Government employment and pay : a global and regional perspective

The authors try to replace myths about government pay and employment with reliable facts from a survey for about 100 countries in the early 1900s. The study also outlines the general nature of civil service problems in the different regions. Nevertheless, while the facts are useful to"flag"possible problems and initiate a dialogue, recommendations for reform must be based on country-specific analysis. Globally, government employment is negatively associated with wages, and positively with the fiscal deficit (although the availability of financing is more important) and with per capita income (confirming"Wagner's Law"). But the global results stem almost entirely from strong results for Africa and Latin America. Civil service reform has suffered in the past from an overemphasis on retrenchment for fiscal reasons. Its true objective, for each country, is to achieve a civil service of the size and skill-mix, incentives, professional ethos, and accountability needed to provide public goods, help formulate and enforce the rules, and intervene to remedy market failures -as these government roles happen to be defined in the country in question. Civil service reform can begin with various diagnostic and fact-finding activities. The key measures concern rightsizing, incentives, and accountability. These are all relative notions: the right size of the workforce depends on the roles assigned to government; wage adequacy depends on private compensation levels; and strengthening of accountability must define accountability for what and to whom. When retrenchment is warranted, it must be carried out with great care to avoid skill reduction, demoralization, and lower-quality service. Adequate compensation is a must, and wage compression isto be avoided. But performance bonuses, popular in some advanced countries, have been only marginally effective in improving performance in developing countries, even in the private sector. And they can be dangerous in countries with ethnic, clan, or religious conflicts. Finally, improvements in accountability will most often require greater external openness and systematic feedback from service users.Banks&Banking Reform,Enterprise Development&Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Decentralization,Environmental Economics&Policies,National Governance,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Policy, Institutions and Governance

An international statistical survey of government employment and wages

This paper complements a separate study in this Series ("Government Employment and Pay: A Global and Regional Perspective,"Policy Research Working Paper 1771, May, 1997) by providing the detailed statistical and econometric evidence on which that separate study is based. The authors briefly summarize the key findings of the earlier paper for the reader's convenience and to permit this paper to stand alone. However, the purpose of the paper is to provide the couintry-by-country statistics. The reader is referred to the companion paper for a description and analysis of the main findings.Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,National Governance,Municipal Financial Management,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,National Governance,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

Institutionalizing Women's Interests and Accountability to Women in Development

Summary The Editorial introduces the Bulletin by outlining current approaches to analysing institutions and organizations as gendered terrains and processes. These approaches can help explain persistent difficulties in institutionalizing incentive and accountability systems responsive to women's needs and interests in development organizations. The article outlines an approach to analysing development organizations according to gendered structures and practices as they are expressed through gendered incentive and accountability systems, gendered expressions of power, and gendered patterns of organizing space and time. The article also stresses the importance of situating any organizational study and strategies for organizational change within the broad institutional context embracing the organization in question. RESUME L'institutionalisation des intérêts des femmes et de la responsabilité sensible au genre dans le développement Cet article sert d'introduction à cette édition du Bulletin, car il ébauche les approches qui servent actuellement dans l'analyse des institutions et des organisations en tant que terrains et processus genrés. Ces approches peuvent servir à expliquer les difficultés persistantes qui ralentissent le processus d'institutionalisation des systèmes d'encouragement et de responsabilisation destinés à répondre aux besoins et aux intérêts des femmes dans les organisations vouées au développement. L'article esquisse une approche qui permettrait d'analyser les organisations de développement en fonction des structures et pratiques genrées telles qu'elles s'expriment à travers les systèmes d'encouragement et de responsabilité, les manifestations genrées du pouvoir, et les modéles genrès d'organisation des espaces et du temps. L'auteur souligne aussi l'importance de situer les études organisationnelles et les stratégies de changement organisationnel dans le plus grand contexte institutionnel qui entoure l'organisation concernée. RESUMEN La institucionalización de los intereses de la mujer, y la responsabilidad hacia los temas de género en el desarrollo Este artículo da comienzo al Boletín delineando los enfoques actuales para el análisis de instituciones y organizaciones como procesos y campos relativos al género. El estudio de estos enfoques puede explicar las persistentes dificultades para la institucionalización de sistemas de incentivación y responsabilidad que respondan a las necesidades e intereses de la mujer en las organizaciones para el desarrollo. Específicamente, el artículo analiza un enfoque para este análisis de estructuras y prácticas de género de acuerdo a los sistemas ya mencionados, y a los modelos de organización de tiempo y espacio acordes con el género. Asimismo se destaca la importancia de situar todo estudio organizativo y estategia de cambio dentro del contexto institucional más amplio de la organización en cuestión

