Other Public Sector Study
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Publication
Critical Administrative Constraints to Service Delivery : Improving Public Services in Afghanistan's Transformational Decade
(Washington, DC, 2014-05)Since 2001, the Afghan population's access to basic services has greatly improved in nearly all sectors. School enrolment has increased sharply, with over eight million children currently enrolled in school, of which 39 percent are girls. Current strategies for improving sub-national service delivery focus on delegating greater authority to provincial and district administrations. This report aims to identify administrative constraints in three key sectors of public service delivery, education, health and agricultural extension services. The analysis follows the service delivery chain, from central to provincial, through district to community level, and is particularly concerned to examine service delivery in these three sectors through the window of sub-national governance and its relations to the service delivery mandates of line ministries. The study provides the Government of Afghanistan with recommendations on how to alleviate critical constraints to service delivery at sub-national levels on a sustainable basis, in the context of an expected restrained fiscal future. The report's main findings are based on qualitative research. The key findings are based on existing literature and reports as well as field visits to 5 provinces and 10 districts and qualitative analyses of over 171 key-informant interviews on different levels of service delivery administration, 68 in-depth interviews with community leaders, and a community household survey in 20 communities spread over 5 provinces and 55 service facilities (for example, schools and clinics) were assessed. The report is split into six sections: section one gives executive summary; section two provides a brief introduction to the study objectives and clarifies some key definitions; section three outlines the methods used to perform the analysis; sections four, five, and six provide in-depth discussions of education, health, and agriculture extension respectively; and section seven provides recommendations and concludes. The over-arching governance structures and further methodological details are given in appendix one. All references and research tools are presented in annexes. -
Publication
Afghanistan : Economic Incentives and Development Initiatives to Reduce Opium Production
(Washington, DC, 2008-02)This report is about how to progressively reduce over time Afghanistan's dependence on opium - currently the country's leading economic activity - by development initiatives and shifting economic incentives toward sustainable legal livelihoods. Specifically, the report identifies additional investments and policy and institutional measures to support development responses that can counterbalance the economic advantages of opium. It analyzes ways to change the relative incentives between licit and illicit cropping and to help enhance rural livelihoods for the poor, under better governance and security conditions. The report puts forward concrete recommendations and the expected impacts on growth, poverty reduction and the opium economy are assessed. The report first briefly discusses the policy context (Chapter 1) and provides an overview of the opium economy (Chapter 2), focusing on how different segments of the rural population interact with it. The report then analyzes the scope for increasing value added, competitiveness and productivity in agriculture (Chapter 3) and for promoting enterprise development and off-farm employment (Chapter 4). The complementary role of further investments in rural infrastructure is examined in Chapter 5, and measures for strengthening governance are analyzed in Chapter 6. In Chapter 7 issues that cut across all counter narcotics efforts are examined. A final chapter looks at implementation, and at issues of prioritization, synergies and phasing (Chapter 8). The recommendations of the report are encapsulated in a matrix at the end of the Executive Summary. -
Publication
Afghanistan : Building an Effective State, Priorities for Public Administration Reform
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-01-23)This report looks at the implications for public administration reform over the next 5-10 years, and proposes a priority agenda for action by the Government of Afghanistan (GOA) and the donor community. The report reviews the prospects and priorities for public administration reform in three key areas: building an effective civil service, improving local governance and service delivery, and making government accountable to the people. This report has made the case that public administration reform in Afghanistan is both very important and very difficult: very important because it will provide the Government o f Afghanistan with the capacity to respond to popular demands for good governance and improved service delivery; very difficult, because of the inherent challenges o f institutional change, especially in the current political and security situation in Afghanistan. Public Administration Reform (PAR) is a long-term task -This will require persistent effort over time, as well as innovative approaches to improve service delivery in the short and medium terms. Afghanistan's experience over the past five years, as well as lessons from other fragile states, provide some clues about how to go about public administration reform. -
Publication
Afghanistan - Building an Effective State : Priorities for Public Administration Reform
(Washington, DC, 2008-01)This report looks at the implications for public administration reform over the next 5-10 years, and proposes a priority agenda for action by the Government of Afghanistan (GOA) and the donor community. The report reviews the prospects and priorities for public administration reform in three key areas: building an effective civil service, improving local governance and service delivery, and making government accountable to the people. This report has made the case that public administration reform in Afghanistan is both very important and very difficult: very important because it will provide the Government o f Afghanistan with the capacity to respond to popular demands for good governance and improved service delivery; very difficult, because of the inherent challenges o f institutional change, especially in the current political and security situation in Afghanistan. Public Administration Reform (PAR) is a long-term task -This will require persistent effort over time, as well as innovative approaches to improve service delivery in the short and medium terms. Afghanistan's experience over the past five years, as well as lessons from other fragile states, provide some clues about how to go about public administration reform. -
Publication
Subnational Administration in Afghanistan, Volume 2. A Guide to Government in Afghanistan
(Washington, DC, 2004-04-01)This report proposes a two-pronged strategy of government action for securing progress in sub-national administration, using the structures, and discipline that form the distinctive heritage of the Afghan state. One strand calls for the center to commit itself to delivering some basic support for provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities, in their functional role as service provider or commissioner, and in their political role as local representative of the unitary state. The second strand of the strategy is comprised of tailored incentives for sub-national administrations, that reflect their institutional and historical roots. The task is to make this de-concentrated system work, through effective incentives at the sub-national level that will entail the provision of valued resources that are triggered by simple measures of administrative effort, not performance, and tailoring the incentives to suit the specific situation of the administration, with distinct differences between the incentives provided to provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities. To this end, the report proposes unconditional commitments from the Government in Kabul to: complete the pension reform, i.e., build, and strengthen capacity within the central administration entities, increasing Treasury authority, and establishing procedures to strengthen the budgetary process. Likewise, it proposes to restore provincial infrastructure, and priority support for provincial health and education departments. By designing specific project support, it is intended to help shift the focus towards pro-province and pro-service delivery objectives. -
Publication
Subnational Administration in Afghanistan, Volume 1. Assessment and Recommendations for Action
(Washington, DC, 2004-04-01)This report proposes a two-pronged strategy of government action for securing progress in sub-national administration, using the structures, and discipline that form the distinctive heritage of the Afghan state. One strand calls for the center to commit itself to delivering some basic support for provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities, in their functional role as service provider or commissioner, and in their political role as local representative of the unitary state. The second strand of the strategy is comprised of tailored incentives for sub-national administrations, that reflect their institutional and historical roots. The task is to make this de-concentrated system work, through effective incentives at the sub-national level that will entail the provision of valued resources that are triggered by simple measures of administrative effort, not performance, and tailoring the incentives to suit the specific situation of the administration, with distinct differences between the incentives provided to provinces, districts, and provincial municipalities. To this end, the report proposes unconditional commitments from the Government in Kabul to: complete the pension reform, i.e., build, and strengthen capacity within the central administration entities, increasing Treasury authority, and establishing procedures to strengthen the budgetary process. Likewise, it proposes to restore provincial infrastructure, and priority support for provincial health and education departments. By designing specific project support, it is intended to help shift the focus towards pro-province and pro-service delivery objectives.