Six Regional Technical Consultations to Improve the Bank's Public Service Delivery Index

4 December 2023
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African Development Bank (Abidjan)
press release By Ticipants At East Africa At the Public Service Delivery Index: They Noted That Psdi Is At the Centre of Optimising Efficiency and Effectiveness in Government Delivery.

To help improve the quality and coverage of public services delivered to African citizens, the African Development Bank Group held six regional technical consultative meetings on its Public Service Delivery Index (PSDI) initiative. These took place in late October and November in cities across Africa: Abidjan, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Abuja and Tunis.

The PSDI initiative is designed to monitor progress and publicize the information so that it is widely and easily available. The goal is to enhance the transparency and accountability of public service delivery to promote inclusive and sustainable development across the regional member countries. Public services are critical for development. Chief Economist and Vice President of the Economic Governance and Knowledge Management Complex of the African Development Bank, Prof. Kevin Urama, emphasized that better public services can raise living standards and speed up the achievement of development goals, including Africa's Agenda 2063, the Bank Group's Ten-Year Strategy and the High 5s priorities, and the global Sustainable Development Goals.

The meetings sought to confirm the PSDI indicators, or measurements of the initiative's effectiveness, with feedback and comments on its methodology, framework, and structure. Discussions, guided by the Bank PSDI Technical Advisory Committee, touched on the framework, the primary and secondary data and their relevance and appropriateness to the PSDI's content. The PSDI Household Perception Survey fieldwork, completed in July 2023 and covering 90% of African countries, was presented.

Participants came from governments, including ministries of finance and planning, public service commission, monitoring and evaluation, public works, infrastructure investment planning, public health, agriculture and national statistics offices. Also represented were research institutes, universities, think tanks, the private sector, civil society and municipalities, as well as partners including the Tony Blair Institute, the International Labor Organization, the African Economic Research Consortium, the Ford Foundation and IPSOS. Civil society stakeholders were invited to share their on-the-ground experiences.

Dr Sylvester Obong'o, Director of the Performance and Service Delivery Transformation Office of the Government of Kenya, said there is a need to measure the productivity of public services rather than the number of training and feasibility studies conducted. "When we say we are doing well, we have achieved this infrastructure, what is the impact on citizens?" he asked. He welcomed the index as a tool that "will be responsive to both the needs of citizens and the orientations of project implementers and governments."

Ms Harsha Dayal, Director of Research and Knowledge Management for the South African government, described the index as "a game changer for the continent's development, a step closer to bringing functioning bureaucracy across governments." Participants at the Southern Africa session asked the Bank to advance the PSDI measurement with policy advice to the public sector to build state capacity that is agile, adaptive and participatory.

In Nigeria, participants commended the index's inclusion of renewable energy as a futuristic indicator of sustainable development. The index provides key factors for businesses to thrive and generate economic growth and it looks beyond the basics need to aspirational goals for RMCs; and it should achieve such goals.

At the East Africa region meeting, Ms Margaret Mliwa, Grantmaker and Strategic Program Specialist at Ford Foundation, a seed funder of the PSDI project, said she is eager to see the extent to which the index will "incentivize African governments to strive to do better in delivering public services."

North Africa attendees, commended the PSDI's focus on results-based management and efficiency-driven budgeting.

Participants expressed their appreciation for the timely initiative and offered to support the African Development Bank to implement the project.

Find the full Opening Remarks of the Vice President and Chief Economist here.

Central Africa participants pose for a group photo during their consultative meeting on the Public Service Delivery Index.

Ochieng' Ogodo, African Development Bank Group, [email protected]

Read the original article on African Development Bank (AfDB).

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