Training Public Administrators in Africa: A Case Study of Civil Service Employees in Ghana

Abstract

Much of the dialogue on public administration training in Africa is about how to prepare administrators to cope with pressures global forces exert without considering how to educate individuals to meet also the unique demands of public service. This essay examines the nature of training in Africa, drawing on Ghana's experience with management training programs. It first describes and critiques training based on bureaucratic and managerial perspectives, which emphasize the acquisition of rational, technical, and managerial skills comparable to international and global standards, and argues that such training does not necessarily provide career professionals with a broad work ethic suitable for the local context. It then concludes by suggesting the possibility of developing a composite training program that takes account also of the need to provide non-traditional skills and experience-based knowledge professionals need to be able to operate in the unique historical, social, and political conditions of Africa.     

Skill Development and Regional Mobility: Lessons from the Australia-Pacific Technical College

Developing countries can lose part of their investment in training skilled workers who later emigrate. One innovative response is for migrants’ destination countries to help finance skilled emigrants’ training ex ante – linking skill creation and skill mobility. We describe one such project, the Australia-Pacific Technical College (APTC), which has financed vocational training in five Pacific island developing countries for employment both at home and abroad – including employment in Australia. The APTC has attained its goal of skill creation, but not its goal of skill mobility. We offer explanations for this result and lessons for future policy innovation.     

Suicide prevention training outside the mental health service system: evaluation of a state-wide program in Australia for rehabilitation and disability staff in the field of traumatic brain injury

The training needs of staff working in mainstream (i.e., noncrisis) health settings with client groups that have moderate levels of suicide risk have not been extensively addressed. An initiative to train rehabilitation and disability staff working in the field of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is described. A program was adapted from a generic state health department training program, and disseminated by means of established training networks within the brain injury field. Program efficacy was evaluated as the training was provided across the state of Victoria in a series of 1-day workshops. Participants (n = 86) completed two evaluation measures designed for this purpose (objective knowledge test, self-rating of knowledge and skills) on three occasions (pre- and postworkshop, 6-month follow-up). Compared to a control group of rehabilitation and disability workers who did not receive the training (n = 27), the workshop participants made significant gains in objective knowledge and reported skills, and maintained these gains at the 6-month follow-up. The Suicide Interview Response Inventory-2 (Neimeyer & Pfeiffer, 1994) was administered to a subgroup of participants as a validating measure, and correlated significantly with scores from the objective knowledge test. This process may provide a template for developing more fine-grained suicide prevention strategies among other health-related at-risk groups.     

Why African countries are interested in building agricultural partnerships with China: lessons from Rwanda and Uganda

Ten years ago, China and several African countries began to develop agricultural training centres, and opened the door for a cascade of optimism and pessimism on why China is interested in developing agricultural partnerships in Africa. Seldom has the appeal of such partnerships for African countries been explored, hence limiting our capacity to fully understand the dynamics of Sino–African agricultural relations. This article addresses the issue by examining why some African countries are interested in partnering with China in agricultural development. This article is based on 44 interviews that were conducted in 2015 at the Sino–African agricultural training centres in Rwanda and Uganda. I argue that Rwanda and Uganda seek to partner with China, as China can offer intermediary agricultural technologies that enable these respective countries to implement aspects of their domestic agricultural development plans. The article also provides reason to challenge the existing optimistic and pessimistic conventions about Sino–African agricultural affairs.     

Training of Civil Servants in Turkey: Progress,Problems, and Prospects

Abstract

Today, public servants in Turkey, like in many countries around the world, face major challenges, including an increasingly demanding citizenry, intensifying globalization processes, rapid developments in the use of information and communication technologies, and the rise in the number and influence of the civil society organizations. To overcome, or at least to lessen, the possible negative impacts of these and other such challenges, thoughtfully designed, and effectively implemented training activities may serve as catalyst. After a brief introduction, the article first identifies and describes the main policies and institutional players associated with training and development of civil servants in Turkey. Second, the article identifies and concisely discusses the most critical and enduring problems concerning training and development of civil servants in the country. The third section of the article evaluates prospects for developing effective training policies and practices. In doing so, the article offers ideas and arguments about the issue around the following topics: publicness, performance, proficiency and professionalism, participation, and partnerships and partnering. The article concludes with a brief summary of the issues discussed along with one specific suggestion for future research on training and development policies and practices in Turkey.     

Some Neglected Aspects of Performance in Field Administration in Bangladesh

Performance of public service personnel does not depend solely upon their qualifications and level of training. Rational organization of activities and division of work with effective work processes are important, and it is necessary to ensure that employees have appropriate qualifications and training for performing the tasks assigned to them. Rules and procedures help facilitate their work and provide flexibility to innovate. Attractive terms and conditions of service, and other intangible rewards such as opportunities for contribution to the mission of the organization, participation in decision-making, and recognition by the employer and the clients of public service are also important. Based on data collected from sub-district level public agencies in Bangladesh, this article argues that performance at the field level is affected by a number of additional organizational, political, and social factors. They include personnel turnover, procedural delays, multiplicity of tasks, decision pattern and behavior, politician-administrator interaction, dual loyalty of officials, inadequate facilities for fulfilling family obligations, and attachment to major urban centers for health and educational services. These elements need to be integrated in the framework for assessing performance of public service personnel in developing countries. It is necessary to look beyond the commonly known causes for dealing with performance problems.     

Archetypal Terrorist Events in the United States

This research presents a typology of terrorist events rather than the more common typologies of terrorist groups and ideologies. Archetypal analysis, a quantitative methodology to identify pure types, was used with data in START's Global Terrorism Database to identify archetypal attacks in the United States. A set of seven archetypal events was identified including abortion bombings, poisonings, Aryan hate, hostage-taking, fire/bomb for damage, assassination, and the catastrophic Big Bad. These archetypes may be useful for training and exercising for events with additional potential value for developing theory of terrorist events.     

Learning about terrorism: Analysis,simulations, and future directions

This paper surveys the various activities of the Study Group on International Terrorism at the University of Oklahoma. The Study Group has employed the following phases in analyzing a form of conflict that has increasingly seized the world's headlines and challenged the capacity of governments to meet a particularly insidious type of political violence. In PHASE I, Ascertaining the Scope of the Investigation, problems related to defining “terrorism” and evolving a focus for analysis are recounted. In PHASE II, The Collection of Data and Initial Analysis, the techniques employed by the Study Group in collecting and evaluating data dealing with incidents of terrorism are discussed. In addition, a number of the preliminary findings of the studies are presented. In PHASE III, Application and Evaluation, the methods by which the initial findings were employed to develop a wide variety of programs related to developing alternatives to meet the threat of terrorism are discussed. Particular emphasis is placed on problems related to reconciling the need for an effective tactical response when an incident occurs with the equally pressing requirement for effective hostage negotiation. Under the section entitled Simulations, the techniques employed in developing a series of highly realistic simulations involving: (1) the University of Oklahoma Security Department, (2) the Norman Police Department, (3) members of a U.S. Army Special Forces Unit, and (4) flight attendants aboard the mock‐up of a cabin at the training facility of a leading international airline are presented. In addition, certain patterns that emerge from the simulations are noted. In PHASE IV, Policy Implications, the patterns mat emerged from the simulations are related to broader policy questions that not only include the need for more effective training techniques for law enforcement personnel, but also stresses the need to provide exercises that would promote administrative cooperation among senior level officials from the different jurisdictions that would be involved if an incident were to occur. In PHASE V, Future Directions, new areas of analysis and training are presented as they particularly relate to the need to sensitize personnel from both the public and private sector who may be high‐risk targets for terrorists attacks.     

Capacity building and the (re)production of intellectual property rights

There is little settled or uncontested about the trips agreement and the global governance of intellectual property rights (iprs). This suggests that the provision of training and technical assistance to build capacity is itself part of the reproduction of the dominant (trips constituted) view of iprs and is therefore a political project rather than merely technical provision. On one side many developing countries' elites and governments are keen to join the international trading community and see the need to adopt the increasingly universalised rules of the system as part of this process. On the other hand, there are vocal constituencies less supportive of an unqualified adoption of trips‐related standards of legal protection for iprs. Given the continuing importance of legal structures to underpin and constitute markets (and this is most especially the case in markets for knowledge and information), the processes by which the trips solution to the question of knowledge ownership is being globalised through technical training needs to be understood and analysed.     

