How do structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) impact on civil service reforms? The study reported here examined this question in the case of Ghana , one of Africa's pioneer adjusters and often cited as a test case for adjustment programmes supported by the WorldBank/IMF in Africa. It shows how adjustment became a catalyst for civil service reforms in Ghana as weaknesses in public service capacity became evident in the course of implementing adjustment. A University of Birmingham researcher documents the process behind the resulting reforms, which turned out to be a mixed blessing.

Since the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s a complex of factors led to a widely-held view that the civil services of most African countries were far too large in payroll size, too costly in terms of budget, inefficient at delivering public services and lacking in capacity to implement government policies. Following a decade of economic decline and crisis, Ghana embarked on an IMF and World Bank-supported Structural Adjustment Programme in 1983. Linked to it after 1987 was a programme to reform the civil service, responding mainly to conditions set on adjustment loans. The goal of this scheme was to improve the chances of success of the SAP, the terms of which called for significant downsizing of the core civil service from a peak of 143,000 in 1986 to 92,000 by 1992, a cut of over 35 percent. The current payroll is under 90,000.

Analysis of the impact of these interventions on the ground gave rise to the following observations:

• The expected cost savings from cutbacks proved elusive due to a combination of high cost of compensating those retrenched and the need to improve salaries of those remaining. A programme to retrain and resettle those retrenched also ran into problems
• Those aspects of the reforms elevated to the status of conditionality (including civil service cutbacks) received more attention and made more progress than those that were not (such as management decentralisation)
• SAP and related policies are changing the context and content of civil work. Some departments have been hived off into autonomous agencies, and some are under pressure to contract activities out. There is increasing emphasis on management input, reflected in current training programmes
• Though there have been improvements in the institutional framework and machinery for managing the civil service, the impact on civil service performance and culture has been slight.

Key policy lessons and conclusions drawn from the study include:

• Reforms were overly driven by adjustment conditions and dominated by the agenda and timetables of external agencies. There is a need to build local ownership and commitment into future reform programmes
• In the long term, it is insufficient to design and implement civil service reforms geared ostensibly to economic restructuring. Civil service reform must be seen as an end in itself and not just a means to an end, if the performance of the entire system is to be improved
• There is a need for targeted capacity building in the civil service to address the changing roles and needs of government and the economy.

Source(s):
Implications and Impact of Structural Adjustment on the Civil Service: the case of Ghana. Role of Government in Adjusting Economies Paper 2, G.A.Larbi (1995)

Funded by: University of Helsinki, Finland (fieldwork) and DFID/ESCOR, UK (1995)

id21 Research Highlight: 1998-May-13

Further Information:
G.A. Larbi and R. Batley (Programme Director)
School of Public Policy
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Tel: +44 (0)121 414 3492
Fax: +44 (0) 121 414 7164
Contact the contributor: G.A. Larbi@bham.ac.uk

School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, UK

Other related links:
The International Development Department of the School of Public Policy, University of Birmingham, UK