams have been introduced in Australia. These review teams examine domestic violence homicides to identify systemic gaps in service responses to prevent future deaths. This article describes the operational Australian domestic violence death review teams and the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network.

The Evaluation of the Lee Myung-bak Government's Public Sector Reform Policies - Marketisation of the State or the Return of the State

The Evaluation of the Lee Myung-bak Government's Public Sector Reform Policies - Marketisation of the State or the Return of the State

Organizational culture and public sector reforms in a post–Washington consensus era: Lessons from Ghana’s good reformers

Reforming Africa’s public sector has been on the agenda of African governments and their development partners for decades and yet the problem persists. This failure can be attributed to two related factors: solutions to the ‘African public sector problem’ have been dictated by external interests, and the policies have ignored the experiences of organizations within those countries. This article contributes to the search for effective reform policies by making the case for inclusion of the experiences of organizations within each country. Using the concept of organizational culture as a framework, I propose an approach based on the following claims: In every country there are some public organizations that perform relatively well, given their constraints; there is the need to understand why and how there are poor and good performing organizations within the same country; and information from such analysis should form the basis of public sector reform policies. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated with a study of Ghana.

The implementation of the EU security sector reform policies in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

This article addresses the way in which the European Union engages in the implementation of security sector reform in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Adopting a governance perspective complemented with resource-dependency theory, the analysis concentrates on the multitude of public and private actors involved, the relations between these actors and the impact this has on the implementation of SSR policies in the DRC. Five key variables are analysed: (1) the interplay between inadequate formal procedures and the useful informal coordination practices on the ground in Congo, (2) the variable availability of resources and the interdependencies among the actors, (3) the diverging interests to engage in the Congolese SSR, (4) the different SSR approaches and (5) the variable and sensitive relations with the Congolese authorities.

Ethical Security in Europe? Empirical Findings on Value Shifts and Dilemmas Across European Internal-External Security Policies

This Policy Recommendation report presents the empirical findings on case studies which were undertaken in the context of INEX Work Package 3 “Value-Dilemmas of Security Professionals.” The first leg of the research project looked at the ethical implications and value dilemmas faced in the design, programming and policy-making in the EU security sector reform policy at the level of the EU institutions in Brussels, with a particular focus on the working relationship and converging/conflicting political agendas and approaches. The second leg of the research concentrated on the ethical ramifications of the implementation of EU Rule of Law Reforms in Kosovo, which demonstrated that EU officials – and particularly EULEX personnel, since the deployed CSDP mission is the lead organisation in rule of law reforms in Kosovo – are faced with value dilemmas as a consequence of the complex political situation. The third leg of the research focused on shifts in ethical values and ethical dilemmas in EU Member States new security practices. The research bifurcated into two case studies, namely the implementation of anti-terrorism/radicalisation measures in the Netherlands and the UK and the recent interception of migrants in the central Mediterranean Sea undertaken by the Italian authorities.

Revisiting African Agriculture: Institutional Change and Productivity Growth

Building on a recent analysis of total factor productivity growth in African agriculture, this paper revisits the political economy underpinnings of policies affecting agriculture. We examine the effect of institutional change on the productivity performance of African agriculture. Our central finding is that institutional change in the form of competitive presidential elections has played an important role in driving a resurgence of productivity growth. The emergence of electoral competition in Africa changed policymakers’ incentives, resulting in both sectoral and macroeconomic policy reforms favorable to agriculture, following decade of policy discrimination against agriculture. These reforms, to varying degrees, contributed to an acceleration of productivity growth in African agriculture.

Economic Performance in Post-Market Economies and Poverty Reduction: The Case of Tanzania

The post-structural adjustment strategies being emphasized by the IMF, the World Bank and donor countries in Africa are privatization and liberalization. In theory, both strategies are assumed to allow firms to operate efficiently and competitively. The thrust of the reforms are necessitated by the quest for improved economic growth, investment, efficiency and productivity. In Tanzania, the parastatal sector reform policy to improve economic performance was adopted in 1992 as a national policy. This paper reviews the economic performance and the poverty status in the country since the adoption of this market-oriented policy. The paper is organized into six sections. Section one, which is the introduction, provides a brief discussion on privatization and liberalization strategies. Section two looks into the background of the economic reforms, and then section three examines the privatization and investment trends. While section four discusses the macroeconomic perspectives and the economic reforms, section five focuses on the impact of the reforms on poverty reduction. Section six concludes the paper.

