In 2007, Senegal opened a Business Creation Support Office that vastly reduced the time required to register a business from two months to 48 hours. Before the creation of the office, foreign investors as well as local entrepreneurs had to deal with six different government agencies, each of which had its own requirements and procedures. The onerous undertaking discouraged business investment, kept significant revenue sources off government tax rolls, and created fertile ground for corruption. In 2006, President Abdoulaye Wade decided to change the situation. Wade assigned the Agency for Investment Promotion and Major Works, or APIX, the task of making it possible to register a business in just two days. A small team from the agency examined the options and decided that a one-stop shop would best meet Senegal’s needs. The model required no legislative changes, and it allowed agencies to retain control over their procedures—while reducing red tape and letting APIX supervise the entire process. APIX leaders worked hard to win the cooperation of institutions and individual agents, and the Business Creation Support Office opened in downtown Dakar in November 2007. The institutions involved in registration sent representatives to work in the office, and APIX staff collected applications, supervised the office, and coordinated gradual improvements in procedures. After the office opened, entrepreneurs could complete the registration process at a single location and be done within 48 hours. By 2016, the office had further reduced the time required to a single day.

Maya Gainer, ISS Research Specialist, and Stefanie Chan and Laura Skoet of Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Dakar, Senegal, and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, in January 2016. This case study was funded by the French Development Agency. Case published ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­May 2016.

By the mid-2000s, Indonesia had recovered from a devastating economic crisis and made significant progress in transitioning from a dictatorship to a democracy. However, the country's vast state bureaucracy continued to resist pressure to improve operations. In 2006, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono tapped economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati to transform Indonesia's massive Ministry of Finance, which was responsible not only for economic policy making but also for taxes and customs. During four years as minister, Mulyani introduced new standard operating procedures, raised civil servant salaries, created a new performance management system, and cracked down on malfeasance. Her reforms turned what had once been a dysfunctional institution into a high performer. But ongoing resistance illustrated the difficulties and perils of ambitious bureaucratic reform in Indonesia.

This case study was drafted by Gordon LaForge based on research by Rachel Jackson, Drew McDonald, Matt Devlin, and Andrew Schalkwyk and on interviews conducted by ISS staff members from 2009 to 2015. Case published May 2016. Other ISS case studies provide additional detail about certain aspects of the reforms discussed in this case or about related initiatives. For example, see Instilling Order and Accountability: Standard Operating Procedures at Indonesia's Ministry of Finance, 2006-2007.

From 2000 to 2009, Peru’s justice system successfully prosecuted former president Alberto Fujimori and other high-level public officials for acts of corruption committed during the previous decade. But the country’s judicial institutions struggled to curb newer corruption networks that were operating with impunity throughout the country. Because the networks had penetrated the justice system itself, it was increasingly difficult to prosecute—let alone convict—people who had participated in briberies, kickbacks, or other schemes. In the 2011 presidential election, Ollanta Humala, whose slogan was “Honesty Makes a Difference,” captured 51% of the vote and gave a boost to reformers within the country’s legal institutions. Humala joined the Open Government Partnership, strengthened Peru’s anticorruption commission, and brought together top leaders from the country’s judicial and legal institutions to improve the government’s response to corruption. In 2012, the comptroller general, the public prosecutor (attorney general), and the president of the judiciary created a new subsystem to bring to trial those officials accused of corruption. They created a new prosecutorial team and designated a specialized chamber to hear the most-complex corruption cases. At the same time, the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights strengthened its capacity to investigate and bring to trial cases involving the misuse of public resources. By 2015, several cases were in preparation, nearing trial. The fight against corruption in Peru continued to face many obstacles, however, including the perception that anticorruption efforts had lost top-level support.

Blair Cameron drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Lima in August 2015. Case published December 2015.

In early 2008, Zubair Bhatti, administrative head of the Jhang district in Pakistan’s Punjab province, recognized the need to reduce petty corruption in the local civil service—a problem that plagued not only Punjab but also all of Pakistan. He began to contact citizens on their cell phones to learn about the quality of the service they had received. Those spot checks became the basis for a social audit system that spanned all 36 districts in Punjab by 2014. The provincial government outsourced much of the work to a call center, which surveyed citizens about their experiences with 16 different public services. The data from that call center helped district coordination officers identify poorly performing employees and branches, thereby enhancing the capability of the government to improve service delivery. By early 2014, the province was sending about 12,000 text messages daily to check on service quality. More than 400,000 citizens provided information between the beginning of the initiative and 2014. Known as the Citizen Feedback Monitoring Program, the Punjab’s social audit system became the template for similar innovations in other provinces and federal agencies in Pakistan.

Mohammad Omar Masud drafted this case based on interviews conducted in Punjab, Pakistan, in January and March 2014. Case published February 2015.

Note: This case study was previously titled "Calling the Public to Empower the State: Pakistan's Citizen Feedback Monitoring Program, 2008-2014."

President Suharto of Indonesia (1967-1998) presided over one of the most corrupt regimes of the 20th century.  For over three decades, the political and financial interests of Suharto's family, cronies and allies in the military dictated the policies of the Indonesian state.  Nevertheless, a handful of public officials attempted to rationalize, improve and clean up the way government worked.  Emil Salim and Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, both cabinet ministers under Suharto, were two such men.  The pair struggled to manage the influence of the military, motivate a moribund bureaucracy and confront Suharto's many cronies.  Lacking formal mechanisms through which to channel their efforts, Salim and Kusumaatmadja seized on passing targets of opportunity, structuring and adapting their initiatives on an ad hoc basis and relying on unconventional tactics.  Although their successes proved unsustainable, their story offers specific lessons in the often elusive tactics of how individual public officials can achieve modest change against institutional inertia and determined opposition from vested interests.

Matthew Devlin drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted inJakarta, Indonesia, in July 2009. 

Associated Interview(s): Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, Emil Salim