and Administration, on the Africa Public Service Day celebrations, at a 5th
Pan-African Conference of Ministers of Civil and Public Service
23 June 2006
Excellencies,
Colleagues,
All guests,
All protocol observed,
It is a particular pleasure to participate in this continental event. Last
year we planted the seed for this event and this year we already harvest the
fruit of our efforts! It shows what can be done if we all commit to a powerful
idea, if we are not deterred by challenges but seeing them as encouragement to
try harder and be more innovative.
It is appropriate from the outset to recognise all public servants on the
continent and thank them for the services they render to the diverse masses of
our people. Where this is done with dedication and humility we celebrate their
efforts. They do so often under extremely difficult circumstances and we
acknowledge this as well.
As you may well recall the African Public Service (APS) has become an
important event on the African Union (AU) calendar. The Africa Public Service
Day (APSD) initiative derives from the collaborative work of the Pan-African
Ministers programme on governance and public administration. Knowledge exchange
and information sharing is at the heart of the celebration of the APSD and
todayâs programme is structured in such a manner as to maximize on this score
in the short space of time we have available.
The key objective of celebrating this day is in the main a consideration of
the working conditions of men and women who devote their lives to serve the
public. These celebrations aim to ignite a positive interest by citizens in the
work of public administration. The APSD celebrations are also about rewarding
good initiatives and promoting professionalism in the public service. I take it
that this special day for public servants is also a moment of deep
introspection as to re-dedicate to the fundamental notions of service and
humility. It should also be an inspiration for us as a continent to take a more
concerted and shared approach to some of our common challenges and encourages a
more open debate on issues related to public service delivery.
Par is a candidate for cutting
It is significant that this day is taking place in the same month South
Africa is celebrating Youth Day, 16 June. As South Africans we remember and
salute our young people who chose not to sit back and watch while a ruthless
system was abrogating the most basic of human rights of the majority of our
nation. We especially stand in honour of those who lost lives were maimed or
whose liberty was crudely taken away for daring a system that was hell bent to
trample underfoot peopleâs right to live in a free country. (Moment of silence
observed).
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I speak here in my capacity as
chairperson of the 5th Pan-African Conference of Ministers of Civil and Public
service our continental initiative on governance and public administration. I
accepted this role with a full appreciation of the immense challenges we are
facing as a continent in the area of public administration. Our challenge is to
navigate through the myriad obstacles that block our way to the realisation of
a true African Renaissance.
The first Pan African Conference of Ministers of Public and Civil Service
held in Tangier, Morocco in 1994 resolved in its declaration that the 23 June
of every year should be celebrated as the African Day of Administration and
Civil Service to âcelebrate the value and virtue of service to the community.â
The United Nations (UN) has since synchronised its public service days with
Africaâs calendar.
During the fourth Pan-African Ministers Conference held in Stellenbosch,
South Africa in May 2003 the resultant Stellenbosch declaration firmly
entrenched the APSD initiative as part of the governance and public
administration Ministersâ programme.
The pan African governance initiative was born out of the realisation that
governments are becoming more networked within as well as across other
governments, sectors and nations. Service delivery improvements increasingly
emphasise building local government capacity and harnessing the capacities of
private and not for profit service for purposes of the public good. Some reform
agendas seek to integrate shared services across boundaries. Managing these
relationships call for variant set of skill in addition to traditional public
service delivery capability. Building on previous initiatives, our African
initiative is rooted in a common understanding of the importance of sharing
information and generating knowledge on the continent in order to improve the
ability of African public institutions to more effectively address the socio
economic challenges of African societies. The programmeâs framework is based on
the recognition that national governments both separately and as a collective
are critical in our efforts to achieve sustainable development on the
continent.
The significance of todayâs events resides with the contract between the
citizens and their respective government where governments are obliged to
provide quality and extensive services to their respective populations. The
public service is the vehicle government employs to ensure that services are
indeed delivered to its people. Since it occupies centre stage of this
contractual imperative, the question as to the nature and mission of the public
service is unavoidable.
