A New Horizon: Advancing Public Sector Reform in Africa - Happy Kayuni

EPISODE SUMMARY
Dan Banik and Happy Kayuni discuss the complex and multifaceted public sector reforms process on the African continent and potential disconnection between the rhetoric and impact of such reforms.
EPISODE NOTES
Many African countries have undergone various phases of public sector reform aimed at enhancing efficiency and service delivery. But how effective have such reforms been? How and to what extent can some of these reforms be characterised as "institutional mimicry", where institutions adopt the language and behavior of reform without necessarily achieving substantial changes on the ground? How meritocratic is the civil service? And what about political interference, bureaucratic motivation and/or demotivation, corruption, and the role and influence of external actors?
Happy Kayuni is a professor of political science at the University of Malawi’s Politics and Government Department. He is currently also the Executive Dean of the School of Law, Economics and Government at the University of Malawi. His main areas of expertise are in the following areas: political governance, public administration and management, and gender and international development policy. @HappyKayuni
Key highlights
Introduction - 00:24
Development or the lack of it in Malawi - 03:50
State capacity, policy formulation and implementation - 06:56
Everyday challenges facing civil servants - 13:50
The major areas of public sector reforms on the African continent - 22:20
Reforms for whom and for what - 29:05
Instituting discipline in the civil service - 40:55
Legitimacy of the state and role of external actors - 46:44
Host
Professor Dan Banik (@danbanik @GlobalDevPod)
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[@sifisombele3288]

Good evening Prof Banik,
Thank you for such an informative session, furthermore, thanks to Prof Kayuni, as a junior manager employed by one of South Africa's Metropolitan municipalities, the lessons gained will be useful for improving service delivery for the benefit of the communities we serve. Looking forward to more sessions of this nature.