Generalists and specialists in executive politics: Why ambitious meta‐policies so often fail

This article contributes to the politics of policy‐making in executive government. It introduces the analytical distinction between generalists and specialists as antagonistic players in executive politics and develops the claim that policy specialists are in a structurally advantaged position to succeed in executive politics and to fend off attempts by generalists to influence policy choices through cross‐cutting reform measures. Contrary to traditional textbook public administration, we explain the views of generalists and specialists not through their training but their positions within an organization. We combine established approaches from public policy and organization theory to substantiate this claim and to define the dilemma that generalists face when developing government‐wide reform policies (‘meta‐policies’) as well as strategies to address this problem. The article suggests that the conceptual distinction between generalists and specialists allows for a more precise analysis of the challenges for policy‐making across government organizations than established approaches.     

Job Satisfaction among Primary School Personnel in Madagascar

This article analyses the job satisfaction of primary school teachers in Madagascar. Based on the estimation of multilevel models, low wages and problems getting paid, job insecurity, lack of in-service training, high pupil-teacher ratios, and lack of basic infrastructure and teaching materials are identified as the main reasons for dissatisfaction. Principals’ control of teachers’ activities also adversely affects satisfaction, suggesting that, in Malagasy schools, neither school directors nor teachers have succeeded in adopting organisational cultures based on cooperation among their members. These results are likely to stimulate debates on educational policy, both in Madagascar and in many other developing countries.     

Notable Literature on Germany's Red Army Faction within the Context of Die RAF und der linke Terrorismus

The world is urbanizing rapidly, yet Western military forces have yet to come to terms with the peculiar demands of urban warfare. The harsh urban environment, particularly in the developing world, is an ideal arena for “asymmetrical” adversaries seeking to neutralize the technological, logistical, and organizational advantages currently enjoyed by modern military forces.

After examining some of the security implications of urbanization, this article explores three recent representative examples of urban warfare: Beirut (1982), Mogadishu (1993), and Grozny (1994–1995). In each case study, the organization, equipment, and training of the forces involved are examined, and conclusions are drawn about what types of military systems, munitions, and force structure were effective, and why.

The final section of the article draws together lessons from these case studies and from other accounts of urban battles in an effort to understand what is needed to improve military performance in this environment. The author concludes that greater effectiveness will require changes in organization and equipment; more important, it will also require a change in a military organizational culture that has largely ignored the challenge of fighting an asymmetrical adversary on urban terrain.     

THE ROLE OF EXTERNAL INSPECTION IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES: THE CASE OF THE UK TRAINING MARKET

We consider two interpretations of the role of external inspection in the public services in the UK in the context of publicly funded, work‐based training programmes for young people. The first is that inspection provides substantive information to buyers concerning training quality, thereby improving efficiency in the ‘training market'. The second is that it provides procedurally oriented reassurance concerning service quality to government and the public, irrespective of substantive quality. Evidence is drawn from the inspection procedures and reports of the Adult Learning Inspectorate between 2001 and 2005. The inspectors rated training providers on various attributes, some clearly procedural, others potentially substantive. We find that while inspectors took both procedural and substantive dimensions of training into account in judging the quality of a provider's services, they attached considerably more weight to procedural than to substantive attributes. In particular, they undervalued the trainee completion rate, despite its potential association with the substantive quality of training and the priority the government attaches to raising it. These results are interpreted as evidence of limited validity in inspection findings, which do little to resolve information asymmetries in the UK training market.     

