International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management

United Kingdom Vol. V, Issue 5, May 2017

http://ijecm.co.uk/ ISSN 2348 0386

ROLE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN GOOD

GOVERNANCE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT

Adisa Bala
PhD candidate,
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Albania, Albania
adisabala@hotmail.com

Abstract
The capacity of a state to deliver public goods and services in an effective and reliable way
constitutes one of the key variables for distinguishing between “successful” and “unsuccessful”
societies. Public administration reform, aiming at good governance and modernisation of the
state, is not an original goal, while its implementation differs from country to country. The term
“good governance” is widely being discussed and also used from all the Western Balkans
Countries in drafting and implementing public reforms and strategies in the path to EU. It is a
broad term that includes values and practices such as legality, justice, trust of laws and
institutions, efficiency, responsible budgeting, management of human resources and crisis
management. An efficient, responsive, transparent and accountable public administration is not
only of paramount importance for the proper functioning of a nation, it is a central part of
democratic governance and also the basic means through which government strategies to
achieve the integration goals can be implemented. This study aims to define a triangle, which
describes the linkage of three essential components whose role is crucial in developing a
country, especially in transition.

Keywords: Public Administration, Good governance, Local government, Reform

INTRODUCTION
Public Administration in a brief
Issues of public administration, local governance, and participation in processes are seen to
plan a vital role in overarching issues of development. They are decisive for the legitimacy of the
state which rests in its capacity to deliver on its political promises, and perform specific

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functions. Local governance structures and public administration are essential facilitators of this
responsibility. The mechanisms enacted at local levels and the administrators that comprise
these systems are the channel through which policy becomes action, and by which functions
and services of the state are allocated. Participation is vital to facilitating a deliberative
relationship between the state and citizenry. But if we talk about participation the key element is
to highlight who must be the promoter. And of course the most substantive part is the public
administration, the best representative. Some experts suggest conceptualizing public
administration as "an organizational structure, a system, a function, an institutional construct,
procedures and processes or just a set of practices in the exercise of public authority."
It also refers to a much broader process, in which the notions of public policy and civil
service are contained and sequenced, an aspect particularly important in the post-conflict
reconstruction period, as a government cannot implement all components of these changes at
once. Hence, phases need to be distinguished in the building or rebuilding of a public
administration.
Three broad models of public administration are usually distinguished: traditional public
administration; public management, including new public management (NPM); and an emerging
model of responsive governance that emphasizes networks, greater openness and partnerships
with civil society and the private sector.NPM is often contrasted with a more participatory local
governance approach. A new approach in e-governance is also being encouraged, as a move
away from the classic NPM strategy. Each model offers different principles, tools and
techniques. It is important to briefly delimit notions of and interplay between administration,
governance, and government. Whereas public administration deals with those bodies that
comprise the core of largely appointed officials that manage public processes and policy, and
government refers to those officials appointed typically to the legislature or executive,
governance is the space in which these actors operate. Thus, both administration and
government are actors of governance. A local public official is a city manager as a translator of
political and administrative logic with significant responsibilities to align the forces of politics and
administration. We must pick out some of the elements into which a public official must be/have
in order to best representation.
Responsibilities: Having strong responsibility to make sure that they provide not only
information to our governing bodies, but to support the processes of governance that support
the representative nature of the city council. I'm not talking about getting involved in electoral
politics, but in things like public hearings, discussion, and deliberation; training people in the
organization to anticipate and foster participation; and building structures of participation that will
be seen as legitimate.

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Roles: While city governments are attempting to become more accessible to citizens to promote
community building, the professions are becoming more specialized and the city government is
unintentionally becoming less accessible. The Public official‟s role has become that of a
facilitator and alliance builder, promoting and nurturing partnerships that involve city
responsibilities both within the city government as well as between it and other organizations,
associations, and groups. I think the most important responsibility of any manager is to manage
the values of the organization and to instill a sense of responsibility in employees for them.

Values: Efficiency, is not only connected to the prudent use of resources. It also connects to
professionalism and rational, analytical thinking. It underpins the value of master plans,
consultant reports, and the expertise that increasingly drives public policy.
-Representation, as a value is based on the understanding that elected officials represent
citizens in the absence of direct democracy.
-Social equity, underpins many moral arguments that council members hear. It is based
fundamentally on the belief that there shall be no second-class citizens and that services shall
be provided fairly.
-Individual Rights, The emphasis on due process in government work that goes beyond the
judiciary reflects the way this value has penetrated the thinking of government officials.

