Building a developmental public service in Africa : an assessment of five decades of effort

The objective of this article is to provide an overview of the underlying causes behind Africa’s current condition of public services. It is necessary to understand, diagnose, and place in a proper perspective any prescriptions meant to address the specific problems that characterize Africa’s public services. This is with the view to making Africa’s public services contribute effectively to building capable democratic and developmental states, which many of the papers presented during the 30th AAPAM Roundtable Conference, held in October, 2008 in Accra, Ghana, dealt with