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Improving Improving Governance & Governance &

Public Public Administration:Administration:

Frontier Areas of Reform

Presented to:The New Reform Agenda of the New EU Member StatesOctober 19, 2009Sofia, Bulgaria

Presented by:Florian Fichtl

Country ManagerThe World Bank

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Governance and CorruptionNot the same thing!

The manner in which the Stateacquires and exercises itsauthority to provide public goods and services

The use of publicpublic office for privateprivate gain

GovernanceGovernance

CorruptionCorruption

• Corruption is an outcome – a consequence of the failure of accountability relationships in the governance system

• Poor delivery of services and weak investment climate are other outcomes of bad governance

• Good governance is the door to less corruption, better services and better investment climate …

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Strengthening Governance Systems: Balancing Supply and

DemandSupply-sideSupply-side Strengthen the state’s bureaucratic capability – leadership, skills, human & financial resources, management, monitoring and evaluation systems – to deliver public goods and services

Demand-sideDemand-side Strengthen accountability arrangements – elections, political parties, parliaments, judiciary, media, civil society, business and labor organizations, local governments – that enable citizens and firms to hold state institutions to account

TransparencyTransparency

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The Governance System

Political Governance• Political Parties• Competition, transparency

Executive-Central Govt

Service Delivery & Regulatory Agencies

Subnational Govt & Communities

Formal Oversight Institutions• Parliament• Judiciary• Oversight institutions

Civil Society & Private Sector

•Civil Society Watchdogs

•Media•Business Associations

Cross-cutting Control Agencies (Finance, HR)

Citizen

s/Firm

s

Citizens/Firms

Cit

izen

s/F

irm

sCitizens/Firms

Outcomes: Services, Regulations, Corruption,Informality

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Good Governance matters

for investment and growth

10%

15%

20%

High Medium Low

% Investment share in GDP

High Medium Low

-1.5%

0%

1%

2%

1.5%

-0.5%

-1.0%

0.5%

Income per capita Growth Rate

Governance QualityGovernance QualityGovernance Quality measured by perception of 4000 firms in 67 countries on: (i) protection of property rights; (ii) judicial reliability; (iii) predictability of rules; (iv) control of corruption. World Development Report Survey 1997

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The direction of causality …

Burkhart and Lewis-Beck (1994) found that while higher per capita incomes foster democracy, democracy in turn does not foster higher incomes

B. Friedman (2005) argues that higher living standards encourage more open, tolerant and democratic societies

Growth causes governance to improve ...

… and better governance causes growth

Using measures of rule of law, bureaucratic quality and corruption, Chong and Calderon (2000) found significant causality from good governance to growth and vice versa – i.e. “good governance” both contributes to and results from strong economic performance

Other studies have dealt with the potential for reverse causation by using exogenous instruments for the governance indicators and concluded that good governance has a significant and strong causal impact on economic performance …

… … but the debate on causality continues …but the debate on causality continues …

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Improving Governance & Public Administration: Examples from Bulgaria

• Business climate– Regulatory Reform, RIA– Review of State Fees– ROSC A&A– ROSC Corporate Governance; adoption of Corporate Governance Code by Stock

Exchange– ROSC on Financial Services and Consumer Rights

• Public services / managing public resources– Education: per capita financing and delegated budgets; accountability for outcomes

(independent assessments; PTA); tertiary education reform: governance structures incl. private sector involvement; resource management; appointments;

– Science / R&D: transparency and competition; evaluations; private sector orientation– Health: NHIF IT system; private payments; pharmaceutical policy; collective bargaining– Judiciary: PEIR– Agriculture: PER– MoF: PBB and PFM– Infrastructure: Institutional capacities (Roads, Railways); performance based contracts;

information for maintenance and repairs– Forestry: policy note– Revenue Administration: Information system; institutional strengthening; – Cadastre and Registration: Information system– Social Sector: multi-topic hh surveys to analyze impact of social spending; piloting new

strategies with rigorous impact evaluations– Cross-cutting: strengthening evaluation to allow outcome-based policy dialogue

• New priorities– Customs– Forestry– Administrative Reform

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Concern: % of firms identifying corruption as a major constraint in the New EU Member

States (2009)

Source: World Bank Enterprise Survey 2009

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Concern: % of firms believing the court system is fair, impartial and uncorrupted

(2009)

Source: World Bank Enterprise Survey 2009

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Concern: % of firms identifying practices of competitors in the informal sector as a

major constraint (2009)

Source: World Bank Enterprise Survey 2009

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Concern: % Senior management time spent in dealing with requirements of government

regulation

Source: World Bank Enterprise Surveys (2005, 2009).

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Frontier Areas for Reform

• Ensure rule-based public administration practices are in place:

– Internal audit & control– Monitoring of merit-based recruitment, promotion, transfers – Indicators for rule-based compliance: Public Expenditure

and Financial Accountability or PEFA indicators; Human resource management (HRM); Actionable Governance Indicators (AGIs)

• Strengthen ethical responsibility:– Asset declaration requirements– Codes of ethics for public officials– Strengthen commitment to values and ethics in public service:

transformational leadership at individual & collective levels– Coalitions of integrity to combat entrenched networks and

attitudes towards corruption

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Frontier Areas of Reform (cont.)• Enhance availability of information

– Monitoring and posting of information on activities, outputs and results – Right-to-Information

• Enhance participation & monitoring by civil society & media– Stakeholder consultations in policy development process– Bring state closer to people: Decentralization– Posting of information on organizational budgets, standards and performance – CSO monitoring of public sector performance (e.g., Report Cards)– Media monitoring of asset declarations

• E-Government– Online tax payment reduces corruption and increases overall tax compliance – Computerized cadastre and land registration records– E-Procurement

• Multistakeholder coalitions for reform– Needed to combat entrenched networks of corruption– Examples: EITI, FLeG– Global collective action to combat transnational corruption (e.g. StAR)

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Improving Governance & Public Administration:

Frontier Areas of Reform

Sources: http://go.worldbank.org/SGO4LFRSS0

• The Many Faces of Corruption: Tracking Vulnerabilities at the Sector Level, Edited by J. Edgardo Campos and Sanjay Pradhan, English Paperback 480 pages 7 x 10, Published April 2007, Washington, D.C. The World Bank, ISBN: 0-8213-6725-0, ISBN-13: 978-0-8213-6725-4

• Budgeting and Budgetary Institutions, Edited by Anwar Shah, http://go.worldbank.org/G4D6J4X5Z0

• Governance Matters 2009, Worldwide Governance Indicators, 1996-2008, http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp

Thank you for your attention.