The main theme for this yearâs celebrations is "building an ethical public
service for improved service delivery in Africa." This theme is befitting in
view of the pressing need we experience to ensure that every resource be that
money or people that is available should be directed in its entirety to
alleviating the desperate situation that many of our people find themselves in
and to create the circumstances in which our continent can flourish. We should
arrest the situation where citizens are loosing faith in the legitimacy of
their political and administrative authorities based on the shortfalls in
meeting service delivery expectations by removing any notion of impropriety in
our behaviour or use of public resources.
Several sub themes were identified to guide activities for this yearâs APSD
celebrations. The broad sub themes area:
(1) promoting governance with emphasis on anti-corruption and ethics;
(2) empowering the citizenry especially rural communities to enhance
accessibility to services;
(3) ensuring access to information;
(4) capacitating our public services to meet the expectations of the people and
(5) restructuring the public sector in line with Africaâs unique
challenges.
A strong link ties together the theme and sub themes. In my view the mission
of the public service the quality and standard of service and the requisite
capacity to measure up to the expected standards sums up the meaning of these
themes. I want to reflect on the theme and sub themes as a prelude to the
engagement at the breakaway sessions. The degree to which public service
institutions embrace the values of responsiveness, accountability and integrity
in responding to the needs and demands of the people is an important aspect of
good governance and signifies legitimate exercise of state authority.
The mission of a public servant should ordinarily be informed by the
essential global agenda. The modern public servant cannot remain oblivious to
the might of the global momentum to eradicate poverty and deprivation. We are
familiar with the repeated and urgent call to meet the UN Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). Clearly, that important declaration of member States
outline a complex agenda of activities for the next 15 years, significant
economic development to facilitate the eradication of poverty; the insurance of
environmental sustainability; the increased support of democracy, good
governance and human rights and the maintenance of peace and security.
Most assuredly any efforts to implement the extraordinarily important agenda
of the millennium declaration will require highly skilled and highly sensitive
governmental leadership. Such leadership does not spontaneously emerge in most
instances. Rather, in more cases than not such leadership is developed over a
long period of time and only as a consequence of continued significant efforts
at strengthening the knowledge and skill base of the individuals involved.
Linked to the mission of the public service is the pertinent question of the
quality of services delivered to populations. Long gone are days when the
public service was viewed as something which people enjoyed not as a right but
as a favour bestowed at the discretion of the state. In line with such a rights
approach we cannot expect that our citizens will any longer put up with public
service delivery that are a bit shabby, slow and bureaucratic. That age of
mediocrity is well behind us.
One cannot however talk of raising the bar in service delivery without
concomitantly linking this imperative to the capacity of instruments of
delivery. Weak institutional capacity impedes the state from undertaking its
responsibilities effectively, whether planning and budgeting, managing
development assistance, providing services or monitoring and evaluating
progress. Weak capacity is a major problem in most African countries. All tiers
of government are affected We need to give special recognition to post conflict
states in Africa which for many debilitating years bore violent conflicts that
in turn have seriously undermined state capability.
Assisting post conflict countries to reconstruct and manage their fractured
public service is one of the main pre-occupation of the Pan-African Ministersâ
programme that I will presently review. Tackling the huge need for capacity
strengthening especially in as I pointed out earlier post conflict states will
have major knock on effects for all other areas of public sector reform. We do
embrace the truism that making the most of one anotherâs strengths is or should
be part of our competitive advantage.
There is a need for the public servants to think across and beyond portfolio
and agency boundaries and to draw on its unmatched resource of skills,
experience and institutional memory to support the government of the day.
Unlike much of the private sector we have an institutional framework that
allows us to work collaboratively so that our policy advice is informed by a
variety of perspectives and the best available data and research. There is so
much to say about capacity but time fails us in this regard.
