Reform sequencing

Mohammad Mohabbat Khan

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10
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Andrew Schalkwyk
Name
Mohammad Mohabbat Khan
Interviewee's Position
Professor of Public Administration
Interviewee's Organization
University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
Bangladeshi
Town/City
Dhaka
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
Yes
Abstract

Mohammad Mohabbat Khan details the challenges facing the civil service in Bangladesh at the time, chief of which was to restore credibility in the mind of the public.  He details some attempts at reform, which he characterizes as somewhat disjointed. He identifies the various commissions formed to assess and make recommendations for reforms, and describes their perceived failings and the obstacles they encountered.   He assesses the challenges to reform when high-ranking politicians and civil servants are comfortable with the status quo.

Case Study:  Energizing the Civil Service: Managing at The Top 2, Bangladesh, 2006-2011

Profile

At the time of this interview, Mohammad Mohabbat Khan was a senior professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was appointed to the post of professor in 1983. He earned an honors degree in political science, a master's in public administration from the University of Dhaka, a master's in public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a doctorate from the University of Southern California.  He served on the Bangladesh Public Service Commission and taught at universities in Jordan, Nigeria, Singapore and the U.S.  He has written 16 books in the areas of governance and public sector reform.

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17.4MB
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Mohammad Mohabbat Khan- Full Interview

Matthew Sherman

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28
Critical Tasks
Interviewers
Daniel Scher
Name
Matthew Sherman
Interviewee's Position
Consultant
Interviewee's Organization
Independent
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
American
Town/City
Arlington, VA
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract
Matthew Sherman, former deputy senior adviser and director of policy with Iraq’s Ministry of Interior, discusses the creation and operations of domestic security forces in Iraq. He discusses the challenges of building domestic policing capacity, including in effectively vetting new recruits and ensuring adequate and uniform training and resources. The design of the political system, he notes, has an important bearing on the development of security forces. Decentralization policies, for instance, may change the make-up of local security forces. Sherman remarks that effective security forces development requires building trust and continuity in the political system. Lack of continuity, such as he encountered in Iraq, made it difficult to implement sustainable changes. Other challenges in building domestic police capacity included the politicization of police training programs and trying to prevent rogue elements from infiltrating or shaping the security forces. Sherman concludes by stating that developing quality police capacity, including building adequate mid and senior level capacity, takes time and quantity should not come at the expense of quality. 
Profile

Matthew Sherman worked for more than three years as a civilian official in Iraq, including as a deputy senior adviser and director of policy with Iraq’s Ministry of Interior and the political adviser to the First Cavalry Division, the American military unit in charge of operations throughout Baghdad. Prior to his appointment to Iraq, Sherman had foreign assignments with the U.S. Department of State in Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia, Montenegro, Ukraine and Moldova, where he served as an election security planner and an international monitor. Most recently, he worked as a principal with SCI Consulting, a senior adviser with the Scowcroft Group, and an adjunct with the RAND Corporation. Sherman received his bachelor's and juris doctor degrees from the University of North Carolina and a master of philosophy degree in international relations from Cambridge University. 

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90 MB
Full Audio Title
Matthew Sherman - Full Interview

Susan Nina Carroll

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1
Critical Tasks
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Larisa Jasarevic
Name
Susan Nina Carroll
Interviewee's Position
Senior Program Adviser
Interviewee's Organization
International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
American
Town/City
Sarajevo
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract
Susan Nina Carroll discusses recruitment and training of the Bosnian police from an administrative perspective. She describes how a rigorous recruitment process produced recruitment classes that were below capacity, delaying the training process and raising costs. Carroll discusses the prevalence of women in the early training cohorts, and the efforts made to recruit in different languages and publications to attract minorities. Training was conducted at first by international trainers and was considered to be effective. There were two training schools, one in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, the other in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Though the schools taught identical curricula, she says the leaders of the schools refused to cooperate in various ways that would have reduced costs of training and streamlined various techniques and reporting methods. She contrasts the approach of American trainers, who stressed practical exercises, with that of European trainers, who favored verbal instruction. Finally, she discusses the benefits of generational change in the Bosnian police, arguing that change comes as new recruits take over managerial positions from the old guard.   
 
