Rose Kafeero describes the challenges she faced to implement “results-oriented management” reforms in the Ugandan government. While she believes that the mindset changed over the years and that budgets were prepared on the basis of outcomes, she says the impetus for outcome-based performance weakened when some of the managers leading these reforms left agencies. She also did not have full backing from top officials. She believes that other civil service reforms such as downsizing and divestiture of functions have been more successful. She outlines the merit-based selection process at both the national and district levels. She says that universities do not produce skill levels that match government requirements in some categories. She describes the difficulties of recruiting or retaining civil servants in some categories because of low pay and a failure to provide core benefits such as housing.

Humberto Falcao Martins offers his perspective on the Brazilian civil service reforms of the 1990s.  He credits Bresser-Pereira for single-handedly putting civil service reform on the agenda.  As a specialist on state an institutional issues in the Secretariat for Strategic Affairs, he was involved in the initial review of the Plano Diretor, or blueprint for reform, produced by Bresser-Pereira.  Martins says he was impressed with the decentralization scheme that would create a strategic core, a second group of activities handled exclusively by the state, a third group that would perform activities through partnerships with NGOs and social organizations, and a fourth group focused on market-oriented service provision by state-owned agencies.  Although he recognized the potential of the proposed initiatives, Martins was concerned with reduction of political interference in the implementation stage.  He identifies economists in the government as one of the main sources of opposition, which translated into generalized resistance to the reform.  Divergent views on managerial reform within the executive branch also contributed to resistance.  Martins further argues that consensus building during the drafting process would have circumvented opposition within the civil service.  Operational and legal obstacles plagued the implementation stage as well, but were somewhat successfully addressed in the social organization initiative in which Martins participated personally.  Specific strategies involved passage of constitutional amendments to restructure the civil service, but they came at the cost of increasing opposition.  Martins emphasizes the role of the reform in bringing about a paradigm shift in public administration rather than in effecting specific change.  In that sense, the ultimate result of the Brazilian managerial reform was to inspire other reformers across the country, with the state of Minas Gerais emerging as a paradigmatic success.  In the end, Martins attributes failure of specific implementation to fragmentation arising from concomitant and somewhat divergent views on state reform that were happening at the same time under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Case Study:  Strengthening Public Administration: Brazil, 1995-1998

Paul Acquah discusses his work in reforming and refocusing the Central Bank of Ghana. He outlines his goals to focus the Central Bank on inflation targeting and to shift emphasis from accounting to economics. Acquah details his success in restructuring and streamlining the organization and reforming its institutional culture, particularly by trimming down the staff, making selection procedures more competitive, and computerizing and mechanizing many jobs. He discusses the success and challenges of a voluntary departure program to cut down excess staff and the role of communication with the government and public in building credibility and support for reform.   

Howard Tytherleigh describes his role in public sector reform efforts in Sierra Leone.  Sponsored by the U.K. Department for International Development, Tytherleigh’s team began a payroll-verification project that involved interviewing all members of the Sierra Leonean civil service.  The aim was to correct the payment anomalies, inefficiencies and abuses that were wasting the government's money. The reform was hugely successful, in large part because of strong communication efforts, effective project management, executive involvement through presidential decree, and stakeholder support.  Tytherleigh emphasizes the importance of stakeholder involvement, technical capability and physical preparedness for the success of the reform effort.