The need for reforms to mach the challenges of globalisation are central to
improved service delivery. As we think and pursue public sector reforms it is
important to bear in mind some germane matters. The quality of the interface
between the administrative and political arms of government has always been
central to good governance and the subject of debate. In the South African
scenario a series of reforms over the past 10 years has improved the
responsiveness of the public service to the elected government and increased
its agility and capacity to manage changing community requirements.
Governments are under constant pressure for more change as citizensâ demands
of government increase. The public expects more openness better quality service
delivery and solutions to more complex problems but without losing any of their
existing social entitlements. The major challenge for the 21st century
government is to find new ways that will enable them to meet these demands
while remaining within tight expenditure limits. For the next 20 years, policy
makers face hard political choices. Since most governments cannot increase
their share of the economy, in some countries this will put pressure on
entitlement programmes such as pensions, health care or education.
As governments move forward in deciding on future reforms the case for
adopting a whole of government perspective is overwhelming. It is important
that reforms relate to governmentsâ overall purposes and interests, to general
government rules and processes and to the existing processes of oversight.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen if you allow me I want to take you to a
brief journey into the work undertaken by African Ministers of Public/Civil
Service. It has been an interesting journey for the Ministersâ programme since
that pioneering meeting in Tangier Morocco in 1994. At a personal level the
defining moment for this exciting initiative was in 2004 where written in the
Stellenbosch declaration was the strategic decision that the Ministersâ
programme be incorporated into the AU/New Partnership for Africaâs Development
(NEPAD) structures. The decision to incorporate the Ministers programme into
the AU/NEPAD structures was a timely one.
African Ministers of Public/Civil Service are alive to and accordingly pay
due regard to the undisputable fact that NEPAD represents an expression of the
will and determination of the African Union (AU) leadership to steer Africa to
higher levels of sustainable development and therefore rid itself of poverty
and marginalisation from the global economy and body politic. The Ministersâ
programme therefore affirms the understanding that NEPAD is an engine of
Africaâs socio economic renewal program that is underpinned by the creation and
revitalisation of development institutions through the adoption of policies and
strategies, which will enable accelerating implementation of development
initiatives and sustain economic growth over time.
In addition to providing a base for ensuring continental ownership and
leadership over governance and public administration interventions, the
programme seeks to enhance knowledge exchanges and the development of local
solutions for governance and public administration challenges. The Ministersâ
programme is premised on the understanding that it is every governmentâs desire
to develop appropriate mechanisms that would ensure quality service delivery to
its people. Quality is broadly linked to public consultation and efforts to
build good governance, integrated networks and improved accountability and
trust in public service. Trends continue in establishing high national
standards that are independently audited, in devolving responsibility to the
front lines, in encouraging contestability and choice and in fostering a
culture of innovation, creativity and continuous improvement.
The development of any country today is dependent on accessibility to
knowledge, information and communications. Therefore, investment in Information
and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and appropriate human skills
are critical in establishing a digital society. In pursuing this objective we
realise that digital technology is only a means to an end. The ultimate goal of
embracing ICT is to open up opportunities that will facilitate rapid economic
development and a secure future for our country.
ICT is one significant area the Ministersâ programme has identified for
targeted initiatives. Our main concern here is the massive digital divide
across the African continent.
As is expected governments continue to deploy information and communication
technologies to improve service delivery. This welcome intervention involves
simplifying delivery to citizens, increasing access to information and
services, eliminating management layers, streamlining operations to guarantee
responsiveness and reengineering business processes to reduce costs and
integrate systems.
While there was a great deal of hype and interest surrounding the use of ICT
to enhance service delivery, we have to contend with the fact that this is
beyond the reach of many African countries. It is for these reasons that the
Addis Ababa declaration urges immediate and concerted effort to close the
digital divide among African countries. The benefits of doing so are legion;
consider how ICT is shaping the future of the world by eliminating geographic
boundaries, converging time zones and bringing cultures and societies closer.