Profile
At the time of this interview, Susan Nina Carroll was a senior program adviser working as a consultant for Military Professional Resources Inc. on behalf of the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program of the U.S. Department of Justice. She began her career in the U.S. military, moving to a private security firm in 1992, where she worked as director of training. She left to work in the training department of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, and when the games began in 1996 she ran security for the Olympics at the Atlanta airport, where participants arrived. After the Olympics, she accepted several contracts from ICITAP to train police in Haiti and Croatia before beginning her work in Bosnia. 
Full Audio File Size
52 MB
Full Audio Title
Susan Nina Carroll - Full Interview

Anthony Howlett-Bolton

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10
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Daniel Scher
Name
Anthony Howlett-Bolton
Interviewee's Position
Strategic Justice and Security Sector Adviser
Interviewee's Organization
independent
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
British
Town/City
London
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract

Anthony Howlett-Bolton discusses the process of advising Sierra Leone and Lesotho in policing, justice and overall security during development programs in the two countries.  He discusses in depth the practical concerns of Western officials advising in the countries in a more reflective manner, specifically talking about cultural considerations.  Howlett-Bolton also brings up the need for sustainability to be a prominent concern in any development plan, broadly and with respect to justice and security.

Case Study:  Reining in a Rogue Agency: Police Reform in Lesotho, 1997-2010

Profile

At the time of this interview, Anthony Howlett-Bolton was a strategic justice and security sector adviser, having retired four years earlier as a deputy chief constable for a police force in the United Kingdom.  He worked with the Lesotho Mounted Police, the (Lesotho) National Police Information Agency, Ministry of Home Affairs and Public Safety, and the British Council in Lesotho.  In 2007 Howlett-Bolton began work in Sierra Leone as an adviser to a development program, working with the police, prisons and the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Full Audio File Size
109 MB
Full Audio Title
Anthony Howlett-Bolton - Full Interview

V. Ravichandar

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0
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Michael Woldemariam
Name
V. Ravichandar
Interviewee's Organization
Bangalore Agenda Task Force
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
Indian
Town/City
Bangalore
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract

V. Ravichandar recounts his time serving as a member of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) from 2000 to 2004. He describes urban issues within India, how he secured his position with BATF, and various city initiatives in which he played a large role. The BATF worked to improve living conditions for the lower middle and middle classes. Among other things, it reformed the public toilet system and transportation. Ravichandar also helped to implement the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), a government program that allocated 12 billion dollars of grant funding to 63 Indian cities. He speaks extensively about the presidency of S.M. Krishna and how crucial he was in providing political support for the BATF. Ravichandar emphasizes the importance of political capital, how it only declines after an individual is elected, and why it is critical to enact change quickly and early on in a presidency before political capital runs out.    

Case Study:  Keeping Up with a Fast-Moving City: Service Delivery in Bangalore, India, 1999-2004

Profile

V. Ravichandar served as a member of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) from 2000 to 2004. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) and an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM). Prior to working with BATF, Ravichandar was a consultant with MICO-Bosch. In 1988, he founded Feedback Consulting, a research and consulting company that assesses business opportunities in India.  Since leaving his post with BATF, he has been associated with HR Trust, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to enable human capital in India. At the time of this interview, Ravichandar still worked for Feedback Consulting    

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Jaba Ebanoidze

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1
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Andrew Schalkwyk
Name
Jaba Ebanoidze
Interviewee's Position
Deputy Minister of Justice
Interviewee's Organization
Republic of Georgia
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
Georgia
Place (Building/Street)
Ministry of Justice
Town/City
Tbilisi
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract

