Public Administration Problems in Developing Nations

Introduction

The United Nations World Public Sector Report 2001 concluded that countries, which were successful in gaining benefits of globalization, were generally those which had the most developed and comprehensive public sectors. United Nations lays emphasis on revitalization of public administration to improve its performance since it plays an important role in accomplishing important development goals. The Public Administration and Development (PAD) report of the United Nations reviews measures adopted in the process of revitalization of the public sector over the last few years and emphasizes the lessons learned by the Member States while doing the same. While acknowledging, “institutions are as good as people who operate them” (U.N. 2005,a, p.16) this report gives importance to the principal role played by human resources in the revitalizing process. Laying emphasis on this crucial aspect the United Nations World Public Sector Report 2005 (WPSR 2005) gives important guidelines for Human Resource Management (HRM) of public sector. Nonetheless, the reports are confined. Thus the purpose of this paper is to identify major lessons learned from revitalizing public sector particularly through reforms in HRM and to critically review them.

Themes and arguments

The PAD report outlines the global challenges in public administration revitalization while reviewing regional priorities. It advocates implementation of “home-grown” demand driven solutions as compared to “externally developed formulas” promoted by donor institutions. The report shows that most governments recognize the push for revitalization of public administration “not as a bitter pill to be reluctantly swallowed, but as a natural and prudent response to escalating chal...

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...n economies. While the PAD report identifies the common issues faced by most of the nations, the WPSR 2005 suggests guidelines to address issues particularly those related to HRM. While the reports do a good job at providing the content for driving revitalization of the public sector, they fail to focus on processes to be implemented for these reforms. Thus they equip us with the knowledge of “what” needs to be done for revitalization of public sector without completely equipping us with “how” it could be done.

Works Cited

1. United Nations (2005) Public administration and development Report of the Secretary-General, Report of the Economic and Social Council, Sixtieth session (U.N. 2005, a)

2. United Nations (2005) Unlocking the Human Potential for Public Sector Performance World Public Sector Report 2005, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (U.N. 2005, b)