Public Administration
Moving Forward? Assessing Public Administration Reform in Afghanistan
BRIEFING PAPER
Sarah Lister September 2006
Moving Forward? Assessing Public Administration Reform in Afghanistan
Overview
Contents
I. Introduction II. Public Administration Reform in Afghanistan III. The Scorecard: Achievements and Problems To Date IV. What can we learn from PAR elsewhere? V. What does PAR in Afghanistan need to succeed? VI. Ways Forward
Successful public administration reform (PAR) in Afghanistan is important for the government’s credibility and legitimacy. It is also critical to achieving the government’s goals and fulfilling its commitment to poverty reduction. In the Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy (I-ANDS) and the Afghanistan Compact, both launched in January 2006, the government of Afghanistan and the international donor community laid out challenging benchmarks for PAR process. To date, however, reform has been slow and problematic, and the PAR programme that has been ongoing since mid-2002 has been criticised by ministers, other government officials, and donors. Some have even suggested that the PAR programme should be discontinued. Although there have been some considerable achievements, especially given the constraints, the
About the author. At the time of writing, Sarah Lister was Senior Researcher, Political Economy and Governance at AREU. The author is grateful for the input of Quan Dinh (Second Emergency Public Administration Project [SEPAP], IARCSC), Mat Kimberley and his team (Adam Smith Institute), Jalpa Patel (World Bank), Louise Perrotta (DFID) and Satyendra Prasad (World Bank, DFID) in commenting on a draft of this paper. The support of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in funding this paper is gratefully acknowledged, but the paper reflects the views of the author alone.
1
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
PAR process has run into numerous problems. According to a number of reviews,
BRIEFING PAPER
Sarah Lister September 2006
Moving Forward? Assessing Public Administration Reform in Afghanistan
Overview
Contents
I. Introduction II. Public Administration Reform in Afghanistan III. The Scorecard: Achievements and Problems To Date IV. What can we learn from PAR elsewhere? V. What does PAR in Afghanistan need to succeed? VI. Ways Forward
Successful public administration reform (PAR) in Afghanistan is important for the government’s credibility and legitimacy. It is also critical to achieving the government’s goals and fulfilling its commitment to poverty reduction. In the Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy (I-ANDS) and the Afghanistan Compact, both launched in January 2006, the government of Afghanistan and the international donor community laid out challenging benchmarks for PAR process. To date, however, reform has been slow and problematic, and the PAR programme that has been ongoing since mid-2002 has been criticised by ministers, other government officials, and donors. Some have even suggested that the PAR programme should be discontinued. Although there have been some considerable achievements, especially given the constraints, the
About the author. At the time of writing, Sarah Lister was Senior Researcher, Political Economy and Governance at AREU. The author is grateful for the input of Quan Dinh (Second Emergency Public Administration Project [SEPAP], IARCSC), Mat Kimberley and his team (Adam Smith Institute), Jalpa Patel (World Bank), Louise Perrotta (DFID) and Satyendra Prasad (World Bank, DFID) in commenting on a draft of this paper. The support of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in funding this paper is gratefully acknowledged, but the paper reflects the views of the author alone.
1
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
PAR process has run into numerous problems. According to a number of reviews,