[Conference Report] Political Settlements and Public Service Performance by UNDP Global Centre for Public Service Excellence

Conference Report Singapore, 12-14 April 2016

ÂŠ 2016 UNDP Global Centre for Public Service Excellence #08-01, Block A, 29 Heng Mui Keng Terrace, 119620, Singapore www.undp.org/publicservice UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. On the ground in more than 170 countries and territories, we offer global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations. The Global Centre for Public Service Excellence is UNDPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s catalyst for new thinking, strategy and action in the area of public service, promoting innovation, evidence, and collaboration. Disclaimer The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations, including UNDP, or the UN Member States.

Executive Summary From 12 – 14 April 2016, the UNDP Global Centre for Public Service Excellence (GCPSE) convened a Conference on Political Settlements and Public Service Performance at its premises in Singapore. The Conference aims were to: clarify the evidence of the impact of political settlements in non-crisis settings on public service; analyse the complex politics of change; and identify opportunities to “work with the grain” to develop practical solutions for improving public service performance for the delivery of the 2030 Agenda. The conference brought together over 70 internationally renowned development thinkers and practitioners with a rich and deep understanding of ‘politics’ in a specific country context. This interaction between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ was critical to achieving the conference objectives.

The conference was organised by GCPSE with the support of Development Leadership Program (DLP) and the Centre for Public Impact (CPI).

Conclusions This pioneering event featured speakers of international renown, who are on the frontlines of transformational thought and practice about how development ‘really happens’. Their research on the political roots of public sector performance has practical implications of importance for everyone concerned about strengthening state capacity to deliver on an increasingly complex development agenda, including the SDGs. After three days of animated discussions and robust debate, the Conference arrived at the following conclusions: 

Political settlements, power and politics influence public service performance. These factors create different institutional environments in which public service organisations, although structurally similar, behave and perform in significantly different ways. A public service cannot be separated from the political settlement it operates in, although there is a temptation in similar discourses to conflate government and public services.

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This impact is felt across all layers and activities of a public service, from mandates, recruitment policies to policy pathways. Much of this impact is appraised in normative terms (deviating or adhering to ‘good practice’) instead of being understood as stages of institutional development in a particular political (and economic) constellation.

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There is an urgent need for clear methodologies (and agreement on key concepts) about how to study (or uncover) political settlements, its horizontal (among elites) and vertical (among elites and constituencies) dimensions, the relationship between formal and informal institutions, and especially its impact on institutional development.

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There is an equally urgent need for a conceptual framework to analyse public service systems in terms of different political settlements, as extensions of the political government, as autonomous organisations and as ideational structures with their own political interests and incentives, and the impact these have on organisational development and performance.

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An area of special interest arising from the conference was, given a particular political settlement, the role of the public service to mediate between the economic and political elites on the one hand and citizens on the other hand.

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It is possible to broadly categorise the relationship between political settlements and institutional environments, and therefore to identify context-sensitive and politically smart solutions that will promote SDG delivery.

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In most development contexts, incremental approaches, political and policy entrepreneurship and islands of excellence, all of which integrate ‘political’ dimensions, would work better than standard ‘good practice’ or wholesale reform approaches.

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It is important to differentiate between ‘inclusive processes’ and inclusive outcomes’, although the difference might be, to a certain extent, artificial. A normative agenda can sometimes complicate the situation further.

Follow-up The conference participants asked GCPSE and experts to contribute to disseminate and mainstream this message in the development dialogue, to explore further implications and to support practitioners with the practicalities of public service organisations ‘working with the grain’ under different political settlements. Concretely, GCPSE will: 

launch a Joint Fundraising Proposal (GCPSE-SIGOB Facility) for Advisory and Technical Support Services for Public Service Excellence.



Together with Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and other experts, the Centre will develop and offer Solution Labs - mixed learning and solution events - on how to ‘work with the political grain’.



GCPSE will also work on a Strategy Workshop offer for UN Country Teams (UNCT) that are about to embark on their UNDAFs to facilitate innovation and “new thinking” – incorporating political settlements/thinking and working politically (TWP), foresight/alternative futures and reform moments/islands of excellence.

