Publication: Tailoring Civil Service Pay Analysis and Advice to Context : Challenges, Approaches, and the Case of Lao PDR
Date
2014-01
ISSN
Published
2014-01
Author(s)
Abstract
The adequacy of compensation for
government workers and the affordability of the public
sector wage bill are important concerns for many developing
countries. Suitable pay is considered a necessary -- albeit
far from sufficient -- condition for attracting and
retaining skilled public sector staff. This paper makes the
case for conducting fine-grained analysis of pay and
compensation issues in order to enable an accurate
assessment of the challenges faced and thereby to generate
good-fit reform recommendations that are both principled and
feasible. The first part of the paper focuses on prevalent
challenges in pay reform, both contextual and analytical. It
builds on the experiences from three very different
settings: Armenia, the Lao People s Democratic Republic, and
Mongolia. The study begins by surveying some of the common
difficulties in conducting granular analysis on civil
service compensation. It then outlines a series of
methodological approaches that can prove useful in
developing comprehensive, targeted, and nuanced pay analyses
and discusses how it is possible to overcome potential
limitations in practice. The second half of the paper
presents a case study of pay and compensation analysis in
Lao PDR. The study illuminates how a number of these
approaches can be combined in assessing a specific set of
pay challenges and generating robust recommendations
tailored to context. A brief postscript, with the benefit of
hindsight on what subsequently happened on the ground in Lao
PDR, reflects on the limitations of technical analysis in
motivating reform implementation in practice.
Citation
“Barma, Naazneen H.; Orac, Jana. 2014. Tailoring Civil Service Pay Analysis and Advice to Context : Challenges, Approaches, and the Case of Lao PDR. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 6744. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/16834?show=full License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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