Jaba Ebanoidze talks about the reform of Georgia's Public Registry office, an agency that records all information associated with property ownership in the country. Under his tenure, the office streamlined various processes and undertook the computerization of all records and applications. This has allowed citizens to submit applications through the Internet and track the progress of their applications. Ebanoidze hired top Georgian programmers to develop a Georgia-specific software system.  He looked at other countries in Europe, drawing inspiration from Estonia and taking lessons from places where he felt things didn’t work so well. He raised salaries of his key staff so as not to lose them to the private sector, while at the same time he worked on institutionalizing procedures so they were not person-specific. He also discusses the challenges and successes in extending the new system to rural and outlying areas. Ebanoidze talks about training a core group of people to work with new systems, and then unrolling it slowly. He was able to minimize expenses by having a training team go from region to region rather than trying to train all regions simultaneously. He also talks about successful attempts to combat corruption by minimizing citizen-staff interaction, and through the more direct means of firing staff resistant to increased transparency.

Case Study:  Rejuvenating the Public Registry: Republic of Georgia, 2006-2008

Profile

At the time of this interview, Jaba Ebanoidze was the deputy minister of justice in Georgia. He was educated at Tbilisi Topographic Technical College and Georgian Technical University, earning a bachelor’s degree in topography and a separate bachelor’s degree in engineering geodesy. He was a co-founder of the Association for the Protection of Landowners Rights, an organization that “supports the orderly and transparent development of Georgian land and property markets.” He served as director of the association from 1999 to 2005 and as senior policy adviser from 2005 to 2006. In 2006 he was appointed chairman of the National Agency of Public Registry, where he served for three years before being appointed deputy minister of justice.

Full Audio File Size
43.5MB
Full Audio Title
Jaba Ebanoidze-Full Interview

Robert Pakpahan

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3
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Andrew Schalkwyk
Name
Robert Pakpahan
Interviewee's Position
Director of Business Processes Transformation
Interviewee's Organization
Directorate General of Taxes, Indonesia
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
Indonesian
Place (Building/Street)
Ministry of Finance
Town/City
Jakarta
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract
Robert Pakpahan discusses administrative, bureaucratic and technological reforms in the Directorate General of Taxes in Indonesia since 2002. These reforms aimed to increase government revenue by eradicating corruption and expanding the tax net. He discusses the piecemeal modernization of the directorate general, including pay reform, improved monitoring of corruption through increased use of technology, the establishment of standard operating procedures, careful selection of employees, and standard mechanisms for promotions. Pakpahan also discusses obstacles including the maintenance of a current and accurate taxpayer database, bureaucratic resistance, lack of freedom in hiring decisions, and leadership.
 
Profile
At the time of this interview, Robert Pakpahan, who holds a doctoral degree, was the director of business processes transformation at the Directorate General of Taxes in Indonesia. He worked in this capacity since 2006 to improve Indonesia's tax collection mechanism.
Full Audio File Size
37 MB
Full Audio Title
Pakpahan Interview

Tobias Flessenkemper

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Critical Tasks
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Larisa Jasarevic
Name
Tobias Flessenkemper
Interviewee's Position
Chief, European Union Coordination Office
Interviewee's Organization
EU Police Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina
Language
English
Town/City
Sarajevo
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract

Tobias Flessenkemper discusses the European Union Police Mission’s strategies and priorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He argues the command structure in the Bosnia police, which included a minister of the interior in each canton assuming administrative and executive roles that typically fall to police commissioners, overly politicized the Bosnia police in the levels of upper management. He considers politicization a major obstacle to police reform that was manifested differently in Bosnia’s two entities. Whereas in the cantons in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, encroachment by ministers of the interior on the traditional roles of police commissioners created one type of politicization, in the Republika Srpska, police were hesitant to investigate cases involving politicians or wealthy individuals. Still, he points out that the police were one of the most trusted institutions in Bosnia, which he credits to their visibility and roots in the communities in which they served. Finally, he posits that the effectiveness of the police was subverted somewhat by Bosnia’s weak judicial system and lack of prisons.     

Profile

At the time of this interview, Tobias Flessenkemper was serving as chief of the European Union Coordination Office as part of the European Union Police Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He previously worked in international policing for the European Union PROXIMA mission in Macedonia. Before working in international policing, Flessenkemper worked in Brussels in the non-governmental sector in the field of education, democracy building and human rights. His background was in political science and management. 

