Cabinet reform

Moving Beyond Central Planning: Crafting a Modern Policy Management System, Latvia, 2000-2006

Author
Jonathan (Yoni) Friedman
Focus Area(s)
Core Challenge
Country of Reform
Translations
Language
Spanish
Abstract

In 2000, Latvia’s newly appointed state chancellor, Gunta Veismane, took on a daunting task. Since Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the new government had functioned without a clearly organized policy-planning process. Ministries produced policy papers that lacked input from stakeholders or essential information about costs and objectives, leaving decision makers in the dark when trying to set a course for Latvia’s future. Veismane’s job was to ensure that top officials had the information and analysis they needed to make informed policy decisions. She tapped Una Klapkalne, an experienced government official, to lead an elite unit in the State Chancellery to design and implement a new policy-making system. Between 2000 and 2006, Veismane and Klapkalne introduced rules and procedures that improved the quality of decision making and enhanced coordination across government. The World Bank lauded the system they created as a model for the region. 

Jonathan Friedman drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Riga, Latvia, during February 2012. Case published May 2012.

Associated Interview(s):  Una Klapkalne, Baiba Petersone

Shifting the Cabinet into High Gear: Agile Policymaking in Rwanda, 2008-2012

Author
Jonathan (Yoni) Friedman
Focus Area(s)
Country of Reform
Abstract
In 2008, the challenges of managing a growing economy and translating gains into higher standards of living put many issues on the agenda of Rwanda’s cabinet. The top-level policymaking process had to keep pace. Weekly meetings of Cabinet ministers were loosely organized that too often wasted the valuable time of the government’s top decision makers. Aware of the need to streamline operations at the center of government, President Paul Kagame created a Ministry in Charge of Cabinet Affairs, led by Charles Murigande, his longtime foreign affairs minister. Murigande quickly concluded that Cabinet-level confusion arose largely from a lack of clear guidelines for ministers on how to manage policy formulation and develop clear and complete policy proposals colleagues could understand easily and act upon quickly. He also suspected that not all the items on the agenda really required the attention of the whole cabinet. Murigande and his successor, former Minister of Local Government Protais Musoni, crafted a policy development manual for ministries, developed ways to resolve policy differences without involving the entire Cabinet, and introduced other changes that made Cabinet sessions shorter and more efficient. Although weaknesses remained in 2012, new Cabinet procedures improved the quality of policy proposals, promoted fast and responsible decision making, and gave Rwanda’s top government officials more time to deal with the country’s pressing problems.
 
Jonathan Friedman drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Kigali, Rwanda, during June 2012. Case published September 2012. See related case, “Improving Coordination and Prioritization: Streamlining Rwanda’s National Leadership Retreat, 2008-2011.”
 
Associated Interview(s):  Protais Musoni

Improving Decision Making at the Center of Government: Liberia's Cabinet Secretariat, 2009-2012

Author
Michael Scharff
Focus Area(s)
Country of Reform
Abstract
When Momo Rogers became director general of Liberia’s Cabinet Secretariat in June 2009, he thought the office could begin to support President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her team of ministers much more effectively than it had done previously. Cabinet offices generally aimed to improve the quality of decision making and coordination at the center of government. That function was especially important in Liberia, where President Sirleaf wanted to advance an ambitious development agenda—six years after the end of a protracted civil war—yet before Rogers stepped into his role, many Cabinet meetings were long and unfocused and often yielded few tangible results. For example, policy decisions reached in the Cabinet meetings were not often communicated to the people responsible for implementing policy. Moreover, the relevance of decisions about the government’s priorities was sometimes unclear even to those who had participated in the meetings. Recognizing those challenges, Sirleaf tasked Rogers with responsibility for making the office—and the Cabinet itself—work better. Rogers built a team at the Secretariat and introduced procedural changes like circulating agendas and policy papers in advance of Cabinet meetings. By 2012, the Cabinet was functioning more effectively: agendas circulated in advance, discussions were more focused, and the Secretariat followed up on action items agreed to in the meetings. But shortcomings remained, including a persistent need to improve the quality of policy proposals submitted to Cabinet.
 

Michael Scharff drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Monrovia, Liberia, and the United States in April and May 2012. Case published in September 2012. 

