Person:
Brixi, Hana
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Public sector governance,
Public finance,
Public service delivery,
Human development,
Social Protection and Labor
Degrees
Departments
Global Practice on Social Protection and Jobs
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
As Practice Manager, Dr. Brixi leads the World Bank engagement on social protection and employment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In her career in the World Bank, Dr. Brixi has been advancing analytic and operational contribution to human development, service delivery, and public sector governance. She led the Global Solutions Group on Public Service Delivery and a Thematic Group on Quality of Fiscal Adjustment; and held senior technical positions across regions, including Program Leader for the Gulf countries, Lead Economist for Human Development in the MENA region, and Senior Economist in China and in countries of Europe and Central & South East Asia. Based in China during 2001-10, she served as World Health Organization’s Sector Leader for Health Sector Development and UNICEF Social Policy Chief; and she taught international development as a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, School of Public Policy and Management, in Beijing. She published several books, including Trust, Voice and Incentives on governance and service delivery and Government at Risk on contingent liabilities and fiscal risk management (Oxford University Press), and numerous articles on topics of public finance, governance, and human development in professional journals.
Publication Search Results
1 - 4 of 4
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Publication
Trust, Voice, and Incentives : Learning from Local Success Stories in Service Delivery in the Middle East and North Africa
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-04)This report examines the role of incentives, trust, and engagement as critical determinants of service delivery performance in MENA countries. Focusing on education and health, the report illustrates how the weak external and internal accountability undermines policy implementation and service delivery performance and how such a cycle of poor performance can be counteracted. Case studies of local success reveal the importance of both formal and informal accountability relationships and the role of local leadership in inspiring and institutionalizing incentives toward better service delivery performance. Enhancing services for MENA citizens requires forging a stronger social contract among public servants, citizens, and service providers while empowering communities and local leaders to find 'best fit' solutions. Learning from the variations within countries, especially the outstanding local successes, can serve as a solid basis for new ideas and inspiration for improving service delivery. Such learning may help the World Bank Group and other donors as well as national and local leaders and civil society, in developing ways to enhance the trust, voice, and incentives for service delivery to meet citizens’ needs and expectations. -
Publication
China : Urban Services and Governance
( 2009-08-01)The study addresses governance challenges in public service delivery in China. It builds on the citizen scorecard survey conducted in five Chinese cities in 2006 to gauge citizens experience with public services, and demonstrates the usefulness of citizens feedback for policy development and implementation. The survey found that citizens were generally pleased with urban public services, but worried about the associated fees. Compared with the official urban residents, the urban poor and rural migrants in cities reported sharper utilization constraints, lower readiness to complain or pay informal fees, and a much larger income share spent on public services. The reported citizens perceptions sometimes diverged from the evidence and pointed to significant information asymmetries. Explaining the survey results, the study reveals problems of inadequacy, inequality and misaligned incentives in public resource allocation. The study presents several successful experiments reducing the dependence on user fees in basic education and primary healthcare. It recognizes that China has been undertaking comprehensive reforms to enhance equity and quality in public service delivery. Such reforms have included measures to strengthen the regulatory, monitoring, and enforcement systems and accountability relationships. In the context of the ongoing reforms, this study highlights the need to: a) hold the provincial governments accountable for public service delivery performance; b) develop effective mechanisms to align public resources and incentives at each level of government with the national priorities; and c) develop proper means to empower the citizens. In this context, the study affirms that the Chinese government is rightly placing reforms in the intergovernmental, administrative, and public finance systems at the top of its agenda. -
Publication
Contingent Liabilities : A Threat to Fiscal Stability
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 1998-11)The economic policy note discusses the issue of serious fiscal instability faced by many governments as a result of their contingent liabilities, which are associated with major hidden fiscal risks. Direct liabilities are predictable obligations that will arise in any event, and are the main subject of conventional fiscal analysis. Conversely, contingent liabilities are obligations triggered by a discreet but uncertain event, and are not always accounted for fully. The note further discusses explicit and implicit liabilities of a central government, suggesting ways to reduce fiscal risks for the policy makers. -
Publication
Equity and Public Governance in Health System Reform : Challenges and Opportunities for China
( 2011-01-01)Achieving the objective of China's current health system reform, namely equitable improvements in health outcomes, will be difficult not least because of the continuously growing income disparities in the country. The analysis in this paper shows that since 2000, disparity in selected health outcomes has been declining across provinces, largely due to earmarked central government allocations. By contrast, public expenditure on health is increasingly regressive (positively correlated with local income per capita) across provinces, and across prefectures and lower levels within provinces. The increasing inequity in public expenditure at sub-national levels indicates that incentives, responsibilities, and resources at sub-national levels are not well aligned with China's national priorities. To address the weaknesses in equity and efficiency that characterize China's health system and health outcomes, China's health system reform may require complementary reforms to improve governance for public service delivery across sectors.