Public Administration In Africa

With contributions from leading regional scholars, Public Administration in Africa: Performance and Challenges examines the complexities of the art of governance from the unique African perspective. The editors bring together a cohesive study of the major issues and regions by taking an analytic approach with the strong problem-solution application. Regions addressed range from South Africa, Congo, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritius, and Botswana. Themes include colonialism, reform, poverty, economy, decentralization, financing, media, political structures, and more. Beginning with an analysis of the relationship of policy design and its destination, service delivery, the book discusses the historical development of a state that has gone through upheavals in government and explores a decayed political economy that ultimately results in a need for sweeping measures. The text examines the issues emerging policy-makers in Africa must tackle, namely poverty and the denial or lack of resources to keep a dignified human life. It highlights how the media can be a catalyst for good governance and provides analytical aspects of implementing good governance reforms. The book concludes with an examination of the concepts of decentralization and devolution in measuring service delivery performance and an exploration of Africa’s economic success story. It also details the African Peer Review Mechanisms in selected African countries and provides a holistic analysis of local government functioning in Africa. These features and more make it an interdisciplinary reference for diverse social, economic, political, and administrative issues.

With contributions from leading regional scholars, Public Administration in Africa: Performance and Challenges examines the complexities of the art of governance from the unique African perspective. The editors bring together a cohesive study of the major issues and regions by taking an analytic approach with the strong problem-solution application. Regions addressed range from South Africa, Congo, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritius, and Botswana. Themes include colonialism, reform, poverty, economy, decentralization, financing, media, political structures, and more. Beginning with an analysis of the relationship of policy design and its destination, service delivery, the book discusses the historical development of a state that has gone through upheavals in government and explores a decayed political economy that ultimately results in a need for sweeping measures. The text examines the issues emerging policy-makers in Africa must tackle, namely poverty and the denial or lack of resources to keep a dignified human life. It highlights how the media can be a catalyst for good governance and provides analytical aspects of implementing good governance reforms. The book concludes with an examination of the concepts of decentralization and devolution in measuring service delivery performance and an exploration of Africa's economic success story. It also details the African Peer Review Mechanisms in selected African countries and provides a holistic analysis of local government functioning in Africa. These features and more make it an interdisciplinary reference for diverse social, economic, political, and administrative issues.

Public Administration in Africa addresses the main topics in the discipline, including governance context and reorientation of government, decentralization and intergovernmental relations, public financial management, human resources management, and accountability and transparency. The book reviews the experience of specific African countries, including a discussion of the main strengths and weaknesses of each national public administration system. The first part comprises ten chapters focused on the main issues in Public Administration and the second part comprises eleven chapters devoted to selected country studies. Countries discussed are: Benin, Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

This book analyses and evaluates the accomplishments, challenges, and approaches associated with the New Public Management (NPM) in Africa towards establishing context-specific interventions for public sector institutions' performance. Taking the reader through various business and management approaches, including leadership in the public sector, digitalisation, market orientation and trust building, this book provides an understanding of the key issues facing public sector organisations in Africa and offers novel ways of approaching public management in a changing socio-economic landscape to drive improved performance of public institutions. The book offers students, practitioners and researchers important insights on NPM and public sector institutions in Africa. The recommendations of the book will help government and policymakers implement appropriate public sector management policies for strengthening public sector service delivery in Africa.

* The first text that integrates a cultural context into the study of public administration programs * Covers the whole of southern Africa: South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe * Written jointly by an African professor of public administration and an American political scientist Despite extensive theoretical consideration over the past several decades, the discipline of public administration still suffers from an inability to meet on-the-ground administrative challenges in developing countries. In the past, public administrators have relied upon Western organizational models considered rational and efficient. But in neglecting various social and cultural aspects of any non-Western country, development proceeds in fits and starts. Using southern African nations as an example, the authors argue that emerging societies are poor today thanks to the overreliance on non-local models. Practitioners must consider local cultures--languages, symbols, customs, and rituals--in developing effective administrative practices. They must absorb the experiences of people who know first-hand the dynamics and conditions in these countries. Otherwise, neither citizens nor leaders will manage their affairs and development processes effectively. Written particularly for undergraduate and graduate students in public administration, political science, and comparative and development public administration, but also for policymakers, managers, administrators, and individuals who seek to understand the challenges of organizing and managing development, this book helps foster a culturally sensitive understanding of public administration in a global context.