Effective public administration in society implies cooperation or partnerships in which national

governments work collaboratively with lower levels of public administration, the private sector,
organizations of civil society, and international organizations through democratic, transparent,
and participative processes. The decentralisation of political, administrative and financial,
material and human resources, as well as efforts to increase popular participation, are posited
as logical alternatives to older centrist state conceptions. Local governments are thus the
appropriate platform to anchor cooperation and partnership between national governments and
lower levels of public governance and administration in driving the localisation and acceleration
of public sector capacity to support sustainable local development. Strengthening the capacity
of public local public administration to promote socially equitable economic growth and combat
poverty in a climate change compliant manner. I should indicate that with a well defined
institutional structure and an unambiguous responsibility and role assignment, the public service
would require a clear system of procedures, regulations and coordination to facilitate local-level
development. The new development challenges require innovation and a new administrative
dynamism to respond.

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Every development is local…

Local government is the sphere of government closest to the people. Many basic services are
delivered by local municipalities and local ward councilors are the politicians closest to
communities. Organisations that play an activist and/or developmental role should understand
how local government works and how to influence it. Municipalities and councilors should be
sensitive to community views and responsive to local problems. Partnerships should be built
between civil society and local government to address local issues. A number of laws outline
participation processes that municipalities have to use to consult the community. Developmental
local government means a local government committed to "work with citizens and groups within
the community to find sustainable ways to meet their social, economic and material needs and
improve the quality of their lives". Extremely rapid changes at the global, national and local
levels are forcing local communities to rethink the way they are organised and governed. All
over the world communities must find new ways to sustain their economies, build their societies,
protect their environments, improve personal safety and eliminate poverty. Performance
management is a system that is used to make sure that all parts of the municipality work
together to achieve the goals and targets that are set. Local governance and local development
comprise the combined set of institutions, systems and processes, at the local level, through
which local authorities interact with and provide services to citizens, groups and local
communities and through which the later articulate their interests and needs, mediate their
differences and exercise their rights and obligations. Therefore, local development is an
essential condition to ensure the geographical spread of human development; effective local
governance complements that process in support of inclusive and rights-compliant societies.
The blocks that make up effective, democratic local governance such as transparent and
robust central-local relationships, citizen participation, including the equal participation of
women, partnerships among key stakeholders at the local level, capacity of local actors, multiple
flows of information, gender sensitive institutions of accountability, and an inclusive and pro-
poor orientation, in many instance serve as guidelines to how governments have formulated
their response to the increased demand for engagement by communities in the governance and
management of their affairs at the local level. The capacity requirements by the public service to
respond to local-level development needs may be numerous and varied but can generally been
categorized into five major areas:
 Structure of the public service
 Defined roles and responsibilities
 Systems and procedures
 Human Resource
 Financial Resources

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A clear demarcation of responsibilities among sector ministries and defined roles for the
respective levels of public administration is a requirement in positioning for effective
development management. Defined responsibility can then be expressed into definite actions
and most importantly matched with the required resources. The matching of responsibilities to
resources and to results is the best means to capacitate the public service to respond to its local
development mandate. A response to the provision on these building elements for local-level
development requires a managerial platform that regularly interacts with residents, communities,
civil society and the private sector. This managerial platform is indeed the local public sector,
which is run by the public service. The human resource in the public service may have the
required skill, knowledge and even ability to respond to the new challenges of local level
development but has such deplorable working conditions that it does not provide the least
motivation to be innovative and facilitate development initiatives. The challenge is that we have
responded with more training and skill transfer without a definite consideration of the issues
related to motivation and condition of service.

Achieving Good Governance, how?

The notion of good governance started to be used when, in the mid-1980s, the World Bank
studied the conditions of success and failure of adjustment programs (comparative study
contrasting success in East Asia with greater difficulties in Sub-Saharan Africa). During this
period, international support was conditioned upon 'good governance,' related to the functioning
of state structures, and to the states role in the market and relationship to civil society. Good
governance is firstly and above all the responsible use of power. The concept of good
governance has been measured, studied and defined by numerous agents, international
organisations and academics around the world, who have developed an array of theories as
well as multiple and diverse standards for outlining what constitutes good governance.
In many policy papers and concept notes, governance has normative values attached. In
its most objective form, the quality of governance may be "measured in terms of how well the
various actors handle the rules that make up the basic dimensions of the political regime." Many
of the criteria for assessing governance are subjective, making it difficult to clearly delineate and
understand 'good' and 'bad' practices. Public administration reform and good governance
continue to be key priorities under the political criteria. The overriding principles are
transparency, accountability and effectiveness in the public administration. Adequate horizontal
administrative procedures concerning human resource management and public financial
management are crucial for the implementation of the reforms. The public administration must
have the capacity to provide citizens and enterprises with quality public services, where possible

