ABSTRACT
In 1996 Tanzania was one of a number of developing countries to adopt the agency form of organisation as a part of its public sector reform programme, and legislation establishing ‘executive agencies’ was passed in 1997. The Executive Agency Programme was assisted by the British Government’s Department for International Development (DfID) as a major part of its aid package for civil service reform in Tanzania. The question raised in this chapter is, ‘Can new public management inspired reforms, in this case the creation of semi-autonomous agencies, assist a developing country in meeting its goals?’ The chapter draws extensively on the findings (and subsequent report) of evaluative research undertaken in Tanzania in September 2000 and May 2001 on behalf of DfID (Caulfield and Talbot 2002).
