2. Public Administration Reform Practice Note Part 1 Global Practice Meeting on Public Administration Reform

3. The Practice Note Provides a strategic framework for UNDP Country Office staff and Regional Programmes for PAR programming Provides UNDP’s development partners with clear sense of UNDP’s strategic focus Provides a ‘portal’ to more detailed programmatic guidance: toolkits including primers, case studies; other resources.

4. UNDP support for PAR Basic statistics 380 projects in 112 countries 7% Promoting a professional, merit base, civil service. 17% Functional reviews 63% Training civil servants 13% ICT

5. PAR and the MDGs More resources in poor countries are freed to be used in pursuit of MDG goals By increasing transparency and eradicating corruption, more scarce resources in poor countries are directed towards achieving MDGs A responsive public administration, especially to women and marginalized people, is critical to ensuring the sustainability of MDG achievements Increasing the accountability of state institutions is essential to closing the democratic deficit.

6. Process of developing the PN Mapping of UNDP activities, lessons from experience and evaluations Inputs by the Democratic Governance Group, PAR Advisers based in NY, Oslo and the SURFs. Comments from Network Discussion between October 8 th and October 22 nd, involving over 20 participants. Review by the Democratic Governance Programme Team – over 25 responses. Peer review by senior practitioners in partner agencies

7. Main issues in PAR for UNDP Difficult to define a UNDP role compatible with its resources. Other players have increased their role in this field, e.g. World Bank, ADB, IADB, and DfID Surveys in Africa, Asia, and the Arab States have shown that focus on reform of central government declined while decentralization has become a core area for UNDP UNDP’s comparative strength is evolving:

8. UNDP’s Niche UNDP’s twin pillars of a pro-poor and human rights-based approach to PAR are a focus on open government and decentralization UNDP practitioners, informed by this Practice Note and accompanying toolkit will be able to engage in a dialogue on all aspects of PAR, and be advocates for UNDP’s pro-poor and human rights- based approaches.

9. Substance and Scope of PAR The PN is built around capacity development at the individual, institutional and societal levels for poverty reduction in four areas: – Civil Service Reform –Improving the policy making system – Reforming the machinery of government – Reforming the public expenditure management system

10. Civil Service Reform Mission Training Establishment control Management systems: career vs. position; civil service commission; performance management Pay and compensation Gender equity and affirmative action Politicization and patronage

11. Improving the policy making system Growing area of interest Politically very sensitive Weakness one of the key handicaps to reform

12. Reforming the machinery of government Functional Reviews Information and Communication technologies and e-governance Democracy enhancing public institutions

13. Reforming the Revenue and Expenditure Management System More often the preserve of the IFIs But important new approaches: pro- poor budgeting; gender budgeting, etc. Critical dimension of decentralization

14. PN provides practical guidance for DG practitioners Entry points and sequencing Winners and losers Gaining support and fostering leadership Accounting for different administrative traditions Enshrining the Human Rights Approach Measuring Progress Technical guidance on the main areas of PAR (Poli cy making systems, CSR, etc.) as well as:

15. Regional Trends RBA – driven by structural adjustment and strong donor pressure; decentralization focus; CSR; ‘holistic’ approaches RBAP – UNDP increasingly crowded out; shift towards decentralization; CSR, institutional capacity building, public awareness and pro-poor reform RBAS – few countries, focus on technical reforms, anti- corruption, ICT RBEC – EU accession; transitional economy issues RBLAC – shift from focus on economic and financial management (“modernization”) to more ambitious approaches: NPM, performance-based CSR, and introducing ‘voice’

16. Next Steps Seminar on PAR in Bratislava to: –Build an understanding of and consensus behind the positions espoused in the PN –Elaborate Primers such as: Lessons from advances in PAR in Francophone countries Gender mainstreaming in PAR PAR in countries worst affected by HIV/AIDS –Roll out the PN –Enhance the guidance in the PN for a future