The dangers of internationalization and “one‐size‐fits‐all” in public sector management

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework to explain the failure in public management of wholesale policy transfer from well developed to developing economies.Design/methodology/approachThe paper relies extensively on organizational surveys and specialized interviews in both jurisdictions, as well as on a review of government (primary) and other institutional documents. It is qualitative in nature.FindingsThe paper reveals that the context in which public sector reform policies are implemented matters. In short, the environment (with structural and contextual variables) is an essential element in the success of policies. It highlights important factors such as culture, institutional dynamism, the role of the external actors, etc. as issues that must be carefully looked at in the development and implementation of reform policies.Research limitations/implicationsThe number of cases needs to be expanded to further confirm the results. Furthermore, before it is possible to generalize about the theory's applicability, it is necessary to test the theoretical framework by examining the issue of policy transfer among developing countries.Practical implicationsThe findings point to the need for theorists, policy makers, and policy implementers to be open‐minded as they attempt to develop and implement policies for public sector reforms in different circumstances. They thus emphasize the need to adapt reforms to a particular environment rather than pursuing a one‐size‐fits‐all approach. The paper thus argues that the most appropriate management strategies for reforms must be cognizant of local environmental conditions so as to tailor policies that fit the environment.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to both theory and practice by participating in the discussion on what must be considered administrative reforms. The paper will be of interest to those searching for ways to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of public sector organizations through reforms and, in particular, of performance management, as well as to stakeholders interested in well‐functioning public sector organizations.

Security systems in Francophone Africa

SummaryThis research report is a broad‐based study that seeks to understand the structural and developmental processes that characterise the security sector in Francophone Africa.Although each country has a distinct political history and tradition, similarities in the security apparatus, rooted in its inheritance from the colonial and post‐colonial periods, can be found between Francophone countries in Africa. In the former French colonies, there are similarities to the French security system which are very strong on the normative side, such as the legal and institutional framework or the defence and security actors. However, even if these Francophone African countries borrow a lot from an originally French security system in terms of the institutional design of their security apparatus, they deviate considerably from it in terms of daily practice.The issue at stake in this paper is to highlight the kind of institutional framework prevailing in this set of countries and the specific considerations that international assistance will have to take into account. The paper also analyses briefly the difference between Anglophone and Francophone security systems.Finally, it makes some recommendations that might assist the security sector reform policy agenda and donor and recipient responses to the security challenges faced in Francophone Africa.

Water sector reform policy of India: Experiences from case studies in Maharashtra

Recognizing the failure of past interventions to provide water services to all citizens in developing countries, worldwide a reform process of water policies has been initiated. The Indian State of Maharashtra is a front-runner in formulating and implementing such a reform policy. Its policy aims at demand-led, participatory and democratic decision-making for project implementation (as distinct to the previous supply-driven policies). This paper evaluates the success of this reform policy for 12 villages of the Deccan Plateau in Maharashtra. There, these projects were implemented under two funding programs of different donors that implemented the reform policy through different guidelines. The paper confirms that promoting bottom-up decision-making supported by capacity building can lead to better outcomes. However, it also highlights several risks, which may be mitigated by selective top-down control mechanisms. Hence, a combination of bottom-up and top-down decision-making may lead to best results.

Should Iceland engage in policy dialogue with developing countries?