Associated Interview(s):  Momo Rogers

Gord Evans

Ref Batch
C
Focus Area(s)
Ref Batch Number
6
Interviewers
Michael Scharff
Name
Gord Evans
Interviewee's Position
Former Cabinet Consultant
Interviewee's Organization
Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC)
Language
English
Nationality of Interviewee
Canadian
Town/City
Princeton, New Jersey
Country
Date of Interview
Reform Profile
No
Abstract
Gord Evans, as an examiner for the World Bank, discusses the improvement of the effectiveness of cabinet offices. He explains why the head of the state would want to improve their cabinet, detailing how they need the machinery of government to work well for them to help them govern. He talks about how the improvements of the respective cabinets depend on the type of government dynamics that are present. Evans talks about how there are high-level and low-level reforms. The high-level reforms are those that are ambitious, and challenging due to their complexity. In great contrast, the low-level reforms often pertain to administrative issues, those that are less difficult to adjust, such as not enough people to complete a certain task. He talks and elaborates about the biggest implementation challenges he has seen across countries referring to both levels of reform. Evan explains how there are not universal steps or changes that usually produce the biggest improvements in cabinet office performance, and how it is dependent upon the devotion of the prime minister and how sold they are in the reform’s initial proposal. Evans then talks about delivery units, and gives his opinion on the matter, stating how their ability to work is different in a parliamentary system versus a presidential system. He also talks about how official prioritize issues that they focus upon. 
Profile

At the time of this interview, Gord Evans was an examiner of the effectiveness of cabinet offices for the World Bank. He had extensive experience studying and supporting cabinet office effectiveness. He had prior experience, working in the cabinet office in the government of Ontario, Canada. There he had the title of Deputy Clerk of the Executive Council, where he sat in on the cabinet and committee meetings and took the minutes. After doing this for eight years, he thought it would be time for a career switch and believed that it would be interesting to go out and work internationally. He desired to work with cabinet offices around the world; and luckily around this time the World Bank gained interest in studying things like prime minister, cabinets, and cabinet offices. Therefore, Evans was able to work with the World Bank and help them develop an approach to the examination of cabinet offices. Now, 14-15 years later, the program has been successful, and Evans has worked in approximately 30 countries.  

Full Audio File Size
39 MB
Full Audio Title
Gordon Evans - Full Interview

Improving Coordination and Prioritization: Streamlining Rwanda's National Leadership Retreat, 2008-2011

Author
Deepa Iyer
Focus Area(s)
Critical Tasks
Country of Reform
Abstract
In 2008, President Paul Kagame was deeply frustrated with his government’s inability to move Rwanda forward after civil war and genocide decimated the African nation in the early 1990s. Four years earlier, concerned about his government’s lack of progress in improving services, he had launched yearly retreats to help Rwanda’s top leaders develop ministerial priorities and shape plans for service delivery. While the concept seemed simple, implementation was not. Early national leadership retreats, some a week long, failed to meet expectations. Poor planning and fast-changing agendas left ministers uncertain about their roles. Reflecting the disorder, retreat participants set hundreds of objectives, and post-retreat implementation lagged. In 2008, frustrated by service delivery failures, public sector inertia and duplication across ministries, Kagame took steps to enhance coordination at the top levels of government. He created two units, a Strategy and Policy Unit within his own office and a Coordination Unit in the prime minister’s office. These actions helped improve the retreat planning process. The two units worked with a retreat steering committee headed by Minister of Cabinet Affairs Protais Musoni. A reallocation of roles at the center of government and a concerted effort to build planning capacity further streamlined the retreat process. By 2011, the retreats had become high-level forums for government planning, coordination and accountability. Participants at the 2011 event developed six priorities, compared with 174 at the retreat two years earlier.
 

Deepa Iyer drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Kigali, Rwanda, in September 2011. Case published March 2012. Two separate case studies, “The Promise of Imihigo: Decentralized Service Delivery in Rwanda and "Rebuilding the Civil Service After War” provide additional insight into the processes of restoring and restructuring governance in insecure areas.  .

Associated Interview(s):  Fabien Majoro, Protais Musoni, Leonard Rugwabiza