ENHANCING PUBLIC SECTOR

CAPACITY BUILDING FOR SOCIO-

ECONOMIC GROWTH OF A

DEVELOPMENTAL STATE: THE

CASE OF THE DEMOCRATIC

REPUBLIC OF CONGO

9TH INTERNATIONAL SPMA CONFERENCE

PROTEA HOTEL, CENTURION

Paulin MBECKE

Associate Professor

UML – Kalima (DRC)

Postdoctoral Fellow

UFS – Bloemfontein (RSA)

November 22, 2016

CONTENT

• Introduction

• Problem statement

• Research theory and process

• Discussion

• Conclusion and recommendation

I. INTRODUCTION

• The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is an under-developed country for three reasons considering the notion of public administration and management:

Primo, the colonial regime bequeathed an unskilled and unprofessional public service to the independent DRC

Secondly, the subsequent institutionalised dictatorship of president Mobutu produced a negative elitism characterised by favouritism, corruption and nepotism

Thirdly, the “post-dictatorial” civil wars and current political conflicts jeopardised and weakened the rise of a responsive and responsible public service to lead the socio-economic expansion of the country

INTRODUCTION CONT…

• Public service is a key driver of socio-economic growth

• Capacity building is a key strategy to promote a responsive and responsible public service

• The paper applies public administration research theory

• It analyses 3 stages to support importance of public service capacity building in strengthening and sustaining a responsive and responsible public service for socio-economic growth

• It proposes public service capacity building as a key factor in promoting and sustaining socio-economic expansion, thus facilitating transformation from under-development to a developmental DRC

II. PROBLEM STATEMENT• “The time to accelerate capacity building is now or never. The continent does not

have the luxury to waste time anymore” Phelekezela Mphoko, Vice-President of Zimbabwe

• Public service is viewed as having the characteristics of a public goods or services which may be under-provided by the market, therefore provided by government agencies (Kadirgamar-Rajasingham, 2007, 42)

• Yet, public sector is often one of the first casualties of conflict

• Institutional and structural arrangements of the public service can only be operationalised by human beings (Kauzya, 2007, 7): public servants

• In any conflict situation such as armed confrontations, Kadirgamar-Rajasingham(2007, 42) considers that public institutions, programmes, and facilities are likely to be destroyed: case of the DRC

• Author insinuates that the career public service may be politicized, or manipulated by warring factions, leading to erosion of the ethos of public service

PROBLEM STATEMENT CONT…

• DRC has experienced adverse political stages including colonisation,

dictatorship, wars and political conflicts which have rendered

uncertain its path to socio-economic development

The colonial public service was managed by colonialists, depended

on the Belgian government: only clerk and support functions reserved

to citizens, direct consequence: at independence in 1960, the DRC

government inherited unskilled and unprofessional workforce

The post-colonial epoch of president Mobutu’s dictatorial regime of 32

years produced incompetent, corrupt and irresponsible public

servants resulting in a dysfunctional public service system that

contributed to dire poverty and under-development of the country

PROBLEM STATEMENT CONT…

• According to the United Nations (2007, 14): the 2006 Corruption

Perceptions Index indicated a strong correlation between corruption

and poverty in the DRC

• This situation has prevailed since the dictatorship era to date in DRC

• Kadirgamar-Rajasingham (2007, 43), argues that public sector is one

of the key institutions to contribute to the success of the national post-

conflict development agenda as it is currently required in the DRC

• To create, promote and sustain a responsive and responsible public

service system in the post-conflict DRC has therefore been a complex

task that needs particular attention: the purpose of this paper

III. RESEARCH THEORY AND PROCESS• Social and critical research theories within qualitative public administration research

• The choice of these theories is justified by the obligation of public service to provide basic and necessary goods and services meant to transform people’s living conditions and the debate around the effectiveness and efficiency of public service in providing those goods and services

Social research process (in public administration) aims at generating new knowledge on how the interventions of the public service can promote socio-economic development

Mouton (2002): social research improves the understanding of phenomena in the social world

Mbecke (2014) : social research contributes to the design of new interventions, theories or model geared toward social change

This paper concentrates on how public service capacity building can facilitate positive changes in the ways the public service provides goods and services to improve people’s living conditions

• Critical theory in the field of public administration assesses how public entities (public service in this case) are managed to promote a better future for all (Box, 2005)

This paper assesses the role and impact of public service (through public servants) in promoting and sustaining socio-economic development in the DRC

RESEARCH THEORY AND PROCESS CONT…

• Qualitative research including the review of literature and the exploration of best practices on public service capacity building as principal data collection, analysis and interpretation technique

• Existing literature and available best practices on public service capacity building were also considered in the formulation of the recommendations

• Research process: 3 stages adapted from Perry and Kraemer (1986, 216):

Stage 1: to delineate the problem of under-development by identifying public service management as a key factor hampering socio-economic development

Stage 2: to analyse the variables that contributed to the weakness of the public service and emphasise the importance of public service capacity building

Stage 3: to identify conditions that could bring change and propose public service capacity building as a key factor in promoting and sustaining socio-economic expansion, thus facilitating transformation from under-development to a developmental DRC state

IV. DISCUSSION

1. Problem delineation is the first step of this public administration research process

• It defines the problem and the extent to which it constitutes a social problem (Perry and Kraemer,1986, 216)

