I. Spotlight

Ethiopia’s Civil Service Reform Program: Important component for Strengthening the Social Capital

In the past 14 years progress on the macro-economic front has been witnessed in Ethiopia. Yet the country still faces a formidable challenge for increasing productivity and income. The country is far from ensuring sustainable growth and the incidences of poverty are high partly due to low agricultural productivity as well as to deficiencies in human resources that has a great impact on productivity.

In Ethiopia, deficiencies in human resources and institutional capacity as well as deficiencies in working system and process are among the causes constraining sustainable growth and perpetrating poverty.

Shortfalls in capacity across sectors of the economy have been witnessed. These have typically been reflected in inefficient public sector and civil service due to, among others, lack of human and institutional capacity, working system and process and misguided conception of the roles and responsibilities of civil service. Addressing these deficiencies has thus been recognized by the incumbent government as a crucial element in bringing about a desired change in the country.

The Ethiopian government, understanding well the importance of dealing with these problems, has thus adopted capacity building strategy which comprises many programs including six key programs: higher education, technical and vocational education and training both in agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, civil service reform decentralized delivery, justice system reform, tax system reform, urban management and development, information and communication technologies.

In order to address the wide array of capacity constrains that hindered the performance of public institutions in Ethiopia, the government embarked on a comprehensive Civil Service Reform Program (CSPR) in 1996. Indicative of Ethiopia’s “first generation” capacity building efforts, the CSRP sought to build a fair, transparent, efficient, effective, and ethical civil service primarily by focusing on strengthening core technocratic systems within the public sector.

The Civil Service Reform Program is one of the key self-contained programs that is currently being implemented at the federal and state level with particular emphasis on federal and regional institutions working in areas of rural and industrial developments. The main objective of the civil service reform program is improving public service delivery by introducing efficiency and developing a working system that ensures accountably and transparency.

The CSRP in such a way is crucial to improve the working environment and strengthening the social capital. Its outcome will also promote democratic values and practices to serve the expanded customers and the civil society at large. The government made it clear that the whole program is centered on the development and implementation of relevant legal and regulatory frameworks, institutional and human resource development projects and modern management systems and best practices.

According to the Government’s long-term plans, the whole purpose of this integrated and coordinated project is the realization of a professional civil service capable of efficiently executing political, economic and social policies.

As part of the CSRP, new service delivery mechanism is being designed by service giving agencies (institutions) at all level. To this effect, establishment of legal framework on service delivery and launching of various projects enabling the public to become aware that they have the right to get ethical treatment from civil servants are also reinforcing the establishment of a clean and efficient government. Realizing the need to provide clients with the necessary information they may seek in order to assert their rights, a number of public offices are developing mechanisms of letting their clients know how to get service at different levels.

The impacts of the aforementioned activities and associated positive developments have already been felt by the public. The commendable improvements in service delivery that some departments in the Addis Ababa City Administration, Nationality and Immigration Affairs Department, Ministry of Trade and Industry and Federal Investment Commission, among others, are exemplary in that regard. Scrupulous implementation of the Civil Service Reform Program was the most important factor that contributed to the achievement.

The Program has been put into effect in a number of government offices both at Federal and State Levels and the Ethiopian Investment Commission has been one of the top priority sectors and as such top amongst the top performers. Most of the cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, particularly in the areas of permit issuance and renewal have been decisively addressed to extent that what used to take months to process can now be done in a matter of days, if not hours. Land and other investment essentials are now provided in the shortest time possible and all the workings of the Commission are made to be easy and transparent.

The Investment Commission’s service delivery system has become without doubt one of the fastest. What has really changed in the Commission in the past year as to witness such a dramatic growth in foreign investment was the Civil Service Reform Program (CSRP).

The results of CSRP have also helped the country to get highest top rating in its business environment based on international standards. Ethiopia was described as the second most improved business environment in the world by Heritage Foundation of the United States in its 2004 Economic Freedom Index.

Added to these the good signs of customer-friendly approaches in service rendering and chances that we would perform better in the future are high. What has been achieved so far in an environment where the CSRP was still in its early and first phase stage is highly encouraging. Phase two, during which key challenges in the areas of maintaining strong coordination across line ministries and tiers of government, in providing clear incentives for behavioral change among civil servants, as well as establishing benchmarks against which to measure impact, will surely greatly help consolidate past gains and more.

The Ethiopian Investment Commission experience is a strong indication that scrupulous implementation of CSRP will transform the public sector in general making Ethiopia with an efficient bureaucracy a right country to do business with or invest in.