This has had the impact of changing the conditions of industrial development;
the structure of the demand for skills and the relationship between expanding
production and employment.
Within the confines of the Ministersâ programme we are acutely aware that
countries that have embraced ICT have witnessed tremendous economic
transformation within a short period of time. The foregoing is not a fairy
tale. Bridging the digital divide in the continent is certainly a task that can
and should indeed be pursued with vigour and it is good to note that this
imperative is within the sight of the Ministersâ programme.
Another key area that pre-occupies the Ministersâ programme is the âthink
out of the boxâ incentive of an Innovation Award. This initiative was formerly
launched after much deliberation at various fora at the December 2005
Ministerial Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It is good to remember that
governments all over the world are increasingly experimenting with alternative
organisational designs because hierarchical and vertically integrated
departments are proving too rigid and unresponsive in a public sector
environment that is increasingly complex, turbulent and demanding. The times we
live in requires new thinking on how we organise most effectively.
The Africa Innovations Award initiative will reward successful and effective
service delivery improvement projects and initiatives that have been achieved
through the application of innovative approaches, methodologies and tools.
Programmes that have been achieved through the application of standard
procedures and approaches will not be awarded. Instead the Africa Innovation
Awards project will recognise creative initiatives, projects that reflect âout
of the boxâ thinking and individuals who have been prepared to take risks and
go against the tide to a certain extent, with the overall aim of improving
services to the public within respective local and regional context.
At the Ministersâ programme we share the opinion that leaders must harness
innovation, creativity, adaptability and timeliness to enable good governance.
The aim should be to cost effectively establish the basis of good practice that
can be promoted and replicated. New tools for public management have emerged in
the form of accrual accounting, programme and project planning, performance
measurement and citizen satisfaction surveys. Like any other human endeavour,
the public sector is a marketplace of ideas.
The idea of innovations award is informed by the logic that it is
appropriate to pause at milestones to celebrate accomplishments before
journeying onward. Champions must anticipate opportunities to capitalise on
quick victories and to replicate success stories that boost morale and sustain
momentum. It is expected that the first awards would be made at the sixth
Pan-African Ministersâ Conference in 2007.
There is wide acknowledgement that the Regional Economic Communities (RECs)
are the veritable building blocks to the envisioned African economic community.
In line with the Constitutive Act of the AU, the RECs are essential ingredients
in the process of African integration and economic development. The Ministersâ
programme recognizes the fact that the RECs have a pivotal responsibility to
mobilise and oversee translation of the NEPAD objectives, goals and strategies
into practical, implementable programs, projects and activities at sub regional
and member state level.
The Ministersâ programme on the RECs should therefore be viewed in the
general rubric of the African Union's (AU) initiative in this area. The Abuja
Treaty specifies that the actual implementation of the regional integration
process lies within the ambit of member states. Article five furthermore states
that member states must undertake to create favourable conditions for the
development of the African Economic Community (AEC) and the attainment of its
objectives, particularly by harmonising their strategies and policies. Member
states are enjoined to refrain from any unilateral action that may hinder the
attainment of the said objectives.
The Ministersâ programme fully supports and wishes to complement the AU's
RECs rationalisation programme. We understand rationalisation to mean
addressing considerable constraints impinging on the RECs ability to generate
and channel a sustainable collective effort towards Africaâs integration.
Locating the Ministersâ programme within the RECs can be bold and comprehensive
or modest and targeted in scale. Either way success depends on matching the
reach of the initiative with what is manageable. Locating the Ministersâ
programme within the RECs is one sure way of revamping the capacity of the RECs
to deliver on the continental mandate.
The last key initiative on the Ministersâ programme I would like to single
out for mention is the anti corruption effort. We all know that the strength of
public confidence and our success in conducting government business is
influenced by community perceptions of our integrity. These perceptions are
more likely to be positive when we are seen to be delivering our commitments
through acting ethically and with integrity.
