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Overview
The globalization of information—satellite TV, internet, phone and fax—serve to enhance citizens' awareness of their rights, obligations, options and alternatives and strengthens demands for greater accountability from the public sector. However, the power of accountability is significantly reduced if citizens are unable to measure their government's performance in a meaningful way, which is precisely the topic of this timely book. The abstract concept of 'government performance' can only be an effective tool in public debate when there are concrete statistics measuring performance and benchmarks against which current indicators can be compared.
'Public Services Delivery' offers a comprehensive view of government performance measurement. The first part examines systems or frameworks for measuring the performance of government at the national level and at local levels of government. The second part of the book focuses on particular sectors that form the core of essential government services: health, education, welfare, waste disposal, and infrastructure.
This book provides powerful tools to: a. development practitioners to evaluate projects, b. to policymakers to reform their government's policies, and c. to public interest groups that wish to pressure their government for improvements in government services.
Synopsis
One of the greatest challenges facing governments of developing countries is delivering basic public services equitably. In this collection of seven articles, contributors describe how government performance monitoring for accountability is a useful tool in determining the efficacy of service delivery, including its implementation, systems of measurement, assessment tools, early outcome interpretation and implementation, and its role in public and private sector development. One article addresses the performance of health services in reaching the poor and the concluding article describes measuring public sector performance in infrastructure. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR