Institutional and Governance Review
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Publication
Building Sustainable Public Sector Capacity in a Challenging Context
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-01)In a conflict-affected and newly independent country like South Sudan, rebuilding public sector capacity is an important aspect of state building, both in the short and in the medium to long term. If capacity strengthening is not pursued or is ineffective, government functionality remains patchy and dependency on technical assistants (TA) remains high. Capacity strengthening has been considered amorphous and a difficult topic in academic literature. This paper looks at the experience of efforts to strengthen capacity in South Sudan over the decade from 2005 to 2016. The context has proved challenging for capacity-building efforts. On the one hand, some improvements have been seen and some skilled civil servants are in place. On the other hand, wider progress has been difficult and punctuated by crises and setbacks. Renewed conflicts from December 2013 to August 2015, and again since July 2016, have disrupted progress and planning for development support. The report’s recommendations are based on the assumption that minimum stability will eventually return for capacity strengthening to restart; but it cannot be predicted when this will be the case. -
Publication
CPIA Africa, June 2015: Assessing Africa's Policies and Institutions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06)The Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) Africa report describes the progress African countries are making on strengthening the quality of their policies and institutions. Some of the results from this report include: The overall quality of policies and institutions in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa was unchanged in 2014, but there was much variation in performance across countries. More than half the countries in the region saw a change in their policy environment: 10 countries experienced an improvement in their overall CPIA score, and an equal number saw a deterioration. There were divergent trends across policy clusters. Economic management weekend on the back of continuing fiscal policy slippage, as the sharp drop in commodity prices underscored weaknesses in the fiscal framework of several of the regions countries. By contrast, there was some strengthening in the governance cluster, with nine countries showing improvements in scores, more than twice the number of countries with declines. The greatest progress in this cluster was in the quality of budgetary and financial management. -
Publication
CPIA Africa, June 2014: Assessing Africa's Policies and Institutions
(Washington, DC, 2014-06)This report describes the progress African countries are making on strengthening the quality of policies and institutions that underpin development. It presents Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) scores for the 39 African countries that are eligible for support from the International Development Association (IDA). This year's report expands coverage to include Djibouti and Yemen from the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). The scores, which are on a scale of 1 to 6 with 6 being the highest, are an indicator of the quality of these countries' policy and institutional framework across 16 dimensions grouped into four clusters: economic management (Cluster A), structural policies (Cluster B), policies for social inclusion and equity (Cluster C), and public sector management and institutions (Cluster D). The overall quality of policies and institutions in Sub-Saharan African countries held steady in 2013, with divergent performance across countries. The average CPIA score for Sub-Saharan Africa held steady at 3.2 in 2013. But beyond the flat regional average, there was considerable divergence in country performance. For the region's IDA borrowers, scores were in a range of 3.9 to 2.0. A broad-based deepening of policy reforms lifted Rwanda's CPIA score in 2013, and the country joined Cabo Verde and Kenya at the top of the score range. Other top performers include Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Tanzania (all with scores of 3.8). South Sudan and Eritrea remained at the low-end of the score range (2.1 and 2,0, respectively), weighed down by deep policy and governance challenges. The quality of policies and institutions in MENA countries lags behind the average for middle income countries in all CPIA categories with scores lower relative to the Sub-Saharan African IDA country average. Since 2005, neither Yemen nor Djibouti has improved its overall rating; indeed, Yemen's overall policy and institutional score actually declined. The average CPIA score for countries in MENA was 3.0 in 2013, unchanged from 2012. Both Djibouti and Yemen had unchanged scores, indicating that despite unsettled conditions in the region and lingering challenges in global economic conditions, these countries generally opted to maintain their existing policy framework. Djibouti's CPIA score (3.1) was slightly higher than the average while Yemen's was on par with the average. -
Publication
CPIA Africa, June 2013: Assessing Africa's Policies and Institutions
(Washington, DC, 2013-06)This report is the second in a series of annual reports describing the progress African countries are making on strengthening the quality of policies and institutions that underpin development. It presents Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) scores for the 39 African countries that are eligible for support from the International Development Association (IDA). The development literature identifies the components of the CPIA as being broadly relevant for sustaining growth and reducing poverty. The data provide some support for this association. All country groups exhibit similar patterns across the four CPIA clusters. The gap in scores between the macroeconomic management cluster and the governance cluster is just as pronounced for fragile as for non-fragile states. In contrast, the gap between the economic management cluster and the social policies and structural policies clusters is small. Overall, the macroeconomic policy stance in Sub-Saharan Africa was supportive of growth, with monetary policy focused on managing inflation and fiscal policy focused on pro-poor spending and infrastructure development. Inflation declined in 2012, thanks to a moderation in food and fuel prices and prudent monetary policy. However, an expansive fiscal policy translated into a weakening of fiscal balances. Debt levels also edged up, although they remained moderate. As the policy areas in this cluster are closely related, there tends to be co-movement in the scores for monetary and fiscal policy. -
Publication
CPIA Africa, June 2012: Assessing Africa's Policies and Institutions
(Washington, DC, 2012-06)The World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) is an important knowledge product that assesses the performance of 39 IDA countries along 16 dimensions of policy and institutional quality. This is the first in the series of annual reports. The 16 dimensions are grouped into four clusters: economic management; structural policies; policies for social inclusion and equity; and public sector management and institutions. The CPIA has been measuring and tracking the strength of policies and institutions in IDA-eligible countries since 1980, and releasing that information since 2006. Until now, the CPIA has been used mainly to inform IDA's allocation of resources to poor countries and in research. Yet the information contained in the CPIA is potentially valuable to governments, the private sector, civil society, researchers and the media as a tool to monitor their country's progress and benchmark it against progress in other countries. By presenting the CPIA scores for 38 African countries over six years in one easy-to-read document, this report aims to provide citizens with information that can support evidence-based debate that can, in turn, lead to better development outcomes. The scope of the report is motivated by the World Bank's open data initiative and the new Africa strategy, both of which seek to foster participation in development from a wide range of stakeholders by providing broader access to data and knowledge. -
Publication
Regulatory Capacity Review of Rwanda
(Washington, DC, 2010)Regulatory reform has emerged as an important policy area in developing countries. For reforms to be beneficial, regulatory regimes need to be transparent, coherent, and comprehensive. They must establish appropriate institutional frameworks and liberalized business regulations; enforce competition policy and law; and open external and internal markets to trade and investment. This report analyses the institutional set-up and use of regulatory policy instruments in Rwanda. It is one of five reports prepared on countries in East and Southern Africa (the others are on Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia), and represents an attempt to apply assessment tools and the framework developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its work on regulatory capacity and performance to developing countries. -
Publication
Regulatory Capacity Review of Tanzania
(Washington, DC, 2010)Regulatory reform has emerged as an important policy area in developing countries. For reforms to be beneficial, regulatory regimes need to be transparent, coherent, and comprehensive. They must establish appropriate institutional frameworks and liberalized business regulations; enforce competition policy and law; and open external and internal markets to trade and investment. This report analyses the institutional set-up and use of regulatory policy instruments in Tanzania. It is one of five reports prepared on countries in East and Southern Africa (the others are on Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Zambia), and represents an attempt to apply assessment tools and the framework developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its work on regulatory capacity and performance to developing countries.