Introduction The public service, a key state organisation to project power, implement political priorities and accumulate governing capacity, is central to the political settlement i on which development depends - but rarely viewed in that light. No fewer than 10 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals require effective public institutions. Without a capable public service, the vision of the 2030 Agenda will be out of reach for a substantial number of people. Governments will look for new opportunities to improve public service performance. Previous reform efforts have been unsatisfactory. The results of 30+ years of technical fixes and ‘good practice’ models have been underwhelming. Future efforts to strengthen institutional capacity for SDG implementation should incorporate the crucial lesson learned: that power and politics have a huge impact on the ability and desire of public service systems to deliver on inclusive development. This impact goes far beyond the occasional or systematic meddling of politicians in bureaucratic affairs. Bureaucracies do not exclusively, and often not predominantly, exist for the sake of public welfare and the provision of social goods. Governments in the real world do not neatly divide in political and technocratic spheres of influence; in any political reality, the lines are blurred and messy, and politicians and bureaucrats constantly bump into each other in the grey zones of governance. A bureaucracy is by its very nature invested with power, susceptible to political contestation and a political actor with vested interests of its own. Crisp moral categories are of little use in dealing with this situation: ‘power’ and ‘politics’ are not necessarily evil forces that undermine public sector performance, while technical competence is not the sole basis of ‘capability’. The public service, a key state organisation to project power, implement political priorities and accumulate governing capacity, is central to the political settlement 1 on which development depends - but rarely viewed in that light. For the purpose of this event, “Political settlements are the expression of a common understanding, usually forged between elites, about how power is organised and exercised. They include formal institutions for political and economic relations… But they also include informal, often unarticulated agreements that underpin a political system….”2 The event focuses on noncrisis contexts. The technical jargon of public sector reform – HRM policies such as recruitment, promotion, and performance management; policies aimed to improve accountability, transparency and responsiveness; and, more recently, the ‘science of delivery’ and the policy cycle – hides a complex political reality. For example, the staffing of a civil service is not solely determined by ‘meritocratic’ arguments: a political settlement, and the resulting social and political peace, might partly depend on equal representation of ethnic groups in government 1

In the current development debate, the structure of ‘power’ and ‘politics’ is captured by the concept of ‘political settlements’. There are multiple definitions of this concept, with contestation and uncertainty over context (post-conflict vs. stable), actors (exclusively elites vs. elites, institutions and society) and temporality (one-off vs. on-going). Implicit in these multiple definitions is a different understanding and capacity to spot and explain dynamics and opportunities for change. 2 Edwards Laws and Adrian Leftwich, Political Settlements, DLP Concept Brief 01 October 2014 6

institutions, access to ‘safe’ government jobs, or opening up government employment to previously excluded social groups. In these circumstances, an insistence of ‘meritocracy’ to improve performance will not survive the political calculus or could destabilise a fragile political balance of power. Disillusioned with the slow pace of progress, if any, of work on the structural dimensions of public management systems, and the potential impact this might have on performance, practitioners have increasingly turned to those dimensions where performance can actually be measured: delivery. But politics also plays a crucial role in the not so straight forward ‘science of delivery’. The process of translation of broad strategic decisions in concrete policies, for example, involves many political choices. Which policies are put forward? Who stands to benefit most from these policies? Will they be sufficiently funded? How do they compete with other policies over scarce resources? Which implementation mechanisms work best in which circumstances? Are all the key people on board to provide leadership? Is a centrally located delivery unit the solution to all delivery woes or does that disturb a fragile balance of power among the different agencies involved? Armed with a better understanding of the ‘politics’ of public service performance, governments, development practitioners and development thinkers can start to explore, prototype and implement feasible activities that will strengthen the performance of public management systems for SDG implementation. It should be possible to identify politically feasible, expedient or beneficial entry points for structural reforms (while avoiding politically fraught choices). One can also start to identify and test ‘politically informed’ activities, such as coalition building, policy entrepreneurship, etc. The event addressed the following issues:  a deeper understanding of how the political settlement impacts the performance of public service  an identification of the political dimensions of crucial areas of public service performance (and a way to ‘measure’ the relative impact of politics on these areas in different political settlements)  clarification of concrete opportunities and activities that, while in keeping with, leverage ‘politics’. To find ‘what works’ and let independent evidence speak requires examining political realities – without partisan or ideological posturing.

