Questions

	Harmonization or diversity in federal countries?
	Do you have ideas for research into "Community Driven Development" and core public sector capacity?
	Is the concept of “Learning Organizations” actively applied in developing countries?

Harmonization or diversity in federal countries?
Mike Stevens at the World Bank has raised an interesting question, which we would like to put to the recipients of this newsletter:

"An issue that has surfaced in our work on civil service reform in federal countries is the extent to which states in a federal structure apply common pay scales, civil service rules and management institutions. In countries like Germany, India and Nigeria there is a great deal of institutional commonality across sub-national and between sub-national and national civil service systems. Although allowances reflect locational cost of living variations, Laender in Germany use identical pay scales negotiated centrally with unions. Indian Administrative Service staff progress through alternating postings in Delhi and the state of their original choice, and procedural changes introduced by the Government of India are soon adopted by states. In Nigeria, federal, state and local government public servants are part of a "harmonized" system, and the mandates of federal and state civil service commissions are identical. By contrast, pay scales amongst the states in Australia have always been separately set, as is the case in the United States, where there is diversity in the institutional arrangements for state governments.

The question arises: What is the experience of other federal countries, and what are the pros and cons of harmonization versus diversity? Harmonization facilitates transfers between services, reduces time spent on union pay negotiation, enables common staff training, and simplifies life for administrators. On the other hand it discourages innovation, fosters rigidity in pay structures, and may delay change and inhibit performance."

If you have information about the policies and practice of setting civil service salaries in federal systems, please reply to civilservice_mail@worldbank.org. Responses will be shared in our next newsletter.

Do you have ideas for research into "Community Driven Development" and core public sector capacity?

Poor people are often viewed as the target of poverty reduction efforts. Community-driven development (CDD) in contrast, treats poor people and their institutions as assets and partners in the development process. These initiatives rest on the premise that, given access to information and appropriate support, poor men and women can effectively mobilize and use resources to overcome their poverty. CDD initiatives give community organizations authority and control over resources and decisions that affect them. Specifically, this includes direct responsibility to manage internal resources and external matching grants, and responsibility for resource allocation decisions.

The World Bank and other donors are increasingly active in CDD initiatives. Some background is available at: http://essd.worldbank.org/CDDWk2000.nsf/Gweb/Home

CDD is relevant across many sectors. The potential for CDD is greatest for goods and services that are small in scale and not complex, and that require local cooperation, such as common pool goods (e.g., management of common pasture and surface water irrigation systems); public goods (e.g., local road maintenance), and civil goods (e.g., public advocacy and social monitoring).

It is clear that CDD is not a panacea for all goods and for all settings. Public goods that span many communities (e.g., district roads) are often best provided by elected local governments. , CDD is not always appropriate for large and complex systems, which require formal organizational structures. Similarly, private goods or toll goods are often better provided using a market-based approach, relying more on individual enterprises than on collective action. CDD can, however, fill gaps where markets are missing or imperfect, or where public institutions or local governments fail to fulfill their mandates.

The relationship between CDD initiatives and core public sector/central government capacity and accountabilities is not yet clear. Often the assumption is that there is no connection – or that the causal link works in one direction and that CDD initiatives will eventually lead to pressure for improvements in central government capacity.

We would like to stimulate some research into the possibility that the nature of central government (at federal or state level) can of itself help or hinder CDD initiatives. This might look at the connections between the sustainability of CDD projects and arrangements that hold local governments accountable to their constituents and transparent in their budget formulation and expenditure. Or it might look at the capacity of state or federal government to anticipate demand for the basic services that CDD initiatives are seeking to provide. We would be particularly interested in the links between civil service capacity at federal or state level, and the probability that CDD initiatives will be effective and sustainable.

Please send any suggestions for research on this issue to civilservice_mail@worldbank. It is possible that some small funds to facilitate practically-oriented research can be found.

Is the concept of “Learning Organizations” actively applied in developing countries?

CCMD in Canada has pioneered the concept of the “Learning Organization” (see below) and believe that this idea has considerable utility in the Canadian context. The importance of this concept for developing countries is less clear, however. CCMD is preparing a page on “Learning Organizations” for the World Bank’s Administrative & Civil Service Reform website. As a contribution to that page, do you have an interesting story to tell about the use of the "learning organization" concept in a developing country?

A “learning organization” is not simply the sum of the learning taking place among individuals within an organization. Instead, it is the way groups of people work together to acquire, interpret, share and use knowledge and information to advance organizational objectives. The lessons learned over time become an organization’s “memory,” which, when made accessible, lend continuity and coherence to a workplace.