Managing For Results and Performance in Asia: Assessing Reform Initiatives in the Public Sector

Abstract

In recent years governments in many developing countries have followed developed nations in establishing results and performance monitoring frameworks that measure and report on progress against strategic plans, budgets and sector strategies. In addition, some Asian nations have experimented with increased devolution of fiscal authority to empower regional and local governments, in part to stimulate performance-oriented reform. Increased information technology support is another of the many changes in progress to improve performance and employee productivity and to create knowledge cultures in Asia. This paper reports on these and related management reform initiatives and offers analysis of their progress to date. The first section of the paper addresses five key elements of the new results and performance orientation: (i) clarifying the language of performance, (ii) defining indicative performance indicators, (iii) exploring tools for performance measurement, (iv) making changes to improve performance, and (v) creating the performance and knowledge culture in organizations. The paper then explores fiscal devolution in Asia, illustrating reform through five nation case studies. The paper ends with conclusions on the progress of fiscal devolution and results and performance-oriented reforms in the public sector in Asia.