ABSTRACT
Building on the previous two chapters, which set up the current context and historical background against which aid politics and reforms have taken place, this chapter delves into the key empirical case study of the book - administrative reform. This particular reform in crucial because of the highly contradictory situation it found itself in: on the one hand, administrative reform is a necessity from the point of view of state reconstruction, and entertains many synergies with other reforms and initiatives due to the cross-cutting role of the administration. Equally important, it is also considered crucial for improving capacity, which is a vital element for aid delivery and coordination on which donors often insist. On the other hand, as this chapter demonstrates, it has been almost completely sidelined, sunk into benign neglect and bypassed by both donors and state authorities alike. The argument the chapter is making is that administrative reform, largely imposed upon ultimately reluctant power holders and caught between the conflicting objectives of the triple transition, has been diverted from its aims, in a process that donor participation played no small part in shaping. In other words, for reasons that have to do with donors and aid agencies’ broader engagement in the DRC and the privileging of some issues over others - particularly that of holding the 2006 elections at all costs - some crucial questions were postponed, prominently among which figured that of administrative redress. To build its case, the chapter revisits in detail the process of civil service reform launched in 2003 and supported by several donors, which was officially active until 2010. The material is drawn from field research (interviews and observations) conducted between 2009 and 2011 in Kinshasa, with informed participants in CSR as well as relevant stakeholders. Throughout the chapter, a detailed reconstruction and critical analysis of several aspects of this aborted phase of administrative reform is laid out. The phase of reform conception and design, the census of civil servants, the functioning of the structures involved in the implementation of the reform, an analysis of the legitimacy-preserving role of consultant evaluation reports, as well as the stakes and politics of payroll reform, are all aspects which are considered in turn. The implications of the above analysis are twofold: first, this chapter serves as an apt illustration of the processes of aid delivery and state reform in the DRC, at first sight corroborating accounts which have often been described through the term of ‘reform failure’. However, given the relative neglect of administrative issues from Congo’s donors and political authorities alike, this situation points towards some profound ambiguities surrounding the politics of aid delivery in the DRC: while nominally bemoaned by donors on account of the government’s absence of ‘political will’, the failure of administrative reform in the wake of the 2007 elections did by no means prevent development funds from flowing, however impairing this configuration proved in practice. Indeed, the administration is crucial for the implementation of development projects, through association with Congolese civil servants, and therefore its neglect carries far-reaching consequences for aid-funded projects and programmes - with issues such as corruption, lack of capacity, fund embezzlement, sidetracking featuring prominently. This suggests that international actors, in their contradictory approach towards governance, are embroiled in subtle ambiguities, on the one hand critical of the country’s governing practices while in practice tolerating them, as shown by sustained aid flows, and in the case of blatant neglect of administrative issues, even facilitating them.