This article provides a brief overview of the current status of Icelandic development cooperation, bilaterally and multilaterally, and argues that it is time for Iceland to become more engaged in policy dialogue with developing countries on issues related to public sector reform and economic policy. Iceland should also in the authors view take more advantages of the extensive knowledge that Icelandic experts possess, and the experience they have gained, both in Iceland and internationally. Iceland should be more active in offering exerts in the public service, in the academia, as well as in the private sector to provide policy advise and technical assistance to developing countries that are implementing complex economic and public sector reforms. A number of those exerts have also gained considerable international experience in implementing policy reform programs. The article then discusses two cases: (i) the case of Latvia where Iceland rushed to recognize its independence, but did little to assist the country in the post independence period, and (ii), the case of Vietnam where a country like Iceland could provide valuable assistance to a country that is achieving remarkable progress in poverty reduction, implementing important public sector reforms and creating a better business environment for foreign investors. This article is based on the authors experience as chairman of the Board of the Icelandic International Development Agency (ICEIDA) and as Special Advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Iceland from 1995 to 1999, and as World Bank specialist at the Bank’s Head Quarters in Washington DC from 1990 to 1995, in Latvia from 1999 to 2003 and in Vietnam from 2003 to 2006.

Responses to public sector reform policy

The article compares the ways in which different public sector organizations respond to similar federal government demands for public sector reform. The empirical basis of the article is a comparison of public sector reform in three agencies managing road systems in three Australian states. There are two constants in the research; namely, the nature of the responsibilities of the agencies with respect to the road network, and the demands of federal government policy for road reform throughout Australia. Yet within the ambit of these two constants, there is a distinctive contrast in the way the agencies have approached and implemented both policy and reforms. The article uses Hood's framework for viable organizational design options for variables relating to grid and group as an explanatory model for the results obtained from the research. Furthermore, it examines the utility of Hood's four styles of public sector organizations in order to explain different change outcomes in the three agencies studied.

Services policies in transition economies: on the EU and WTO as commitment mechanisms

We analyze the extent to which the EU-15 and 16 transition economies used the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to commit to service sector policy reforms. GATS commitments are compared with the evolution of actual policy stances over time. While there is substantial variance across transition economies on both actual policies and GATS commitments, we find an inverse relationship between the depth of GATS commitments and the ‘quality’ of actual services policies as assessed by the private sector. In part this can be explained by the fact that the prospect of EU accession makes GATS less relevant as a commitment device for a subset of transition economies. However, for many of the non-EU accession candidates the WTO seems to be a weak commitment device. One explanation is that the small size of the markets concerned generates weak external enforcement incentives. Our findings suggest greater collective investment by WTO members in monitoring and transparency is needed to increase the benefits of WTO membership to small countries.

Novel Therapies for Tuberculosis: Tuberculosis Control and its Discontents

Salomon JA et al. [1] show through mathematical models the hypothetical high impact on tuberculosis (TB) control of a new shorter treatment regimen in South-East Asia. The model assumes all the positive determinants to enhance TB control but none of the negative ones, so the model is a kind of tautology that drives to an inevitable success. Defaulting, relapsing, and drug resistance do not have to be major problems when a TB control programme based on DOTS [directly observed treatment, short-course] strategy is well established with the current six months treatment [2]. These factors are usually cited as the main obstacles to control TB, the patients being the guilty party, but the reality is more complex: failed health systems, inequity, and poverty hamper the right to use TB services. It is arguable that shorter regimens and new technology increase case detection by themselves. Their effect is all the greater in an environment of health inequality and scarcity, as in the high TB burden countries. It is not clear if new drugs and technology will be cheaper, fully feasible, and more effective than the current ones on the field. Strengthening of operative health research could be the fastest way in the short term to find local solutions to use meagre financial resources [3]. Migration of local health workers looking for better living conditions could be critical for the TB programmes in the future [4]. It is likely that new tools and treatments need equal or more qualified human resources than are needed today. Lack of qualified health personnel, fast rotations in their posts, and reductions of personnel due to health sector reform policies shrink the cost effectiveness of training human resources on TB control and paradoxically could increase the necessity of more personnel for the same outcome. On the other hand, World Health Organization indicators to evaluate TB control may not be the most appropriate to measure the reality [5]. A critical revision of current measuring tools will shed light on the success and pitfalls of TB control [6]. Changes in the fashion of global disease control priorities, rise of expenses as programmes develop, and donor fatigue should be contemplated in the long term [7]. The barriers to access TB services are caused mainly by poverty and its complex socioeconomic determinants, but this key variable is hard to represent into the mathematical models [8]. Could TB be controlled through technology despite a world of increasing poverty?

