ABSTRACT
Administrative reforms have become an important part of the developmental process of many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries since independence, due to the important role of the state in development in the region. At independence, many SSA countries inherited a weak public administration system. This chapter examines the reforms implemented in SSA countries under the post-independent era, neoliberalism, and the post-Washington Consensus. Public sector reforms that were introduced as part of the structural adjustment programs (SAP) in the 1980s are often called the first generation reforms in SSA countries. The mechanism for achieving these objectives included intensifying privatization policies, introducing performance management systems in the civil service, decentralizing/disaggregating public sector functions into smaller, more responsive agencies, and making citizens the focus of service delivery. The chapter also highlights some of the problems associated with the two main components of public sector reforms under neoliberal policies privatization and retrenchment.