Originally published in 1974, this book is a valuable contribution to the literature about the African context of public administration. The application of research to public administration and the communication of research findings are discussed in depth. All aspects of the subject are presented: non-university based, non-academic institutes as well as undergraduate and post-graduate programmes. The book concludes with some non-African comparisons from Australia, France, the USA and UK.

This Handbook provides an authoritative and foundational disciplinary overview of African Public Policy and a comprehensive examination of the practicalities of policy analysis, policymaking processes, implementation, and administration in Africa today. The book assembles a multidisciplinary team of distinguished and upcoming Africanist scholars, practitioners, researchers and policy experts working inside and outside Africa to analyse the historical and emerging policy issues in 21st-century Africa. While mostly attentive to comparative public policy in Africa, this book attempts to address some of the following pertinent questions: How can public policy be understood and taught in Africa? How does policymaking occur in unstable political contexts, or in states under pressure? Has the democratisation of governing systems improved policy processes in Africa? How have recent transformations, such as technological proliferation in Africa, impacted public policy processes? What are the underlying challenges and potential policy paths for Africa going forward? The contributions examine an interplay of prevailing institutional, political, structural challenges and opportunities for policy effectiveness to discern striking commonalities and trajectories across different African states. This is a valuable resource for practitioners, politicians, researchers, university students, and academics interested in studying and understanding how African countries are governed.

Critical examinations of efforts to make governments more efficient and responsive Political upheavals and civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have obscured efforts by many countries in the region to reform their public sectors. Unwieldy, unresponsive—and often corrupt—governments across the region have faced new pressure, not least from their publics, to improve the quality of public services and open up their decisionmaking processes. Some of these reform efforts were under way and at least partly successful before the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2010. Reform efforts have continued in some countries despite the many upheavals since then. This book offers a comprehensive assessment of a wide range of reform efforts in nine countries. In six cases the reforms targeted core systems of government: Jordan's restructuring of cabinet operations, the Palestinian Authority's revision of public financial management, Morocco's voluntary retirement program, human resource management reforms in Lebanon, an e-governance initiative in Dubai, and attempts to improve transparency in Tunisia. Five other reform efforts tackled line departments of government, among them Egypt's attempt to improve tax collection and Saudi Arabia's work to improve service delivery and bill collection. Some of these reform efforts were more successful than others. This book examines both the good and the bad, looking not only at what each reform accomplished but at how it was implemented. The result is a series of useful lessons on how public sector reforms can be adopted in MENA.

There is a growing global interest in Africa and how to improve the quality of life of its people—and for good reason. The world can no longer afford to ignore the democratic changes that have occurred across the continent over the past two decades, changes with tremendous implications for professional education and training for the tasks of nation building. Public Administration Training in Africa: Competencies in Development Management presents research findings related to talent and competency development within the framework of public service institutional capacity building. The book focuses on public administration questions as they relate to training, development, and competency building that will strengthen public managers’ capacity to implement governance policies and work toward improving development management. It draws on unique national experiences to provide research and scholarship that advance the dialogue on training and development relevant to African culture and history while at the same time contributing to enhance the field of practice. In addition to offering detailed descriptions and analyses of unique national experiences, the book also integrates transnational issues of training and development and ties the discussions back to the body of knowledge and scholarship defining the field and discipline of public administration. As scholars and experts in their own right, the authors make a reasoned case for rethinking and re-examining training and development in Africa in light of the emerging governance approach to public administration. The comprehensive empirical descriptions and analyses of education and training contexts and cultures written by some of the best minds in the subfield give you the latest research findings and distill relevant experiential and theoretical knowledge, tools, and skills based on case analyses, including carrying out development activity in different cross-cultural contexts.