Participatory and incremental development in an African local government accounting reform

Despite significant donor funding, government accounting reforms seeking transparent and effective management of public resources often fail or have limited success, especially in Africa, prompting questions about donors? implementation approach and calls for studies of successful reforms. This paper investigates a local government accounting reform in Benin supported by a German development agency ? perceived as successful due to the participatory, pragmatic and incremental approach reinforced by conditionalities in the face of neo-patrimonial leadership

Tracking Climate Change Vulnerability at Municipal Level in Rural Haiti Using Open Data

In least developed tropical countries, vulnerability to climate change (CC) at local scale follows an indicator-based approach and uses information gathered mainly through household surveys or focus groups. Conceived in this way, the vulnerability assessment is rarely repeatable in time, cannot be compared with those carried out in other contexts and usually has low spatial coverage. The growing availability of open source information at municipal level, routinely col-lected, now allows us to switch to vulnerability tracking (continuous, low cost, consistent with global monitoring systems). The aim of this chapter is to propose and verify the applicability of a VICC-Vulnerability Index to Climate Change on a municipal scale for Haiti. The chapter identifies open source information on na-tional, departmental and municipal scale, selects the information on a municipal scale on the basis of quality, identifies the indicators, evaluates the robustness of the index and measures it. The index consists of 10 indicators created using infor-mation relating to monthly precipitations, population density, flood prone areas, crop deficit, farmers for self-consumption, rural accessibility, local plans for CC adaptation, irrigated agriculture and cholera incidence. This information is gath-ered for the 125 mainly rural municipalities of Haiti. The description and discus-sion of the results in followed by suggestions to improve the index aimed at do-nors, local authorities and users

The Italian arm of the PREPARE study: an international project to evaluate and license a maternal vaccine against group B streptococcus.

BACKGROUND: Group B streptococcus (GBS) is a leading cause of sepsis, pneumonia and meningitis in infants, with long term neurodevelopmental sequelae. GBS may be associated with poor pregnancy outcomes, including spontaneous abortion, stillbirth and preterm birth. Intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis (IAP) is currently the only way to prevent early-onset disease (presenting at 0 to 6 days of life), although it has no impact on the disease presenting over 6 days of life and its implementation is challenging in resource poor countries. A maternal vaccine against GBS could reduce all GBS manifestations as well as improve pregnancy outcomes, even in low-income countries. MAIN BODY: The term "PREPARE" designates an international project aimed at developing a maternal vaccination platform to test vaccines against neonatal GBS infections by maternal immunization. It is a non-profit, multi-center, interventional and experimental study (promoted by the St George University of London. [UK]) with the aim of developing a maternal vaccination platform, determining pregnancy outcomes, and defining the extent of GBS infections in children and mothers in Africa. PREPARE also aims to estimate the protective serocorrelates against the main GBS serotypes that cause diseases in Europe and Africa and to conduct two trials on candidate GBS vaccines. PREPARE consists of 6 work packages. In four European countries (Italy, UK, Netherlands, France) the recruitment of cases and controls will start in 2020 and will end in 2022. The Italian PREPARE network includes 41 centers. The Italian network aims to collect: GBS isolates from infants with invasive disease, maternal and neonatal sera (cases); cord sera and GBS strains from colonized mothers whose infants do not develop GBS infection (controls). SHORT CONCLUSION: PREPARE will contribute information on protective serocorrelates against the main GBS serotypes that cause diseases in Europe and Africa. The vaccine that will be tested by the PREPARE study could be an effective strategy to prevent GBS disease

Globalisation, accounting and developing countries

Accounting is an instrument and an object in globalisation but its impact and manifestation is not uniform across Northern developed countries and Southern developing countries (DCs). This paper reviews contributions on globalisation and its influence on accounting in DCs, and identifies important research gaps. It examines the role of accounting in changing development policies, from state capitalism through neo-liberal market-based to good-governance policies. It then considers specific accounting issues, namely the diffusion of International Accounting Standards (now International Financial Reporting Standards) and how they promote global neo-liberalism; the development of the accounting profession in DCs in the face of competition from Northern global accounting firms and professional associations; accounting issues in state-owned organisations, and privatised and multinational corporations; government accounting reforms and the resurrection of the state in DCs; social and environmental accounting issues; and the rise of non-governmental organisations and their accounting and accountability. The discussion and conclusions reflect on achievements to date and important areas requiring further development