Opening Session Max Everest-Phillips, Director of GCPSE, welcomed the audience to the conference. In his speech, Max drew attention to the fact that some of the topics that would be discussed remain sensitive in some quarters; the proverbial elephants in the room. He listed six sensitive topics that would be discussed: a re-evaluation of ‘politics’ in development; the conceptualization of ‘political settlements’; the centrality of an ‘effective public service to development outcomes’; an explicit discussion of the question ‘why so many public service reform fail’; the acceptance of ‘how the broader political settlement have an impact on political and administrative leadership pacts’ and the realization that ‘failure is indeed endemic in public service reform’. At its core, the problem lies not in unsuccessful public sector reform as such but the daily politics and the deep, underlying political settlement that, may be either deliberately or accidentally weakening the public service. Nevertheless a demoralized, disillusioned and disempowered public service is not going to deliver the SDGs. Session 1: On Theory of Political Settlements & Impact on the Nature of Public Service Organisations Magdy Martinez-Soliman, UN Assistant Secretary-General, UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director Bureau for Policy & Programme Support (BPPS), opened the first day of presentations. In his Key Address, Magdy firmly framed the discussion in terms of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He reiterated the imperative of Agenda 2030, emphasized the importance of a well-performing public service for attaining the SDGs and exhorted the conference to come up with practical solutions to make ‘the system work’ for an equitable and sustainable future. Public Service Performance is, ultimately, a measure of political leadership, wisdom of budget investments, and a mirror in which each society can compare itself with its neighbours and with its past. Reasonable political settlements need to include consensus on vision, a model of activist developmental State that opens avenues to vibrant private initiative, and a stellar performance of a public service committed to sustainable development. Brian Levy, Academic Director of the Graduate School for Development Policy and Practice at the University of Cape Town and the author of the book Working with the Grain: Integrating Governance and Growth in Development Strategies, gave the Keynote Presentation. He presented a conceptual framework that categorized in a 2x2 typology how different political settlements combined with institutional arrangements, and demonstrated persuasively, with country examples, how some of the key assumptions of development partners with regards to institutional performance are wrong. The ‘good governance’ approach conjectures that a good dose of political will is sufficient to make the basic systemic relations between state, providers and citizens, supposedly similar everywhere, work for inclusive development. Brian’s conceptual framework shows that different political settlements create radically different systemic relationships between 8

state, providers and citizens. For example, in his category characterized by ‘personalized competition’, to which a substantial number of developing countries belong, these systemic relationships are marked by broken hierarchies, public officials with high discretion, multiple contending factions and civic pressures, NGOs and lobbying. When looking to improve public service performances for inclusive development under these ‘political’ conditions, it might be more productive to approach ‘delivery problems’ not in terms of technical (organizational) structures, but by analysing the attitude and interests of multiple principals and stakeholders involved (informed by their position and role in the political settlement) and identifying reform and blocking coalitions, and possible islands of effectiveness. Verena Fritz, Senior Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank, explored the relationship between political settlements and failed public sector reform and, while emphasizing that the correlation between political constellations and dynamics and performance is far from straightforward and that sound technical advice remains important, she concluded that the available evidence showed that ‘politics’ should be integrated in reform. In her extremely rich presentation, Verena gave interesting evidence that questioned some of the more ingrained assumptions with regards to the relationship between economic growth, good governance and institutional development. For example, there are many public administration strengthening plans but little progress on government effectiveness, including in high non-OECD countries. Equally, we cannot automatically assume that economic growth will lead to better public service; there is only a limited correlation between levels of GDP and public sector performance. Regime type also does not make a significant difference on performance. When looking for the impact of political settlements, or more broadly, political constellations and dynamics, on public sector performance, one has to look beyond crude categories like ‘regime type’ or the existence of ‘programmatic parties’. Although political and technical dynamics might play out differently across countries and time periods, there are some common patterns. For example, the available evidence shows that legitimacy and ‘looking good’ are key political drivers for governments to initiate and sustain public service reform, while the much vaunted ‘development state’ with a clear ‘development vision’ is much less prevalent.