Full Audio File Size
63 MB
Full Audio Title
Tobias Flessenkemper - Full Interview

Giorgi Vashadze

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7
Country of Reform
Interviewers
Andrew Schalkwyk
Name
Giorgi Vashadze
Interviewee's Position
Chairman
Interviewee's Organization
Deputy Minister of Justice; Head of Civil Registry Agency
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
Georgian
Town/City
Tbilisi
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract
Giorgi Vashadze,  the Deputy Minister of Justice; Head of the Civil Registry Agency in Georgia, an independent one-stop agency created in 2005 under the Ministry of Justice, discusses the agency's responsibility for issuing citizen identifications, voter registrations, passports, marriage licenses and divorce papers, name changes, and birth and death certificates.  The agency is partially supported by the fees it collects from citizens applying for papers.  The goal is to make it entirely self-supporting financially in the near future.  He describes how the Civil Service Registry was established to eliminate a predecessor process that was highly corrupt and paper-based, and he notes that the process has been computerized and almost all corruption eliminated from the system. The objective in creating the registry was to create a one-stop process for all important papers needed by citizens and to establish a system so that the government knew who was in the country. The system is linked to the process for driver’s licenses and to the Central Electoral Commission. The registry has helped other ministries eliminate corruption by providing software and links to a central information system.
 
Profile
At the time of this interview, Giorgi Vashadze was chairman of the Civil Registry Agency of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia.  He began serving in the organization in 2005 as head of one of the local territorial offices in Tbilisi.  In August 2005 he was promoted to deputy chairman of the agency, and he was named agency head in 2006.
Full Audio File Size
65MB
Full Audio Title
Giorgi Vashadze Interview

Protais Musoni

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4
Country of Reform
Interviewers
David Hausman
Name
Protais Musoni
Interviewee's Position
Cabinet Minister
Language
English
Place (Building/Street)
Office of the Cabinet Minister
Town/City
Kigali
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract

Protais Musoni, current Cabinet Minister, describes his experience in building institutions, first as deputy secretary-general of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, then governor of Kibungo province, and finally as Minister of Local Government for Rwanda. Musoni initiated a community-building exercise in which communes were invited together for seven-day workshops to discuss ethnic and class divisions, and then ten-member commune committees were elected, with representatives for each group. After Musoni pioneered the workshops in his province, they were implemented nationwide in 1996. The initial state-building efforts laid the groundwork for an ambitious program of decentralization that Musoni later oversaw.  In the first stage of decentralization, sectors and cells gained the right to elect representatives; administrative decentralization followed with a massive recruitment effort at the district level, counterbalanced by large-scale retrenchment at the central ministries.

Case Studies:  Shifting the Cabinet into High Gear: Agile Policymaking in Rwanda: 2008-2012, Improving Coordination and Prioritization: Streamlining Rwanda's National Leadership Retreat, 2008-2011Enhancing Capacity, Changing Behaviors: Rapid Results in Gashaki, Rwanda, 2008Rebuilding the Civil Service After War: Rwanda After the Genocide, 1998-2009Government Through Mobilization: Restoring Order After Rwanda's 1994 Genocide, and The Promise of Imihigo: Decentralized Service Delivery in Rwanda, 2006-2010

Profile

Mr. Musoni was Cabinet Minister in Rwanda. A Rwandan refugee, he worked in Uganda as a railroad engineer, then fled to Kenya in 1981, and joined Yoweri Museveni’s movement, which gained control of the Ugandan state in 1986.  He then helped to found the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) and was elected deputy secretary-general of the organization.  When the RPF successfully took control of Rwanda in 1994, ending the country’s genocide, Musoni was made governor of Kibungo province. He later served as Mayor of Kigali and Minister of Local Government for Rwanda before becoming Cabinet Minister in 2009. 

 

Full Audio File Size
108 MB
Full Audio Title
Protais Musoni Interview