Public Sector Reforms in Africa: A Collection of Essays

Abstract

This paper provides a compendium of public sector reform in Africa in an analytical and prescriptive manner. It examines the idea of reform and public service reform in Africa up till its recent framework, and showcases institutional framework for making reform, as well as studies on reform experiences and relevant information on best practices, challenges and strategies for improving public sector management performance. This paper employed stratified sampling technique. Africa was stratified alongside its five (5) regions, thereby selecting one (1) country from each of the regions. It relied extensively on secondary sources of data by drawing from documentary sources, such as: books, journals, pub­lications and reports which give official views of reform initiatives and processes in the five (5) selected countries. The generated qualitative data were utilized with the aid of content analysis. This paper revealed the three (3) prominent phases of reform in Africa vis-a-vis its objectives, assumptions, features, strategies, achievements and challenges. It therefore concluded that organizational mechanisms such as decentralization, privatization and performance management should be adopted as reformative measures with a view to improving the responsiveness of governments to public concerns; improving the quality of public goods and services; increasing the efficiency of service delivery; as well as promoting accountability and ethical values.