Public Administration Reform Global Program

Effective management of public sector employment and compensation is a vital activity of governments, with broad implications for fiscal sustainability, public sector productivity, and the competitiveness of the overall labor market. Governments’ expenditures on employee compensation represent approximately 30 percent of their expenditures, and wage bill management therefore has fiscal and expenditure efficiency implications. This paper aims to provide a framework for conducting public sector employment and compensation assessments that can help develop evidence-based reforms. 

The Armenia public sector accountability survey is instrumental in addressing the disparities between de jure laws and regulations and de facto practices and seeks to fill existing knowledge gaps and inform further definition and implementation of the government’s anticorruption initiatives. The survey was implemented by the Corruption Prevention Commission (CPC) and the World Bank. It aimed to: (i) provide a comprehensive assessment of the patterns and determinants of integrity risks, and how they can impact productivity and performance in the public administration in Armenia; (ii) understand the perceptions of Armenian public servants regarding ongoing anticorruption initiatives, their awareness of integrity risks, and the needs for further interventions; and (iii) generate evidence, support and inform further definition of reforms and anticorruption initiatives that help address and counter weak integrity practices in the public sector in Armenia.

Corruption in public service is multifaceted, thus requiring granular information about its nature, prevalence, and vulnerable actors. This Survey on Ethics and Corruption in the Federal Public Service was held online from April 28 to May 28, 2021, in partnership with the Office of the Federal Comptroller General (CGU), the Ministry of the Economy, and the National School of Public Administration (ENAP). All civil servants were represented in the sample, totaling 22,130 respondents. The sample covered all federative units and ministries. Most civil servants report having witnessed some sort of unethical practice during their time in the public sector. Of all respondents, 58.7 percent stated that they witnessed some unethical practice during their career in public service. The most frequent practices were using one's position to help friends or family and bending the rules under pressure from one’s superiors. Over the past three years, around one third of all civil servants (33.4 percent) witnessed some unethical practice, according to their reports.

Mali’s health sector faces considerable governance challenges that impact the quality-of-service delivery and health outcomes. The objective of this study is to focus on human resources for health (HRH) in Mali, analyzing the management, compensation, and attitudinal factors that influence the workforce and ultimately the quality-of-service delivery to inform the World Bank’s (WB) engagements, in particular, the ongoing performance-based financing (PBF) program. The study draws on new data collected through a survey of 2326 health workers in primary health facilities and the health administration conducted by the WB. The survey explored the quality of management of the health sector at the central, district, and commune levels, the quality of governance of health facilities, and the experiences and perceptions of frontline health personnel on recruitment and selection, performance management, promotion and career advancement, and salary satisfaction. The HRH survey also examined perceptions around political interference in the health sector, health worker motivation, patient satisfaction, and community engagement.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) face the dual and interlinked challenge of lack of jobs and low quality of public services. Labor force participation rates, especially of women, are among the lowest in Europe, and the country faces high and sustained levels of unemployment, especially of the youth. Even within the employed sector there are concerns regarding the quality of jobs, including high levels of informality. The dearth of quality jobs is linked to skills mismatches between the demand and supply of labor, which in turn reflects the relatively low quality of human capital of workers, and poor education and health services. The objective of this report is to examine the “public sector labor market” in BiH and its implications for this twin challenge.

What is the appropriate level of employment in the public sector as a whole and for essential workers like public administrators, teachers, and doctors? Is the public sector wage bill affordable? Does the public sector pay competitive wages compared to the private sector to attract talent while not crowding out private sector jobs? Does the public sector pay equal wages to workers in similar jobs and with similar skills? Does the public sector promote gender equality in employment? And are public sector pay and employment practices contributing to higher public sector productivity, better service delivery, and improved governance? The Worldwide Bureaucracy Indicators (WWBI) were developed in response to growing calls to provide more empirical foundation to similar questions on the public workforce. This report sets out to introduce the Indicators estimated from microdata drawn from the labor force and household welfare surveys and augmented with administrative data for 202 economies covering the demographics of the private and public sector workforces, relative wages and premiums, and the public sector wage bill.

There is a youth mental health crisis in Lithuania. Mental health challenges have several deleterious consequences for the youth, including poor performance in school and negative outcomes later in life such as substance abuse, poor health, unemployment, and incarceration. Addressing this crisis is a priority for the Government of Lithuania, as documented in several strategic plans and budgetary programs. This study was based on a conceptual framework of a production function of youth mental health service delivery. The report is structured to give a comprehensive picture of the governance factors in Lithuania’s mental health services delivery system.