Publication: The Global Survey of Public Servants: A Foundation for Research on Public Servants around the World
Loading...
Date
2023-03
ISSN
Published
2023-03
Author(s)
Mikkelsen, Kim Sass
Fukuyama, Francis
Hasnain, Zahid
Mistree, Dinsha
Meyer-Sahling, Jan
Bersch, Katherine
Kay, Kerenssa
Editor(s)
Abstract
How do civil service management practices differ within and across governments? How do core attitudes of public servants—such as their motivation or satisfaction—differ within and across governments? Understanding how public administrations around the world function and differ is crucial for strengthening their effectiveness. Most comparative measures of bureaucracy rely on surveys of experts, households, or firms, rather than directly questioning bureaucrats. Direct surveys of public officials enable governments to benchmark themselves and scholars to study comparative public administration and the state differently, based on micro-data from actors who experience government first-hand. This paper introduces the Global Survey of Public Servants, a global initiative to collect and harmonize large-scale, comparable survey data on public servants. The Global Survey of Public Servants can help scholars compare public administrations around the world and understand the internal dynamics of governments, with the published Global Survey of Public Servants data freely available online.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Mikkelsen, Kim Sass; Fukuyama, Francis; Hasnain, Zahid; Mistree, Dinsha; Meyer-Sahling, Jan; Bersch, Katherine; Kay, Kerenssa; Rogger, Daniel; Schuster, Christian. 2023. The Global Survey of Public Servants: A Foundation for Research on Public Servants around the World. Policy Research Working Papers; 10333. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39493 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Fraud and Corruption Awareness Handbook : A Handbook for Civil Servants Involved in Public Procurement(Warsaw, 2013)This handbook is intended for government employees involved in public procurement. It provides some insights into how fraud and corruption schemes work in public investments. The handbook identifies a range of fraud and corruption indicators, or red flags, and relevant schemes that may become apparent during the life of an investment, from design to implementation. The primary focus of this handbook is fraud and corruption in procurement, with some coverage of general governance issues. It is based on the experience of Poland s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau and the World Bank s Integrity Vice Presidency, and it presents examples referring both to public investments implemented under Polish public procurement law and international competitive bidding. This handbook aims to provide support to the managers of procuring entities in conducting public procurement by identifying frequently occurring irregularities and suggesting methods of preventing them.Publication Government Analytics in Europe(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-29)This report is part of a collection examining how analytics using government microdata is revolutionizing public administration throughout the world. Its focus is on government analytics in the European Union. The collection is based on "The Government Analytics Handbook", a comprehensive guide to using data to understand and improve government. The reports in this collection aim to help public servants apply lessons from the Handbook to their own administrations by describing the unique opportunities and challenges for government analytics that arise in different regions. No two regions, countries, administrations, or organizations are alike—that is why using microdata to measure, understand, and improve government is so important!Publication Who Serves the Poor?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-05)Who are the civil servants that serve poor people in the developing world? This paper uses direct surveys of civil servants -- the professional body of administrators who manage government policy -- and their organizations from Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines, to highlight key aspects of their characteristics and experience of civil service life. Civil servants in the developing world face myriad challenges to serving the world's poor, from limited facilities to significant political interference in their work. There are a number of commonalities across service environments, and the paper summarizes these in a series of 'stylized facts' of the civil service in the developing world. At the same time, the particular challenges faced by a public official vary substantially across and within countries and regions. For example, measured management practices differ widely across local governments of a single state in Nigeria. Surveys of civil servants allow us to document these differences, build better models of the public sector, and make more informed policy choices.Publication Implementing Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys for Results : Lessons from a Decade of Global Experience(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-11)Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys (PETS) can serve as a powerful tool to inform prevailing public financial management (PFM) practices and the extent to which government budgets link to execution and desired service delivery objectives and beneficiaries. Since the first PETS in Uganda in 1996, tracking exercises have now been conducted in over two dozen other countries, often as part of core analytical and advisory work related to PFM. This note synthesizes the findings and lessons from a number of recent PETS stocktaking exercises and indicates their potential benefits for enriching PFM and sectoral policy dialogues in a variety of country settings. Key findings include: (i) PETS have proven to be useful as part of a broader policy strategy aimed at improving service delivery results; (ii) PETS has become a brand name for very different instruments, but at its core there is a survey methodology that requires skilled technical expertise and a solid knowledge of budget execution processes; (iii) policy impact in a variety of PETS experiences could be further strengthened by stronger country ownership and effective follow-up; and (iv) the Bank could enhance PETS results through strategic partnering, and greater emphasis on dissemination and communication strategies aimed at involving actors who can foster actions on the ground.Publication Public Service Reform in Post-Conflict Societies(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2020-12-24)Building a capable public service is a key component of post-conflict state building. An effective public service is fundamental to the regulation of society, to managing public funds, and to service delivery. Yet in post-conflict environments, there is typically a tradeoff between the long-term objective of state building and securing the peace in the short term. To buy peace, political elites hand out public jobs and resources to constituents regardless of merit. Donors frequently rely on “parallel” project delivery structures rather than public servants to address citizens’ pressing service delivery needs. Both of these practices may achieve short-term objectives but undermine state building. In the face of these trade-offs, how can capable public services be built in post-conflict societies? This paper aims to summarize the evidence base regarding this question. It does so by reviewing the evidence from post-conflict settings, and by discussing the validity of findings on public service reform from non-conflict settings. Given the distinctive tradeoffs invoked by securing the peace, and limited prior research on post-conflict settings, this topic presents a wide-open research agenda.