Releasing Constraints to Growth or Pushing on a String? Policies and Performance of Mexican Micro-Firms

Using firm-level data from Mexico, this paper investigates the firm characteristics associated with participation in credit markets, access to training, tax payments and membership in business associations. We find that firms which participate in these institutions exhibit significantly higher profits. Moreover, firms that borrow from formal or informal sources and those that pay taxes are significantly more likely to stay in business but firms that received credit exhibit lower rates of income growth. These results persist when firm characteristics that are arguably correlated with unobserved entrepreneurial ability are controlled for. Our findings suggest that the significant within-country differences in firm productivity observed in developing economies are due in part to market and government failures that limit the ability of micro-firms to reach their optimal sizes.     

Lessons learned from the reinvention of training in two federal agencies

This paper describes the efforts of two federal agency training divisions to reinvent themselves, and provides experiences and insights which will help other training divisions facing the sometimes frightening prospect of reinvention. The paper also suggests that a strategic, customer, performance improvement, and accountability orientation is key to reinventing training in government.     

Social Protection Policy or a Political Largesse: Disability Fund Efficacy Assessment and Roadblocks to Sustainable Development Goals

ABSTRACT

Social protection policies have been tools for fighting social exclusion, inequality and reducing poverty incidence among vulnerable populations in developing countries. In this regard, the government of Ghana through the institution of the disability fund has demonstrated a commitment to advancing the cause of people with disabilities. In assessing policy efficacy, the realities on the ground, as well as policy challenges, 130 persons with disability (PWDs) and 10 Key Informants (KIs) were recruited from across five regions. In addition to conducting face-to-face interviews with PWDs, the study conducted a number of interviews with key informants (KIs). The study findings concluded amongst other things that, the policy is plagued with challenges such as limited information about the fund, fund access difficulty and disbursement delays. It was also revealed that; the policy is saddled with opacity and partisan politics. To ensure efficiency and expedite the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1, the research proposed for policy restructuring. In addition to introducing financial literacy and management training for beneficiaries, the study proffers decoupling the fund management from political structures to help meet the objectives for which it was incepted.     

Customization in Civil Service Training: Implications for Outsourcing Human Resources Management

In the public sector, central training institutes once played an irreplaceable role in formulating training policies and providing training programs to government employees. The introduction of new public management (NPM) has stimulated a reform agenda in human resources (HR) management, resulting in a shift from centralized training to decentralized or outsourced training; to be precise, making civil service training more demand-driven and lessening the role of central training institutes. Local-level governments and agencies have acquired more autonomy in deciding whether to provide training in-house, or to purchase relevant services from private providers. In addition, dramatic institutional, economic, and operational changes in the public sector in the twenty-first century have brought about competition among governments worldwide in terms of innovative and creative ideas, prompting them to equip their employees with the relevant skills for the governments to remain competitive. This study explores how civil service training in Hong Kong has been decentralized and customized from the viewpoint of civil servants being trainees, and assesses the role of the Civil Service Training and Development Institute as a centralized training institute for Hong Kong civil servants within the modern, decentralized, and consumerized HR management regime.     

Present Situation,Problems, and Prospect of China's Public Servant Training

Abstract

Quality and ability of public servants, largely determined by education and training, are the key to the effective government administration. How to give full play to the effect of education in improving quality and ability of public servants is an important issue in the public servant training. The thesis reviews China's system of the public servant education and training, introduces and analyzes the basic training approaches as well as problems, and anticipates the future of China's public servant training.     

“Scientific independence”, capacity building,and the development of UNESCO’s science and technology agenda for Africa

Abstract

This article analyses the shifting rationales for scientific collaboration in the work of the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in the science sector in Africa from the late colonial period through to the era of capacity building. Focusing on the late colonial period and the post-independence decades of “national science” in Africa, it analyses UNESCO’s role in science policy, engineering training, and natural resources research. It demonstrates that in the era of national science UNESCO’s activities were couched in the language of independence: developing capacities in the sciences was regarded as the key to obtaining “scientific independence” to match the recently obtained political independence. This marked a significant change from the 1950s when UNESCO based its operations in Africa on collaborations with the European colonial powers. The article argues that the link between scientific independence and political self-determination gave way as UNESCO rebranded scientific capacity-building activities as efforts in the pursuit of an unclearly-defined common good.