Challenges of Public Administration Reform in Myanmar Tin Maung - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Challenges of Public Administration Reform in Myanmar

Tin Maung Than

Director/ Senior Research Fellow CESD-MDRI Centre for Economic and Social Development Myanmar Development Resource Institute

Is Myanmar too ambitious?

• Transition to Democracy
• Transition to Peace
• Transition to Market Economy
• Transition to Good Governance

Previous Regime

The Context

2008 Constitution Ex-military officers in bureaucracy New Government: President +10 ministers Loyalty > Meritocracy Above Assistant Director level Ethnic Issue & Military in Politics Military Organizational Culture: Top Down & No Political Insulation Command & Loyalty Personal Interests/ Distrust/ Defensive Psychology Low Salary/ Low Morality/ Discretionary Power Corruption

Political Vision and Agenda in President’s Speeches

• Politics: Peace, liberalization and transition to

democracy

• Economy: Market Economy

– Macroeconomic fundamentals: Inflation stability and exchange rate reform – Open Market: sim card 1.5 $ down from $ 5000

• Import Liberalization: Car import
• Export Oriented: Garment industry
• Development: people centered development
• Administration: Good Governance, Clean

Government

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Reform:

from a key PO minister’s presentation to local & regional authorities POVERTY ALLEVIATION RURAL DEVELOPMENT

ECONOMIC POLITICAL ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT

GOOD GOVERNANCE CLEAN GOVERNMENT

Approach: Domestic + International/

Across Ministries + Individual Ministries

Across Ministries thru Five Programs

• International Participation
• 1. OGP (Open Government Partnership) +

Egovernment

• 2. EITI (Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative)
• Domestic Initiative
• 3. Reducing red tape linked to WB’s Doing Business

Report, yet far distant to be called regulatory reform

• 4. Decentralization: Administrative adjustment to 2008

constitution

• 5. To adopt the Civil Service Competency Framework

for capacity building and restructuring

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Approach: Domestic + International/ Across Ministries + Individual Ministries

• Individual ministerial reform
• Public finance management (Finance Ministry)
• Comprehensive Education Sector Reform

(Education Ministry - CESR)

• Corporatization (eg., telecommunication, airline)

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Reality Check on Six Dimensions: Myanmar’s Governance Indicators

http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/sc_chart.asp Standard Error: 0.15 to 0.33

Indicators (Percentile Rank) 1996 2000 2005 2010 2011 2012 2013

Voice and Accountability ¡

1.4 ¡ 0.5 ¡ 0.0 ¡ 0.9 ¡ 2.8 ¡ 4.3 ¡ 6.6 ¡

Political Stability and Absence of Violence/ Terrorism ¡

10.1 ¡ 6.7 ¡ 20.2 ¡ 10.8 ¡ 14.6 ¡ 18.0 ¡ 13.3 ¡

Government Effectiveness ¡

6.3 ¡ 8.3 ¡ 3.4 ¡ 2.4 ¡ 3.3 ¡ 3.8 ¡ 4.3 ¡

Regulatory Quality ¡

3.9 ¡ 2.9 ¡ 1.5 ¡ 1.0 ¡ 1.4 ¡ 1.9 ¡ 5.3 ¡

Rule of Law ¡

6.7 ¡ 9.6 ¡ 2.4 ¡ 2.8 ¡ 3.8 ¡ 6.2 ¡ 10.9 ¡

Control of Corruption ¡

2.9 ¡ 4.4 ¡ 1.0 ¡ 0.5 ¡ 0.5 ¡ 11.5 ¡ 12.4 ¡

Structural Change: Permanent Secretary

Minister Deputy Minister Permanent Secretary Statistics & Planning

Administration & HR

Policy, Regulatory Review, Monitoring & Evaluation Finance & Internal Audit Domestic/ Foreign Relation & Media Relation

Major Institutional Challenges

• Leadership

§ political will: yes at top but weak at multilevel § vision: vague and not shared

• Authority Structure: silos in nature (from military

command?)

• Bureaucracy disempowered

§ No separation of political and bureaucracy level

• Reform not grounded on coherent technical and

contextual assessment and knowledge

§ Lack of overall public sector structural assessment § Lack of Assessment in all areas § “Our problem is lack of knowledge of how to change” (one of the rectors)

Challenges

• Weak core values of good civil service: merit,

competence, continuity, political insulation & accountability

• Co-ordination: several committees but weak in

implementation

• Unable to adopt “whole-of-government”

approach yet in administrative simplification

– Need to develop an organization like

• Local Better Regulation Office in UK, Danish Evaluation Institute for

Local Governments in Denmark, Kafka department in Belgian (Administrative Simplification)

• Institutional Development Programme (IDP) in Egypt, Cabinet

Implementation Unit in Australia (to set well defined target, accountability)

Challenges

• Limited resource available
• E-government in initial stage
• Rent seeking and corruption
• Standardization of procedures: lack of

standardization promotes discretion leading to corruption

• Low capacities and skills
• Measurement and evaluation: lack of clear
• bjectives and targets

Thanks

Questions?