Public administration and governance: a sector-level analysis of World Bank aid

Abstract

This article turns the question about socioeconomic development away from its usual goal of economic growth and argues that governance is another appropriate measure of economic development. Instead of econometric analyses of country-level data, this article shows how aggregating project-level data to a sector-based approach is a new methodological tool for determining whether project and policy objectives translate into improved governance. Using the World Bank’s public administration, law and justice projects and panel-corrected time series, this article finds that the World Bank’s public administration, law and justice projects inconsistently improve governance. failures. Policy prescriptions removed from implementation considerations may limit public sector management project effectiveness.Points for practitioners (1) Foreign aid evaluation is assisted by sector-specific analyses. This is comple- mentary to traditional foreign aid evaluations’ focus on countries in general. (2) The World Bank’s Public Sector Management projects inconsistently improve a client country’s governance environment. (3) The World Bank’s ‘efficiency’ assumptions and partial understanding of public administration’s models may contribute to uneven project performances. (4) Certain public sector management projects neg- atively impact rule of law and the control of corruption. (5) Foreign aid researchers should re-engage their understanding of project outcomes and implementation