New Public Management reforms have expanded across Sub-Saharan <a href="https://absafricatv.com/aleph-hospitality-announces-south-africa-office/” title=”ALEPH HOSPITALITY ANNOUNCES SOUTH AFRICA OFFICE”>Africa, but many World Bank-supported projects achieved only partial implementation and limited results. The study finds that lasting reform depends on political commitment, administrative capacity, realistic targets, credible incentives and adapting reforms to local conditions.
Governments across Sub-Saharan Africa have increasingly adopted New Public Management, or NPM, as part of efforts to modernize the public sector. The approach, which emerged prominently in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand during the 1980s, seeks to bring management practices associated with the private sector into government. It emphasizes performance measurement, managerial responsibility, incentives, competition, contracting and greater focus on measurable results.
A recent analysis of World Bank-financed public-sector projects between 2010 and 2023 examined how these reforms have worked in African countries. The study identified 73 projects containing NPM-related components and 109 individual interventions. Of these projects, 35 were located in West and Central Africa, while 38 were in East and Southern Africa.
The findings show that NPM has become a significant part of public-sector reform efforts. Around 34 percent of World Bank projects in Sub-Saharan Africa with a governance or public-sector-management dimension incorporated NPM elements. The proportion was higher in West and Central Africa, at about 41 percent, compared with 29 percent in East and Southern Africa.
Most reforms focused on organizations and government processes rather than individual employees. Performance monitoring and evaluation accounted for about 38 percent of interventions, while performance-based public financial management represented another 27 percent. Performance-based pay accounted for around 12 percent, while civil-service performance monitoring represented about 10 percent. Agencification, involving the creation or strengthening of semi-autonomous agencies, was the least common approach.
Big Plans, Bigger Implementation Gaps
Despite the popularity of NPM reforms, the study found a substantial gap between reform design and implementation. Only about 40 percent of the interventions examined were fully implemented. Around 32 percent were partially implemented, while approximately 10 percent were not implemented at all. Another 7 percent were dropped during project restructuring or additional financing.
The implementation challenge was particularly serious for reforms targeting individual public-sector workers. Organizational interventions had a full implementation rate of about 45 percent, compared with only 21 percent for worker-level reforms. This suggests that introducing new organizational procedures may be easier than changing the incentives, behaviour and working practices of individual employees.
The results achieved by these reforms were also limited. Only about 25 percent of projects achieved their stated NPM targets, while another 8 percent exceeded them. In total, roughly one-third of projects therefore met or surpassed their objectives. At the same time, less than half of the projects had indicators that directly measured whether their NPM targets had actually been achieved.
Performance-based public financial management produced comparatively stronger results, with around 37 percent of interventions achieving or exceeding targets. Organizational performance frameworks achieved or exceeded targets in roughly 31 percent of cases. Worker-level reforms recorded about 27 percent, while agencification reached around 20 percent. Performance-based pay recorded the lowest figure, with only about 15 percent achieving or exceeding their targets.
These figures underline a central difficulty: creating performance systems does not automatically produce better government performance.
Four Countries Reveal Why Reforms Succeed or Stall
The experiences of Madagascar, Burundi, Benin and Burkina Faso provide a deeper understanding of the challenges facing public-sector reform.
In Madagascar, performance contracts in customs initially produced improvements in areas such as clearance procedures and fraud detection. However, the performance-pay system subsequently lost momentum and was effectively abandoned. Political leadership changes, declining stakeholder support and incomplete incentive and sanction mechanisms weakened the reform.
Burundi’s experience highlighted the importance of political stability, administrative capacity and government ownership. Technical training generated measurable results, but performance appraisal and incentive systems were not successfully implemented. Political instability, changing priorities and limited institutional capacity made more demanding reforms difficult to sustain.
Benin produced more varied results. Performance budgeting showed stronger outcomes when it was closely aligned with government priorities and when responsibilities were clearly established. Results-based financing, however, produced mixed outcomes across sectors. The water sector performed better, while electricity and justice faced difficulties linked partly to unrealistic targets and weak connections between financing and frontline accountability.
In Burkina Faso, results-based grants and municipal performance monitoring encountered problems involving limited technical capacity, weak performance cultures and centralized decision-making. Political instability and poor coordination also weakened implementation. Although performance information was generated, it was not consistently connected to financial rewards or management decisions, reducing its practical impact.
No One-Size-Fits-All Formula for Government Reform
The study’s central message is that NPM reforms cannot simply be transferred from one country to another as standardized best practices. Their success depends heavily on local political, institutional and administrative conditions.
Political commitment is particularly important because reforms often require years to produce meaningful results. Changes in leadership or government priorities can interrupt programmes and weaken support. Administrative capacity is equally critical. Complex performance systems require trained personnel, reliable data, effective monitoring and institutions capable of using information for decision-making.
The study also stresses the importance of realistic targets and credible incentives. Employees are unlikely to respond strongly to performance systems if rewards and sanctions are unclear, unrealistic or disconnected from actual decisions about budgets, promotions and re
The findings therefore point toward a more context-sensitive approach to public-sector reform. Governments and development partners need to assess institutional capacity before introducing complex management systems and ensure that performance information is linked to real administrative and financial decisions.
- FIRST PUBLISHED IN:
- Devdiscourse
