Challenges of Public Administration Reform in Myanmar

Transcription

1 Challenges of Public Administration Reform in Myanmar Tin Maung Than Director/ Senior Research Fellow CESD-MDRI Centre for Economic and Social Development Myanmar Development Resource Institute

2 Is Myanmar too ambitious? Transition to Democracy Transition to Peace Transition to Market Economy Transition to Good Governance

3 The Context 2008 Constitution Previous Regime Low Salary/ Low Morality/ Discretionary Power Command & Loyalty Ex-military officers in bureaucracy Ethnic Issue & Military in Politics New Government: President +10 ministers Corruption Military Organizational Culture: Top Down & No Political Insulation Loyalty > Meritocracy Above Assistant Director level Personal Interests/ Distrust/ Defensive Psychology

4 Political Vision and Agenda in President s Speeches Politics: Peace, liberalization and transition to democracy Economy: Market Economy Macroeconomic fundamentals: Inflation stability and exchange rate reform Open Market: sim card 1.5 $ down from $ 5000 Import Liberalization: Car import Export Oriented: Garment industry Development: people centered development Administration: Good Governance, Clean Government 4

5 Reform: from a key PO minister s presentation to local & regional authorities POVERTY ALLEVIATION RURAL DEVELOPMENT POLITICAL ECONOMIC ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT GOOD GOVERNANCE CLEAN GOVERNMENT

6 Approach: Domestic + International/ Across Ministries + Individual Ministries Across Ministries thru Five Programs International Participation 1. OGP (Open Government Partnership) + Egovernment 2. EITI (Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative) Domestic Initiative 3. Reducing red tape linked to WB s Doing Business Report, yet far distant to be called regulatory reform 4. Decentralization: Administrative adjustment to 2008 constitution 5. To adopt the Civil Service Competency Framework for capacity building and restructuring 9

7 Approach: Domestic + International/ Across Ministries + Individual Ministries Individual ministerial reform Public finance management (Finance Ministry) Comprehensive Education Sector Reform (Education Ministry - CESR) Corporatization (eg., telecommunication, airline) 7

8 Reality Check on Six Dimensions: Myanmar s Governance Indicators Standard Error: 0.15 to 0.33 Indicators (Percentile Rank) Voice and Accountability Political Stability and Absence of Violence/ Terrorism Government Effectiveness Regulatory Quality Rule of Law Control of Corruption

9 Structural Change: Permanent Secretary Minister Deputy Minister Permanent Secretary Administration & HR Policy, Regulatory Review, Monitoring & Evaluation Statistics & Planning Domestic/ Foreign Relation & Media Relation Finance & Internal Audit

10 Major Institutional Challenges Leadership political will: yes at top but weak at multilevel vision: vague and not shared Authority Structure: silos in nature (from military command?) Bureaucracy disempowered No separation of political and bureaucracy level Reform not grounded on coherent technical and contextual assessment and knowledge Lack of overall public sector structural assessment Lack of Assessment in all areas Our problem is lack of knowledge of how to change (one of the rectors)

11 Challenges Weak core values of good civil service: merit, competence, continuity, political insulation & accountability Co-ordination: several committees but weak in implementation Unable to adopt whole-of-government approach yet in administrative simplification Need to develop an organization like Local Better Regulation Office in UK, Danish Evaluation Institute for Local Governments in Denmark, Kafka department in Belgian (Administrative Simplification) Institutional Development Programme (IDP) in Egypt, Cabinet Implementation Unit in Australia (to set well defined target, accountability)

12 Challenges Limited resource available E-government in initial stage Rent seeking and corruption Standardization of procedures: lack of standardization promotes discretion leading to corruption Low capacities and skills Measurement and evaluation: lack of clear objectives and targets

13 Thanks Questions?