Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized WBI Development Studies Building State Capacity in Africa New Approaches, Emerging Lessons Edited by Brian Levy and Sahr Kpundeh Jointly prepared by the World Bank Institute and the Africa Region Vice Presidency of the World Bank Copyright © 2004 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK 1818 H Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20433, U.S.A. All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing September 2004 The World Bank Institute was established by the World Bank in 1955 to train officials con- cerned with development planning, policymaking, investment analysis, and project implementation in member developing countries. At present the substance of WBI’s work emphasizes macroeconomic and sectoral policy analysis. 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ISBN 0-8213-6000-0 e-ISBN 0-8213-6001-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for. Contents Foreword v Frannie A. Léautier and Callisto Madavo Acknowledgments vii About the Authors ix 1. Governance and Economic Development in Africa: Meeting the Challenge of Capacity Building 1 Brian Levy 2. Comparative Experience with Public Service Reform in Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia 43 Mike Stevens and Stefanie Teggemann 3. Building State Capacity in Africa: Learning from Performance and Results 87 Poul Engberg-Pedersen and Brian Levy 4. Reforming Pay Policy: Techniques, Sequencing, and Politics 109 Kithinji Kiragu, Rwekaza Mukandala, and Denyse Morin 5. Cabinets, Budgets, and Poverty: Political Commitment to Poverty Reduction 149 Harry Garnett and William Plowden 6. Public Expenditure Accountability in Africa: Progress, Lessons, and Challenges 179 Bill Dorotinsky and Rob Floyd 7. Emerging Legislatures: Institutions of Horizontal Accountability 211 Joel D. Barkan, Ladipo Adamolekun, and Yongmei Zhou with Mouftaou Laleye and Njuguna Ng’ethe 8. Process Interventions Versus Structural Reforms: Institutionalizing Anticorruption Reforms in Africa 257 Sahr Kpundeh iii iv Contents 9. The Politics of Decentralization in Africa: A Comparative Analysis 283 Stephen N. Ndegwa and Brian Levy 10. Education Decentralization in Africa: A Review of Recent Policy and Practice 323 Alec Ian Gershberg and Donald R. Winkler 11. Reflections 357 Dele Olowu, Joel D. Barkan, and Njuguna Ng’ethe Index 367 Foreword The World Bank and other donors are fully committed to modalities of development support that put countries in the driver’s seat, with the poverty reduction strategy process—prepared by national governments, on the basis of close consultation with civil society—providing the framework for that support. An effective poverty reduction strategy process and a pro- ductive partnership can be built only on a platform of strong public capac- ity: capacity to formulate policies; capacity to build consensus; capacity to implement reform; and capacity to monitor results, learn lessons, and adapt accordingly. Building the requisite capacities turns out to be a formidable challenge. For these reasons, enhancing the capacity of African states has risen to the top of the continent’s development agenda. The process of learning how capacity can be built effectively is a continu- ing one. The World Bank’s efforts to help build capacity in Africa date back at least to the World Bank’s 1989 study, Sustainable Growth with Equity: A Long-Term Perspective for Sub-Saharan Africa, which highlighted the centrality of institutions for Africa’s development performance. Between 1987 and 1997, the Bank implemented at least 70 civil service reform projects across the African continent, with mixed results. Many of the lessons from this ini- tial round of effort were highlighted in the World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World and in a 2000 follow-up study, Reforming Public Institutions and Strengthening Governance: A World Bank Strategy. In recent years, a number of African governments, sometimes working in partnership with the World Bank and other development partners, have moved forward with new-style programs to build public sector capacity. This volume aims to share some of the lessons for the design and implementation of public sector capacity building that are emerging from this new generation of operational practice. The volume also exemplifies an increasingly collaborative way of work- ing within the World Bank Group, in this case between the World Bank Institute and the Bank’s Africa Regional Vice Presidency. Some of the back- ground research was funded in part by the World Bank Institute. Other v vi Foreword research projects were collaborative efforts by staff of the two groups plus experts from outside the Bank. All were discussed in depth with our African development partners and with African scholars at a workshop sponsored by the World Bank Institute workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 10–11, 2003. We feel sure that this model of working together consti- tutes the most effective way for the World Bank Group to contribute, in its role as a knowledge Bank, to the challenge of building state capacity in Africa. Frannie A. Léautier Callisto Madavo Vice President Vice President World Bank Institute Africa Region, World Bank Acknowledgments Within the past decade, dating back to World Bank President James Wolfen- sohn’s 1996 speech decrying the “cancer of corruption” and the World Devel- opment Report 1997: The State in a Changing World, the World Bank has intensified its efforts to address the challenge of building state capacity. Within the Bank, the discourse has been especially rich between practition- ers with long experience of the on-the-ground challenges of strengthening governments and those with a more academic orientation, whose work reflects the renewed interest in institutions by economists and political sci- entists. Many people within the World Bank have contributed to this climate of intensified, collaborative engagement that made this volume possible; in particular, the editors would like to acknowledge the contributions of Cheryl Gray and Sanjay Pradhan. This volume draws on the experiences of various colleagues that have in one way or another been involved in thinking about or implementing pub- lic sector reforms in Africa. Many people inside and outside the World Bank provided helpful comments and participated in either the Johannesburg workshop or in some of the brown bag lunches organized in the World Bank at which earlier drafts of the chapters were presented. Many thanks to Paula Donovan, Roumeen Islam, and in particular Alan Gelb for all their support throughout the preparation of this volume. Thanks also to many other staff in the World Bank, notably including Daniel Kaufmann and Michael Sarris, for their continuing support and willingness to generously share their time and ideas. We are also grateful to the many government officials and other experts from various countries for taking time from their busy schedules to partici- pate in the Johannesburg workshop and for their valuable contributions. Some of them include Winnie Byanyima (Uganda), Onchari Kenani (Kenya), Moses Kondowe (Zambia), Appiah Koranteng (Ghana), Bradford Malumbe (Zambia), Apollinaire Ndorukwigira (Africa Capacity Building Foundation), Adetunji Olaopa (Nigeria), Sahr George Pessima (Sierra Leone), and Jotham Tumwesigwe (Uganda). We hope that the various vii viii Acknowledgments lessons on capacity building and public sector reforms shared in this vol- ume will help us rethink some of our current approaches. For specific chapters, the authors would like to acknowledge the helpful comments and contributions from Ed Campos, Poul Engberg-Pedersen, Alan Gelb, and Phil Keefer (chapter 1); the U.K. Department for Interna- tional Development (the major funder for the research project on which