Sometimes reforms go directly against the ‘logic’ of the prevailing political settlements, for example when efforts to introduce meritocratic recruitment is seen to undermine patronage and loyalty rewards on which the political settlement is based, or when technical efforts to improve procurement practices endanger illicit forms of financing electoral reform. Sometimes the ingrained political settlement simply turns the reforms on their head: anti-corruption campaigns unleashed on political opponents, performance bonuses allocated on the basis of loyalty, etc. Privatizations might offer opportunities to distribute assets among ‘friends’, while greater ‘managerial control’ (a New Public Management favourite) opens up possibilities for ‘leakage’. Politically harmless reforms, on the other hand, are either abandoned or have little impact.

Session 2: On Politics and Public Service Performance Michael Woolcock, Lead Social Development Specialist in the World Bank's Development Research Group, kicked off Session 2 with his presentation Engaging the ‘everyday state’. Like the speakers before him, Michael uncovered some of the key assumptions driving development activities. Too often, in his experience, development outcomes are reduced to ‘sound policy + effective implementation’. However, Michael persuasively argued that the gap between the capacity to design beautiful policies and actually implement them is wide and growing. Efforts to address this imbalance between ambitions and capacity are historically naïve and pointlessly uniform. For example, public education in today’s OECD countries builds on consolidated and highly variable pre-existing systems (‘functional literacy’). ‘Good practice’ de facto denies developing countries this rich institutional diversity and perpetuates ‘capacity traps’ from which they cannot escape. ‘Isomorphic mimicry’, i.e. looking like an effective state, keeps the aid flowing but changes little. It is about to get worse. State capacity in historically developing countries is stagnating or even declining (with a few notables exceptions), due to the tyranny of ‘good practice’, the practice of ‘isomorphic mimicry’ and, crucially, the depletion of ‘low-hanging development fruits’. The switch from quantity (e.g. number of school buildings, teachers trained, kids in school) to quality (e.g. curriculum and pedagogy relevant to 21st century, learning experiences integrated with other social welfare programs) will be tough. The complexity of quality development outcomes cannot be simply engineered by technocratic approaches. Michael presented the Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach as a possible solution. PDIA looks for local solutions for local problems; pushes local ‘positive deviance’ for real problems; propagates the virtuous cycle of try-learniterate-adapt, and; scales learning through diffusion. The emphasis on ‘positive deviance’ puts a premium on more granular data, for example at sub-national or subsectoral level. Alina Rocha Menocal, Senior Research Fellow at DLP, drew the participants’ attention to ‘inclusion’, a crucial aspect of Agenda 2030, and the challenges ahead to make a public sector work for inclusive development in an ‘exclusive’ political settlement. Political settlements have to be understood as continuous, evolving and dynamic processes, shaped almost every day by countless transactions, not just between elites (horizontal) but also between elites and their broader constituencies (vertical). Both processes have a significant impact on the public service. Alina illustrated her point with the comparative example of Costa Rica and Guatemala, countries which shared many structural characteristics and political and socio-economic development in the 1950s but which ended up in sharply different situations because of 11

political settlement dynamics. In Costa Rica, where elite divisions combined with popular demand led to the opening up of the political settlement and the establishment of a progressive pro-reform coalition committed to democracy and broad-based development, democracy took root. Interestingly, the 1949 Constitution, the blueprint of the new political settlement, devolved important policy responsibilities to autonomous bureaucratic entities. In Guatemala, on the other hand, a military regime in the same period stamped down on popular demands for democracy and social reform, and enabled the landowners (the economic elite) to dominate the political space. They tended to see the state as their personalized source of enrichment – including the politicization and use and abuse of the public sector – and certainly not for social welfare provision. Even after the postconflict transition in the 1990s, this underlying political settlement is subverting many formal arrangements. Alina drew a sharp distinction between ‘inclusive processes’ (how decisions are made and who is involved) and ‘inclusive outcomes’ (a state’s broad or narrow responsiveness to different social priorities). Her statement that ‘a state can be inclusive without being broadly responsive (e.g. Lebanon) and it can be also be broadly responsive without being inclusive (e.g. Rwanda, Ethiopia and Singapore)’, goes to the heart of many ‘good governance’ discussions and was the subject of much subsequent discussion and soul searching. Jairo Acuna-Alfaro, Policy Advisor of UNDP Responsive and Accountable Institutions Team, highlighted three key functions of political settlements, viz. distribution of power and resources; regulation of monopoly of violence and taxation-;, and fears and favours in the public sector. Political settlements inevitably entail trade-offs, and so do development partners’ efforts to modify it. The majority of developing countries find themselves in ‘limited access orders’. Development assistance to institution building (for inclusive and equitable development) cannot be business as usual. It requires more realistic priorities and a better sequencing of interventions that are sensitive to the evolving dynamics of the political settlements, the disposition of implementers, and the balance between formal and informal processes. Governance ‘deficiencies’ have as much a political as a technical origin. Jairo used the two examples of Costa Rica and El Salvador to illustrate the importance of ‘critical junctures’ at which the scope for possible action widens significantly (and conversely, the futility of trying to do something ‘transformational’ outside these critical junctures.) In this sense, ‘cleavages’ or ‘crisis’ are opportunities (although constrained by antecedent conditions) which lead to a ‘turning point’ (the selection of a particular option – democracy in the case of Costa Rica, political repression in El Salvador). If (and that is a big ‘if’) the core attributes of the selected option are stable enough the system will solidify.

