CDC - Dominique Aït Ouyahia-McAdams


CONSULTATIVE GROUP MEETING Phnom Penh, 19 - 21 June 2002 Session III: Review of Governance — Implementation and Links to Poverty Reduction Dominique Aït Ouyahia-McAdams Co-Chair of Public Administration Reform Working Group ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM

In the spirit of partnership and sharing, a complementary paper — Reform for-what? Reflections on Public Administrative Reform - has been prepared to also inform and guide our discussions. I hope that everyone has had an opportunity to look at the Paper, which attempts to distill the issues, concerns and opportunities that we, your development partners, perceive about the administrative reforms. With the short time available, I would like to highlight just a few important points from the Paper. ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES Key Questions • The key questions in undertaking reforms are: (1) reform for what purpose, and (2) reform at what pace? The answer to the first question must be that reforms are not an end in themselves but a means to an end, in this case, poverty reduction and the achieving of national development goals, including the eight Millennium Development Goals. The answer to the second question must be a pace that is compatible with and directly contributes to, not detracts from, achieving the national vision of people-centered development, in a manner that is equitable and sustainable, as efficiently as possible. • Administrative reform is about institutional reform in the widest sense. It is also one of the most risky undertaking for any government. If the reforms go too slow, the “critical mass” of success building on success, with the potential for increasing returns, is never reached, and the reforms run the danger of being dismissed as meaningless and a waste of time and scarce resources. If, on the other hand, reforms are rushed to meet some arbitrary milestones, perhaps suggested by external parties, there is the danger that they will be misunderstood or disowned by the very institutions that are to sustain them. • The need for caution in dealing with reform risks cannot be stated too strongly. Speed is not necessarily of the essence in administrative reform, but shared vision, coordinated linkages, quality and sustainability definitely are. Shared Vision • There is a real concern the reform vision formulation process is not yet sufficiently consultative. How often do we hear representatives from civil society and from the non-governmental community express frustration and a sense of alienation, at being excluded from this process? There is a need the Government to begin building mutually supportive constituencies for its reforms by bringing together key stakeholders and interest groups from all levels of government, the private sector as well as the civil society in order to enable prioritization of reform and establish a national consensus on state functions and obligations vis-à-vis its citizens. In this regard there is an opportunity for the Government to show truly exemplary leadership by empowering civil society and the private sector to contribute to a shared vision of the reforms, in such a way that engenders full co-ownership and not just “observership”. Awareness-raising and information-sharing should be the beginning of an ongoing, transparent, consultative and nationally-owned partnership process involving all stakeholders concerned. Partnerships • The limited capacity of the public administration to deliver all reforms is a point that the Government makes very eloquently. There is talk about partnerships - their successes and their disappointments, where the emphasis is usually on the shortcomings of external actors. Some criticism must and has been accepted by the donors, but certainly not in isolation. • For instance, what appears to be needed is for key internal actors to work more closely and productively together. Regarding administrative reforms, CAR is not the only actor that can and should facilitate the consultative process. Regarding decentralization, which, of necessity, must include reforms, MOI/DOLA have a key role to play in facilitating reforms with CAR. Similarly, with deconcentration, MOH and MOEYS have a major role here with CAR. Regarding human resource development, why do we not hear and see more of the role of the State Secretariat for the Civil Service? In short, all of these actors must work more closely together. • Then there is the issue of increasing salary levels. Coordination between administrative reforms and fiscal planning is absolutely necessary, not least in order to sustain competitive salary levels for the civil service. Also, a clear linkage with the Medium Term Expenditure Framework must be maintained. • On a related subject, one way of addressing the much-criticized distortion that donor-supported salary supplements is causing, is by bringing project remuneration levels into line with the more realistic and sustainable levels that the Government is trying to achieve through the PMG approach. While everybody are eagerly waiting the signing of the Sub-decree on PMG, development partners are very interested in seeing how they could respond to the Government’s request for matching funds, particularly for priority missions to improve “front-office” service delivery processes, but not exclusively so. UNDP stands ready to offer a managed Service Facility to administer funds from donors, for the PMG programme. The Way Ahead • It seems clear that Government and its development partners should be agreeing on three key things that predicate to a considerable degree the success or otherwise of the administrative reforms — the time-frame for the reforms, the road-map for the reforms, and the framework of performance indicators to monitor the reforms. • Some consultation has already taken place on the road-map and on the performance indicators, but clearly more needs to be done. Surprisingly little has been discussed on the overall time-frame or envelope for the administrative reforms, or indeed, what defines success. Surely now is the time to establish this? • In conclusion, the Aide Memories is very useful in that it indicates where the Government believes the reform programme should be going. There is a lot of activities planned for after this CG Meeting, not least of which will be further elaboration on the Strategy to Rationalise the Civil Service (SRCS) and a consultative process on performance indicators. These initiatives the development partners can definitely support. Thank you for your kind attention.