Innovations and best practices in public sector reforms: the case of civil service in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa

Abstract

The study found that the four countries had undertaken far reaching CSRs with Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya beginning their reforms as far back as the late 1980s after the implementation of SAP while South Africa begun its own after the apartheid era in 1994. The essence of the CSRs is to improve the effectiveness and performance of the civil service and to ensure its affordability and sustainability over time. The ultimate goal is to raise the quality of public services delivered to citizens and to enhance the capacity to carry out core government functions, which is essential to promote sustained socio-economic development. The core elements or strategies of the CSRs used are organizational restructuring, human resource management including retrenchment and pay reform, budgetary and financial reforms while the non-core elements are strengthening the capacity of policy-making institutions,improving the relationships between ministers and civil servants and other public's, increasing the political responsiveness of top civil servants and building the capacity of the civil service through training of staff and retaining them.