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication 10 Years of Experience in Carbon Finance : Insights from Working with the Kyoto Mechanisms(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2010-05-01)Under the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the industrialized countries adopted quantified emission reductions obligations. Marking the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the World Bank Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF) the world's first global carbon fund, this report seeks to take stock of the World Bank's experience of working with the Kyoto Protocol's project-based mechanisms over the past decade. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), as the much larger system in terms of projects, emission reductions and host countries, is the basis for much of the report's discussion. Joint Implementation (JI) is also discussed. Policy-makers and negotiators are working on advancing the policy framework and the regulatory structures to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHGs) at greater scale. Furthering the use of market instruments should incorporate the lessons of the past into future designs, making full use of the experience and learning that has been gained. This will mean building upon the successes of the current CDM and JI regulatory frameworks, addressing weaknesses, and abandoning what is not working. This publication seeks to make a constructive contribution to this debate, in full respect of the ongoing international climate change negotiations, by providing insights and recommendations from a practitioner's experience and perspective.Publication World Development Report 2023: Migrants, Refugees, and Societies(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2023-04-25)Migration is a development challenge. About 184 million people—2.3 percent of the world’s population—live outside of their country of nationality. Almost half of them are in low- and middle-income countries. But what lies ahead? As the world struggles to cope with global economic imbalances, diverging demographic trends, and climate change, migration will become a necessity in the decades to come for countries at all levels of income. If managed well, migration can be a force for prosperity and can help achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. World Development Report 2023 proposes an innovative approach to maximize the development impacts of cross-border movements on both destination and origin countries and on migrants and refugees themselves. The framework it offers, drawn from labor economics and international law, rests on a “Match and Motive Matrix” that focuses on two factors: how closely migrants’ skills and attributes match the needs of destination countries and what motives underlie their movements. This approach enables policy makers to distinguish between different types of movements and to design migration policies for each. International cooperation will be critical to the effective management of migration.Publication Global Economic Prospects, January 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-01-16)Global growth is expected to hold steady at 2.7 percent in 2025-26. However, the global economy appears to be settling at a low growth rate that will be insufficient to foster sustained economic development—with the possibility of further headwinds from heightened policy uncertainty and adverse trade policy shifts, geopolitical tensions, persistent inflation, and climate-related natural disasters. Against this backdrop, emerging market and developing economies are set to enter the second quarter of the twenty-first century with per capita incomes on a trajectory that implies substantially slower catch-up toward advanced-economy living standards than they previously experienced. Without course corrections, most low-income countries are unlikely to graduate to middle-income status by the middle of the century. Policy action at both global and national levels is needed to foster a more favorable external environment, enhance macroeconomic stability, reduce structural constraints, address the effects of climate change, and thus accelerate long-term growth and development.Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-06)Global growth is projected to slow significantly in the second half of this year, with weakness continuing in 2024. Inflation pressures persist, and tight monetary policy is expected to weigh substantially on activity. The possibility of more widespread bank turmoil and tighter monetary policy could result in even weaker global growth. Rising borrowing costs in advanced economies could lead to financial dislocations in the more vulnerable emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). In low-income countries, in particular, fiscal positions are increasingly precarious. Comprehensive policy action is needed at the global and national levels to foster macroeconomic and financial stability. Among many EMDEs, and especially in low-income countries, bolstering fiscal sustainability will require generating higher revenues, making spending more efficient, and improving debt management practices. Continued international cooperation is also necessary to tackle climate change, support populations affected by crises and hunger, and provide debt relief where needed. In the longer term, reversing a projected decline in EMDE potential growth will require reforms to bolster physical and human capital and labor-supply growth.Publication World Bank East Asia and the Pacific Economic Update, October 2023(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-10-01)Most economies in developing East Asia and Pacific (EAP), other than several Pacific Island Countries, have recovered from the succession of shocks since 2020 and are continuing to grow, albeit at a slower pace. While the region will benefit from a recovery of the global economy in 2023, high indebtedness, a slowdown in China economy, and trade and industrial policy in other countries will hurt the region. Looking forward, diffusion of digital technologies and policy reforms in the services sector is posed to create opportunities and play an increasing role in the economic development of the region.