Modelling the EU sugar supply to assess sectoral policy reforms

We investigate the possible linkages between the EU sugar production under quota and the supply of C sugar. We calibrate the implicit cross-subsidy between in-quota sugar and out-of-quota sugar. The resulting supply specification is included in a computable general equilibrium model of the EU economy detailing the agricultural sector. We simulate the effects of the 2006 reform of the EU sugar regime and the effects of a ban on sugar export subsidies. Results suggest that the reform makes it possible to fill the requirements of the 2005 World Trade Organisation panel but that further adjustment will be needed to eliminate all export subsidies as is scheduled for 2013.

The Implications of NEPAD for Capital Accumulation

ABSTRACT The role of private investment in Africa's economic development has been underscored since the advent of neoliberalism. Many of the macroeconomic and sectoral policy reforms of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) were aimed at reinvigorating local entrepreneurs and attracting foreign investment to African economies. This objective was largely unsuccessful. While the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) follows similar objectives in promoting the role of the private sector in the capital accumulation drive, it introduces new elements in the policy environment. The three major elements are the initiatives regarding good governance, infrastructure, and regional economic integration with the objective of effectively integrating Africa into the globalization process. The paper investigates the implications of these three initiatives of NEPAD for capital accumulation in Africa. It also comments on the impact NEPAD may have on the forms of accumulation; that is, how it may reconfigure the relative position of local entrepreneurs, public enterprises, and foreign investment in African economies.

Changing patterns of primary care for diabetes in Trinidad and Tobago over 10 years

To evaluate standards of preventive medical care for Type 2 diabetes in the context of high prevalence and limited resources. Surveys of records for diabetic subjects attending 23 government primary care health centres in Trinidad and Tobago in 2003 and 1998 and nine health centres in 1993. Records were compared by study year for blood glucose and blood pressure, surveillance for complications, appropriate management advice and drug prescriptions. Relevant interventions included new clinical guidelines, training workshops for clinical staff and reports to the Ministry of Health. During this time, investment in primary care increased in the context of health sector reform policies and a favourable macroeconomic environment. Comparing 1993 with 2003, the proportion with a blood glucose test in the past 12 months increased from 33% to 91%, urea or creatinine ever recorded increased from 14% to 61%, diet advice recorded in the first 12 months of follow-up from 35% to 67%, exercise advice from 3% to 61%. The proportion prescribed metformin increased from 25% to 65%, while chlorpropamide decreased from 48% to 0%. The proportion of all subjects treated with antihypertensive drugs increased from 49% to 70%, and the proportion of treated patients prescribed angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors increased from 8% to 72%. Most recent ever records of blood glucose, blood pressure and body weight showed no decrease. Repeated surveillance of processes of care provided information to stimulate and plan change. Process changes were associated with intervention at several levels and increased availability of resources.

Livelihood strategies and performance of Ghana's health and education sectors: exploring the connections

AbstractThe public sector in Africa is riddled with widespread ineffectiveness. Although some countries have implemented various reform programmes with the support of international development agencies, the results so far have been disappointing. One reason for the failure is that the policies have focussed more on achieving macroeconomic stability than making the organisations effective. This article explores a fundamental problem of the policies—the need to focus on the human component of organisational performance. Using education and health organisations in Ghana as examples, the article advances a hypothesis that the livelihood strategies of public sector employees and the performance of their organisations are interconnected. Specifically, it is argued that as public sector employees have become more dependent on multiple sources of income, they have developed multiple social identities, which influence the culture of their organisations. The organisational culture may have encouraged employee effectiveness in some cases, but for most organisations, it has resulted in practices that perpetuate inefficiency and poor performance. To be successful, public sector reform policies must therefore involve deliberate efforts to change organisational cultures. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.