• Understand how public service has contributed to poverty and underdevelopment in DRC in order to design appropriate solutions (public service capacity building)

Synopsis of socio-economic and political context of DRC to draw some conclusions on how public service has not contributed to socio-economic development in DRC

World Bank: DRC has a surface area of 2.3 million km2 and a population of over 70 million inhabitants. It has 80 million hectares of arable land and over 1,100 minerals and precious metals which constitutes its potential to be one of the richest countries in Africa and a driver of African growth

The DRC has 50% of Africa’s forests and home to one of the world’s mightiest river systems which could provide hydro-electric power to the entire continent (United Nations)

Per capita income of the DRC was estimated at only $220 in 2012, one of the lowest in the world and despite an impressive economic growth rate and a reduction from 71% in 2005 to 63% in 2012, poverty remains high in the DRC (World Bank)

DRC ranks second to last on the Human Development Index (186 out of 187)

DISCUSSION CONT…

Politically, the DRC inherited a political system that prevented it from being a well-functioning state

Ndaba (no date): the DRC has never existed as a sovereign, unified political entity: it was established by

a stroke of a pen in 1885 at the Berlin Conference as the “Congo Free State", a forced labour scheme

for King Leopold II of Belgium: European powers greedily divided Africa in order to plunder its resources

• 4 epochs are characteristic of the inexistence of a responsive and responsible

public service in the DRC: Epoch 1: “Congo Free State” (1885 – 1908): the country as personal property of Belgian King Leopold II

Epoch 2: “Belgian Congo” (1908 – 1960): colonisation with all its consequences

Epoch 3: “Mobutu’s Zaire” (1965 – 1997): dictatorship resulted in underdevelopment and decay of

institutional structures

Epoch 4: post-dictatorship governments (since 1997) LD Kabila and current president Joseph Kabila:

wars and political unrests undermining efforts to establish and sustain a responsive and responsible

public service

DISCUSSION CONT…

2. Contributing factors Achieving a “developmental state” system to facilitate the development of African has been the subject

of interest to many researchers and is not new to the development process of Africa

Meyns and Musamba (2010): the notion of “developmental state” is associated with a theoretical

underpinning of the success of East and South East Asian countries in the 1960s and how African states

could learn from such theory that is supposed to overcome their persistent development problems

On the contrary, the early years of independence were characterized by state‐led developmentalism in

many African countries, which led to economic growth and the improvement of social infrastructure in

the short‐run, but ultimately failed to provide sustainable progress Meyns and Musamba (2010, 7)

A developmental state is a state which is interventionist and pro-poor, and which seeks to address

challenges such as poverty, low economic growth, lack of infrastructure, and unequal development, by

deliberately using state resources to address these challenges

This task is supposed to be undertaken by a responsive and responsible public service, or in DRC:

There were no trained and professional public servant at independence

Dictatorship created institutionalised corrupted public service

Post-dictatorship regimes never developped and sustain an effective public service system…

V. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

• There is an urgent need for a public sector reform to concentrate on establishing

a functioning public service system in the DRC

• Maphunye (2009): an effective and efficient public service is a great contribution

of a government to the socio-economic expansion of a state

• Stabilising the country and prioritising public service capacity building in the DRC

• Training and professionalising public service and the entire administration is key:(1) Internal training through “Ecole Nationale d’Administration” (National School of Administration):

increase the capacity of the school and concentrate on practical training by qualified teaching

personnel

(2) Cooperation and collaboration with other countries for exchange programmes and international

training and experience sharing

(3) Collaboration with Universities and other learning institutions for practical training of public

servants

(4) Address other related conditions

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONT…

• There are conditions that need to be looked at in order to promote the success of public sector capacity building:

Kauzya (2007, 8): How can public servants be motivated in conditions of poor pay dictated by high levels of poverty as is the case in most post-conflict and crisis conditions?

The first challenge the public service faces in a post-conflict and crisis situation is to define its missions and objectives in light of the aspirations of the people as expressed in the vision, mission and objectives of government: need for public service entrepreneurship to define missions and objectives and to align them with the aspirations of the people

Knowledge, skills, values and attitudes of staff at all levels need to be re-adjusted to match the functions, responsibilities, and tasks as well as the new work methods

How can recruitment, induction, and control of public servants be done to ensure that only individuals with the moral aptitude and attitude that is conducive to appropriate ethics, integrity and professionalism are recruited and retained in the public service especially in socio-politico-economic situations that tend to impose compromises in recruiting public servants?

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONT…

• Funding and political leadership need a particular attention:

Reconstructing capacities for public service after conflict is a task requiring large amounts of funds as well as dedicated and capable human resources

For sustainability of public service capacity reconstruction, there must be a strong internal will for self-reliance/effective programs and projects for mobilizing internal capacity to sustain the provision of public service (Kauzya, 2007)

• Political leadership must cultivate internal commitment to self-determination

• Need to reflect on the kind of combinations of leadership capacities required to manage a development processes and support the reconstruction of capacities for public service in post conflict situations with their complexities, intricacies, paradoxes and contradictions

• Ethics: efforts are still being made to ensure that a code of ethics is properly integrated into the country’s government and society. A 2002 UN report urged the Government of the DRC to adhere to an international code of ethics in order to bring peace and development to the country (United Nations, 2007, 15)