When Gerson Martínez became head of El Salvador’s Ministry of Public Works in 2009, the organization was notorious for corruption that contributed to poor-quality construction, unfinished projects, and frequent lawsuits. Working with a prominent nongovernmental organization (NGO) and industry representatives, Martínez introduced integrity pacts as monitoring mechanisms intended to prevent corruption. The agreements publicly committed officials and companies to reject bribery, collusion, and other corrupt practices and enabled NGOs to monitor bidding and construction. Although limited capacity and resistance from some midlevel ministry staff hindered the monitors’ work, integrity pacts focused the attention of both the government and the public on problems in major public works projects; and participants said the pacts helped deter corruption in those they covered. In 2012, integrity pacts became part of El Salvador’s Open Government Partnership action plan, in implicit recognition of the tool’s contribution to reform. As of August 2015, the ministry had signed 31 integrity pacts involving five projects worth a combined US$62 million. Although sustaining the initiative proved a challenge, integrity pacts served as a foundation for increased collaboration between government, civil society, and the private sector—and as a first step toward a new institutional culture at the Ministry of Public Works.

Maya Gainer drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in San Salvador in July 2015. Case published in October, 2015. This case study was funded by the Open Government Partnership.

President Jacob Zuma took office in 2009 amid a wave of demonstrations by South Africans protesting the government’s poor record in delivering basic services. During the 15 years since the end of apartheid, South Africa had made strides in extending basic services to previously underserved communities, but frustration with the pace of progress boiled over in early 2009. During his first month in office, Zuma established a Ministry of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation to improve service delivery by ministries. Two key officials in the new ministry, Ketso Gordhan and Ronette Engela, identified three major reasons for the government’s poor performance: a lack of accountability at the upper levels of ministries, decentralized and often ad hoc policy planning, and poor interministerial coordination. They devised a system that reorganized ministries around 12 policy goals and set data-based performance targets for ministers and departments. They succeeded in focusing departments on setting measurable performance targets, but as political support waned, the sustainability of the system came into doubt. This case study offers insights on building the accountability of managers in the civil service and improving the quality of policy planning by setting measurable performance targets.

In 2010, President Ernest Bai Koroma struggled to implement his development agenda for Sierra Leone, unable to count on consistent follow-through by his own ministries. He had won election in 2007, five years after an 11-year civil war had decimated the civil service and destroyed much of the West African country’s infrastructure. Early in his presidency, Koroma had established an advisory group called the Strategy and Policy Unit (SPU) in a bid to monitor ministries’ progress on major projects and to hold ministry staff accountable. During 2008–09, the SPU had made a few notable gains, particularly in formulating performance contracts with ministers and steering completion of the giant Bumbuna hydroelectric dam. But by 2010, major elements of Koroma’s development agenda had faltered, and the president knew he had to improve coordination and accountability at the center of government in order to address Sierra Leone’s daunting challenges. He hired a chief of staff, Kaifala Marah, and charged him with overhauling the SPU. Marah hired expert support staff and sharpened the unit’s focus. Victor Strasser-King, a retired geology professor who oversawthe successful completion of the long-delayed Bumbuna project while working as an SPU adviser, became director of the unit. Rather than spreading its efforts across all of the president’s priorities, the unit under Strasser-King targeted a handful of flagship projects. The revamped SPU held regular coordination meetings of the president and ministry officials that strengthened monitoring and accountability and identified logjams and bottlenecks that required presidential intervention. By late 2011, with support from the Africa Governance Initiative, the United Nations Development Programme and other partners, the SPU had increased interministerial coordination and significantly improved progress on priority programs. This case study describes the reforms in the president’s office at the center of government. 

When Ernest Bai Koroma assumed the presidency of Sierra Leone in 2007, he promised to run his government as efficiently as a private business. A few years earlier, a brutal 11-year civil war had ended, leaving an estimated 50,000 dead and an additional two million displaced. The effects of the war gutted the government’s capacity to deliver basic services. Koroma launched an ambitious agenda that targeted key areas for improvement including energy, agriculture, infrastructure and health. In 2009, he scored a win with the completion of the Bumbuna hydroelectric dam that brought power to the capital, Freetown. At the same time, the president faced mounting pressure to reduce maternal and child death rates, which were the highest in the world. In November, he announced an initiative to provide free health care for pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under five years of age, and set the launch date for April 2010, only six months away. Working with the country’s chief medical officer, Dr. Kisito Daoh, he shuffled key staff at the health ministry, created committees that brought ministries, donors and non-governmental organizations together to move actions forward, and developed systems for monitoring progress. Strong support from the center of government proved critical to enabling the project to launch on schedule. Initial data showed an increase in utilization rates at health centers and a decline in child death rates. 

Studi kasus ini juga, Menerapkan Aturan Dan Akuntabilitas: Standar Operasional Prosedur Di Kementerian Keuangan Republik Indonesia, 2006-2007, tersedia dalam Bahasa Indonesia.

In 2006, Indonesian economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati took on a huge and knotty problem: bringing order and efficiency to the Indonesian Ministry of Finance, an organization of 64,000 employees. At the time, many Indonesian citizens viewed the ministry as corrupt and unaccountable, exemplifying the failures of the entire government. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had appointed Mulyani because of her reputation as a tough-minded reformer and a savvy manager. Mulyani ascribed the ministry’s weak and inconsistent handling of taxes, customs and other services to a shortage of clear and consistent procedures for the many tasks employees handled. A key element of her strategy was to simplify and standardize ministry processes in order to improve employee performance and accountability. During the next two years, Mulyani and her team initially focused their efforts on 35 priority services that citizens used heavily, and then they expanded the reforms to include other activities. By 2007, the ministry had developed and implemented nearly 7,000 standard operating procedures. The changes significantly improved public services and earned popular acclaim for both the ministry and the Yudhoyono government. This case shows how a strong leader and her reform team introduced new ways of working to achieve significant gains in service efficiency, quality and fairness.

Rushda Majeed drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, in November and December 2011, and on a 2009 interview of Sri Mulyani Indrawati by Matthew Devlin and Andrew Schalkwyk. Case published April 2012.

Associated Interview(s):  Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Robert Pakpahan