The moderator of Session 2, Thomas Parks, Governance & Fragility Specialist of Dept. Of Foreign Affairs & Trade, Australia, in his closing remarks focused on the tension between a normative and a ‘delivery’ agenda (closely related to Alina’s point about the apparent contradiction that ‘exclusive processes’ can still provide ‘inclusive outcomes’) and asked the audience to carefully consider what to work on.

Session 3a: Country Cases on Political Settlements and Efforts to Improve Public Sector Performance Michelle Gyles-McDonnough, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, moderated the in-depth discussion following the presentations of the country cases on Rwanda by Anastase Shyaka, CEO of Rwanda Governance Board, and on Papua New Guinea by John Ma’o Kali, Secretary of the Dept. of Personnel Management. Anastase presented the audience with the bleak outlines of the situation in Rwanda after the Genocide in the 1990s: over a million people massacred, more than five million refugees in the country and region, severe disruption of the fabric of society, devastated economy and collapsed public institutions. The response was guided by a set of imperatives: the unity of Rwandans, Accountability and Think Big. Key drivers were the resilience of Rwandans, home grown solutions and transformational leadership. Public service innovations such as IMIHIGO (performance contracts), the National Leadership Retreat and the importance of Citizen Report Cards in both have made a major contribution to the real and steady transformation in the country. The case of Rwanda demonstrated how important an inclusive and shared sense of purpose, inherent to the political settlement (elements of which are still part of an on-going discussion with the wider development community), is key to the performance of the public service. In the case of Papua New Guinea, John devoted his whole working life to the performance of the Papua New Guinea Public Service, from Graduate Cadet in 1976 to Departmental Head. He brought some of his experience with the interaction between the political system and the civil service to bear during his presentation on Papua New Guinea. The Papua New Guinea is currently going through a range of reforms, as enshrined in the new 2014 Public Services (Management) Act, and amendments to the Organic Law on Provincial Governments. The civil service strives hard to adhere to the normative ‘good practice’ agenda, but is encountering political challenges rooted in historical developments. The Development Research Centre in China was represented by Zhang Hongfei. Hongfei was candid in his characterisation of public sector reforms in China as state-led and experimental.

Session 3b: Country Cases on Political Settlements and Efforts to Improve Public Sector Performance In the afternoon of the second day, the tables were turned and the Conference audience became active participants. People were divided into small working groups (around 10 members each, five groups in total) and were asked to select one or two country examples to discuss in more detail. Brian Levy’s 2*2 typology provided the navigational tools to make sense of the main characteristics of the current political settlement in the country under consideration and to identify possible clues to vexing problems or promising opportunities in public service performance. The ensuing discussions were rich and complex. The countries discussed in depth were Egypt, Indonesia, Myanmar and Vietnam. Although it was difficult to neatly fit each country in the theoretical categories – as Brian Levy had already pointed out during his short presentation - some clear patterns emerged. For example, Egypt is currently reverting to the political order pre-dating the Arab Spring; the polity is dominant and ruled by an autocratic strong man, while the institutions – the rules of the game – are discretionary, i.e. centred around personalized deal making. The core of the bureaucracy – part and parcel of what is often called the ‘Deep State’ of Egypt - has deeply entrenched interests in this regime, while it also plays an important role in sustaining it. Not coincidentally, the efforts by the previous regime of the Muslim Brotherhood to appoint an increasing number of its own people in the public service contributed significantly to its eventual disposal by the military. As in many other country cases, in as far as the political order is either the main obstacle or the most promising opportunity for inclusive development, in Egypt it is very difficult, if not impossible, to isolate institutional development of the public service from the purpose of the political settlement. Vietnam, on the other hand, provided an example of a country where a dominant political order combines with institutions that rely on the impersonal applications of the rule of law (a combination referred to as ‘rule-by-law’). Vietnam is a prime example of a country where a ‘exclusive decision making process’ provides ‘inclusive outcomes’ (as discussed by Alina Rocha Menocal) and where, perhaps, development practitioners are more inclined to temporarily shelf the ‘normative’ agenda and exploit the many opportunities for ‘delivery’ of development outcomes (as mentioned by Tom Parks). The success of ‘development states’ like Vietnam seems to subvert some of the key principles of the ‘good governance’ agenda, especially the need for representative institutions. The fact that the public service, which plays a key role in the delivery of inclusive development outcomes in Vietnam, is open to receive and adapt to public feedback, is another indication of its complex role in the political settlement.

