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

What do civil servants say?

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”

Evidence of politician effects?

How do politicians go about changing the way the bureaucracy works?

Politicians transfer officials across posts

Politicians change the organisations that implement public projects

15% more likely to decentralise

Politicians directly engage officials

12% more likely to directly engage

officials

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?

Conclusions: the big idea