Impact Evaluation 4 Peace24-27 March 2014, Lisbon, Portugal
1
The role of politicians in delivering government projects
Daniel RoggerEconomist, University College London
DIME (from September, 2014)Latin America and the Caribbean’s Citizen SecurityTeam
Civil servants views of politicians
• Nigeria: “Politicians significantly influence the success of 50% of public projects”
• Guyana: “42% of officials stated politicians' interference is a significant determinant of project success”
• Bangladesh: “Interference by politicians leads to a 50% increase in losses from corruption”
Fragile/conflict countries
• State failure hits citizens even harder
• Weakness of government may be a key source of conflict and fragility
• Less checks and balances on politicians, and on their interaction with civil servants
Measurement!
• Document how political factors are affecting your interventions.
• How are your civil service reforms impacting on the nature of interaction between politicians and officials?
• How do civil service reforms change the political dynamics within the civil service?
Reform!
• Add political interference reforms onto your wider civil service reforms, and evaluate them
• Example: Some types of decentralisation politicise service delivery in a negative way, whilst other types build effective compacts – what is the response of politicians going to be to your specific reform?
Experiment!
• Experiment with the best means of managing the relationship between politicians and civil servants
• The BIG question: What provides politicians with an incentive to support the civil service in its duties to deliver public services?