According to the discussants, Indonesia was a clear example of Country Type #3, in which politics were fiercely competitive but the rules of the games, including the behaviour of institutions, was heavily personalized and based upon personal deal-making. They recognized many of the characteristics given in Levy’s typology. The hierarchy between the political government and public service is broken. Public officials have a high level of discretion which is all too often used to further their own (individual or organizational) interests. Citizens, including economic and social elites, use a multitude of strategies to make the government and public service responsive to their needs. In this seemingly chaotic constellation – in which many late developing countries find themselves – ‘development’ is just one of the many objectives of the key players and institutions involved, including the public service. Systematic efforts to make the system work (primarily) for development face an uphill battle. The last country example which was discussed extensively was Myanmar. The inconclusive discussions reflected the exceptionally fluid situation in the country. For example, it was obvious that Myanmar has just moved out of Country Type #1 and was no longer an autocratic polity. It was less obvious whether, under the old regime, the rules of the games and the institutions were personal or impersonal. The public service, outwardly at least, seemed professional and well-disciplined; whether it was experienced as such by the citizens is another matter. The big question looming over Myanmar, however, is towards which box of Levy’s typology it is moving, and what the consequences for public service performance, and the attainment of development outcomes, would be. Some discussants were optimistic and were convinced that Myanmar made steady progress towards the antechamber of a full blown liberal democracy, Country Type #4 (with open competition for political power and impersonal rules of the game). Others were less optimistic. One discussant saw ominous signs in the behaviour of the leader of the current government and half expected a move toward Type #4 (dominant and rule of law). Others were afraid that Type #2 (competitive but personalized) was to be the next station. Everybody agreed that Myanmar was a special case, in which an old political settlement had just been discarded and a new one still had to emerge fully. It would be extremely interesting to see how all of this would impact the bureaucracy and, not unimportantly, how the bureaucracy, in many ways a relic from the old regime/political settlement, would respond to the new situation.

Session 4: Transforming Big Ideas into Everyday Solutions – Reform Entrepreneurs In Session 4, a high-level panel reflected upon some of the core ideas discussed. Brian Levy reflected on the tension between the ‘safe conversation’ (about the things we have been doing all the time, the repetition of the familiar) and the ‘frontier conversation’ (about the things that are tricky, full with dilemma’s etc.) It was also obvious that the distinction between engaging the political settlement as such and working with the public service in any given political context is to a degree artificial; ‘processes’ and ‘outcomes’ are often intertwined. Brian had observed four separate conversations. The first was related to country contexts as found in Egypt and Ethiopia. In these circumstances, development partners have little choice but to accept the political settlement as a given and try to ‘work with the grain’. The social sector, in particular, offers interesting opportunities in these situations. The second discourse centred on country contexts as exemplified by Vietnam: the ‘sweet spot job’. The regime might not be very democratic, but it is stable, wellfunctioning and very development oriented. Development partners can add a lot of value in terms of development outcomes. The third narrative is probably the least explored but may be the most common. In countries like Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, development partners are outside their comfort zone and struggling to achieve clear development objectives. Lastly, the Myanmar conversation is about a country transitioning from one political order to another, but the uncertainty over which creates huge dilemmas. The total of these conversations revealed a hunkering to the familiar but also a willingness to engage with the messiness. Michelle Gyles-McDonnough addressed the question on how to operate in a given political settlement from the perspective of a UNDP Resident Representative. Her main message was: act smart. Acting smart is not easy and can be dangerous; political missteps can ultimately result in expulsion. In many middle income countries, further progress often requires a new or at least renegotiated political settlement and therefore a need to stay engaged. This, however, is still a difficult conversation with other development partners, especially donors, although the universality of the SDGs offers some recognition of this need. The normative framework of development can be rather problematic and progress is not at all straightforward in individual countries. Acting smart is greatly enhanced by being physical present in a country, but the current funding situation is challenging its sustainability. Acting smart also demands an answer to some important questions: how do we value and evaluate political entrepreneurship? How is it reflected in our risk system? What 17

