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IFG - New report looks at whether lessons from the UK’s reform experience can help improve government effectiveness across the world

Politicians from around the world frequently look to the UK for help and expertise to design and implement their own government reforms, often encouraged by global figures such as Michael Barber and Tony Blair. But reform is a messy business that takes decades, and too many efforts by the development community to help improve government effectiveness have limited impact.

A new report, ‘Improving government effectiveness around the world’, looks at why these efforts so often struggle and makes the case for a different approach that learns from successful reforms. It draws on the experience of the UK Government’s National School of Government International (NSGI) and research by the independent think-tank the Institute for Government (IfG) and others.

The report finds frequent failure of projects that mimic UK reforms has two causes:

  1. The projects fail to build trust or create local ownership
  2. Project managers often lack the essential practitioner understanding of the original reform

However, the experience of UK reforms can be a resource if those drawing on them understand the context in which they were used and display humility about the extent to which they may be relevant elsewhere. The paper refers to NSGI’s work in a number of countries, such as Zambia and the Kurdistan region of Iraq, as examples of where this approach has been successful.

Peter Thomas, Senior Fellow at the IfG, said:

“There is much to learn from other countries – but some valuable UK reforms have been done a disservice by global consultancies which turn them into neat products that claim universal applicability regardless of local context, culture and capability. As in Kyrgyzstan and Bahrain, for example, you need to match experienced practitioners of reforms with their counterparts in the recipient government, and give them time to work together to adapt to local context and priorities.”

Caterina Alari, Senior Advisor at the NSGI, said:

“The legacy of successful reform is improved capability in the government. So we are in the business of helping people learn through doing, and helping them to reflect on what they have learned through doing. As in the case of Cyprus and Ethiopia, we found that people respond much better to practitioners, rather than the usual model of consultants or technical experts.”

The UK is the second biggest aid donor in the world and increasingly engages in direct partnerships in fragile and developing countries, making this report essential reading for the development community.

Notes to editors

  1. The Institute for Government is an independent think tank that works to make government more effective. This report is part of the ‘InsideOUT’ series which offers a platform for personal reflection and the views are of the authors, not the Institute. The series is produced to address the fact that there is little systematic attempt to capture the knowledge and insights of people who have worked closely with or in government and share them with a wider audience.
  2. The National School of Government International (NSGI) was created in 2012 as a cross-departmental unit sponsored by the Department for International Development (DfID), the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Cabinet Office. It was envisaged to be a small, agile, cross-government unit supporting civil service reform outside of the UK, using UK civil servants from a range of departments in both short- and long-term advisory roles. Since April 2015 it has been situated within the Stabilisation Unit, accountable to the National Security Council.
  3. For more information, please contact nicole@instituteforgovernment.org.uk / 07850313791.
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