African Ministers of public/civil service have come to a painful realisation
that efforts to eradicate graft have generally achieved limited success with
most economies reporting growing incidents of corruption on the political and
economic front. Funds that could have otherwise been invested in poverty
reduction programmes, infrastructure development projects or other such schemes
have been lost by governments and other stakeholders through fraudulent deals
in one form or another. This has left the continent poorer at a time when
efforts are made towards ensuring that Africa remains a relevant part of the
world map.
Within the programmatic work of the Ministersâ programme a call has been
made to African countries to ratify the AU convention on corruption as a way of
putting together a united front against this debilitating menace. African
countries have been urged to actively participate in the Global Forum IV on
anti-corruption as a means to contribute to and benefit from the global agenda
on anti corruption effort. A significant innovation has been to formalise our
integrity framework as an objective basis for demonstrating that we set and
meet high standards of integrity. This framework, complemented by our
governance and planning processes, makes our integrity visible and measurable
and assists us to deliver on our commitment of being an open and accountable
organisation.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we are aware that the African Peer
Review Mechanism (APRM) is as much a good governance issue in the same way anti
corruption efforts hopes to bring about clean governance. This fact was not
lost to the Ministersâ programme. This, I believe, is the appropriate juncture
to make a few passing remarks on one of the most remarkable governance
initiatives ever known on the African continent. I have in mind here the
extensive APRM which has brought about a paradigm shift in the manner in which
African countries account to the citizenry.
The APRM sets out an integrity framework that empowers citizens to hold
governments to account in a close scrutiny through a rigorous and robust self
assessment methodology. This integrity framework sets out the behaviour, values
and ethics that underpin the policy, processes and procedures for our
governance measures. This tool of accountability is designed to highlight
integrity as a key consideration in decision making and in our dealings with
ourselves and others.
One fundamental legacy the APRM is certain to bequeath to participating
states is a versatile governance framework that would enable the achievement
and enhanced community confidence through clear strategic direction, decisions
and actions. This dynamic framework sends a crisp message out there that the
government machinery is being managed in an efficient, effective and ethical
manner. The resultant programme of action is what I can loosely refer to as the
integrity framework that provides the context for how we intend to achieve the
set governance benchmarks until the next review. The enormous challenge is to
ensure that these initiatives are embedded in everyday governance processes and
understood by all public servants and the civil society.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen in conclusion:
I would like to note that while we have developed a considerable number of
activities such as improved service delivery interventions there is much room
for advancement. Governments face a delicate balancing act between on the one
hand ensuring that civil servants are responsible and accountable and on the
other encouraging team work and collective responsibility to maximise the
chance of success in a complex policy area.
Finally, I want to underscore that there is clear commitment on the part of
public servants to improve on service delivery models. The point is however
that there are gaps if not in our commitment to getting the very best outcomes
then in our capability. And even where we are doing good things the likelihood
is that the workforce challenges ahead of us will take their toll if not
managed well. We will certainly not grind to a halt but we are likely to find
that our expectations fall far short of those of the community. I canât think
of anything more damaging to the energy and spirit that public servants bring
to their work than to know that they can only aspire to qualified
outcomes.
Although our countries are making huge strides in socio economic development,
public service managers must be prepared to continue to address fundamental
policy issues of poverty, unemployment, housing, education, security and health
as these issues will continue to dominate the public agenda in the foreseeable
future. Poverty in particular is a major issue given the reality of
underdevelopment that afflicts our countries and the commitments to poverty
reduction that we have entered into within the framework of the MDGs.
I want to thank the Namibian Deputy Prime Minister for facilitating the
regional initiative on the APSD. I should also take this opportunity to thank
the AU commission for agreeing to be part of these celebrations. It would be an
unforgivable omission not to make mention of our development partners for their
steadfast support and an un-diminishing eagerness to walk with us to our many
network forums to discuss strategy around issues of improving governance. We
greatly value your partnership.
I thank you very much.
Issued by: Department of Public Service and Administration
23 June 2006