organizational support systems are available? How do we equip people to walk through these spaces? The ‘best practice’ approach is persistent; reporting and accountability systems of the organisation and donors expect ‘Denmark’ and have little room or patience for new thinking or hard evidence of the contrary. Lastly, organisations like UNDP need the safe space provided by GCPSE to probe these issues and to grapple with possible solutions. Gambhir Bhatta (Technical Advisor Asian Development Bank) gave the perspective of the ADB on the issues discussed. ABD does not have the mandate to involve itself in politics. Before deciding on a specific loan, the Board requires a political economy analysis to gauge the risks, but it draws a very clear distinction between economic policies and politics. ADB prefers to outsource ‘good governance’ activities to multilateral organisations like UNDP or bilateral organisations like DfID. This intervention led to some discussion with the audience. One participant pointedly drew attention to the fact that in peace negotiations funding is a key element of any political settlement. Another questioned the feasibility of distinguishing between ‘politics’ and ‘economics policies’. Adrian Brown (Centre for Public Impact) was struck by the sheer complexity and multi-dimensionality of the problems development practitioners and their national partners were working on. He reminded the audience that it shouldn’t remove itself too far from the real issues. Action happens on the frontline and it is therefore important to bring the big conceptual discussion back to a level where real impact can be achieved. Maria Eugenia Boaz briefly presented the work of UNDP Sistema de Gestion para la Gobernabilidad (SIGOB). SIGOB has done over 80 projects with President’s or Prime Minister’s Offices, mainly in Latin America. Their focus is on problem-driven and process-oriented interventions. Maria introduced a role play game developed by SIGOB that mirrored daily practices of a politician interacting with civil servants and citizens. Adrian Brown presented a newly developed framework to identify problems hampering delivery and to create more public impact (i.e. the set of outcomes that governments achieve for their citizens). On the basis of an extensive literature review (and hundreds of on-going case studies), CPI has identified three key factors that influence public impact: policy, action and legitimacy. Each factor divides into three sub-factors which can be further analysed. The main focus of the framework is to get to effective delivery. 18

Conclusions 

Political settlements, power and politics matter in public service performance. These factors create different institutional environments in which public service organisations, although structurally similar, behave and perform significantly different. A public service cannot be separated from the political settlement it operates in, although there is a temptation in similar discourses to conflate government and public services.



The conference participants asked GCPSE and experts to contribute to disseminate and mainstream this message in the development dialogue, to explore further implications and to support practitioners with the practicalities of ‘working with the grain’ of public service organisations under different political settlements.

Concretely, GCPSE will: 

launch a Joint Fundraising Proposal (GCPSE-SIGOB Facility) for Advisory and Technical Support Services for Public Service Excellence



Together with Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and other experts, the Centre will develop and offers Solution Labs - mixed learning and solution events - on how to ‘work with the political grain’.



GCPSE will also work on a Strategy Workshop offer for UN Country Teams (UNCT) that are about to embark on their UNDAFs to facilitate innovation and “new thinking” – incorporating political settlements/TWP, foresight/alternative futures and reform moments/islands of excellence.

In the current development debate, the structure of ‘power’ and ‘politics’ is captured by the concept of ‘political settlements’. There are multiple definitions of this concept, with contestation and uncertainty over context (postconflict vs. stable), actors (exclusively elites vs. elites, institutions and society) and temporality (one-off vs. ongoing). Implicit in these multiple definitions is a different understanding and capacity to spot and explain dynamics and opportunities for change. i