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through the use of ICT (e-government).E-government has indeed the potential of improving the
quality of public services while cutting the costs in the public administration. One could add that
it also promotes transparency and accountability in the administration. By putting fundamental
public services on line you'll reduce the risks for corruption. When we refer to the elements of
„‟goodness‟‟ we have to think about components like Government effectiveness: the quality of
public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political
pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the
governments commitment to such policies. Regulatory quality: the ability of the government to
formulate and implement sound policies and regulations, which permit and promote private
sector development. Rule of law: the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by
the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, the police, and the
courts, a well as the likelihood of crime and violence. Control of corruption: the extent to which
public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as
well as 'capture' of the state by elites and private interests. The most common actions towards
the adoption of good governance practices and principles are the reform of the civil service, the
improvement of policymaking procedures, the promotion of transparency including e-
governance initiatives, and decentralisation.
The current situation in the region is that of a politicised civil service where corrupt
practices are facilitated. The recruitment procedures in most of the cases are opaque and are
combined with political patronage. A career of work for the state turns into the reserved privilege
of the few while maladministration and ineffectiveness are encouraged. Civil servants develop
into a lethargic and passive body that functions disconnected from the citizens and has no
interest in adopting an active role in the service of the state. Most of the civil service reform
strategies focus on both the recruitment and the training of the personnel as well as the
description of their tasks. Decentralisation constitutes one of the good governance principles in
the sense that it brings democratic and effective governance closer to the citizens. The aim is
the strengthening of local and regional authorities in order to be able to satisfy citizen‟s needs
and to respond to the changes of their external environment. All we have to understand
regarding to governance is that it is not performed only by top level managers or exclusively by
governing body, it is about all levels in an organisation, because every public official has to
focus on public service objectives.
Good governance means focusing on the organisation’s purpose and on outcomes for citizens
and service users.
The function of governance is to ensure that an organisation or partnership fulfills its purpose,
achieves its intended outcomes for citizens and service users, and operates in an effective,

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efficient and ethical manner. This principle should guide all governance activity. Each
organisation has its own purpose. There are also some general purposes that are fundamental
to all public governance, including providing good quality services and achieving value for
money. The concept of „public value‟ can be helpful when thinking about the unique purpose of
public services and therefore of their governance. Public value refers to the things that public
services produce, either directly or indirectly, using public money. Public value includes:
outcomes (such as improved health and improved safety); services (such as primary care
services and policing) and trust in public governance.

Good governance means performing effectively in clearly defined functions and roles
Good governance requires all concerned to be clear about the functions of governance and their
own roles and responsibilities and those of others, and to behave in ways that are consistent
with those roles. Being clear about one‟s own role, and how it relates to that of others, increases
the chance of performing the role well. Clarity about roles also helps all stakeholders to
understand how the governance system works and who is accountable for what. In order to
direct strategy and ensure that this is implemented and that the organisation achieves its goals,
the governing body has to: allocate resources and monitor organisational and executive
performance, delegate to management, oversee the appointment and contractual arrangements
for senior executives, and make sure that effective management arrangements are in place,
understand and manage risk.

Good governance means promoting values for the whole organisation and demonstrating the
values of good governance through behaviour
Good governance flows from a shared ethos or culture, as well as from systems and structures.
It cannot be reduced to a set of rules, or achieved fully by compliance with a set of
requirements. This spirit or ethos of good governance can be expressed as values and
demonstrated in behaviour. Good governance builds on the seven principles for the conduct of
people in public life. Known as the Nolan principles, these are: selflessness, integrity, objectivity,
accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.

Good governance means taking informed, transparent decisions and managing risk
Decision making in governance is complex and challenging. It must further the organisation‟s
purpose and strategic direction and be robust in the medium and longer terms. To make such
decisions, governors must be well informed. Risk management is important to the successful
delivery of public services. An effective risk management system identifies and assesses risks,

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decides on appropriate responses and then provides assurance that the chosen responses are
effective. Public service organisations face a wide range of strategic, operational and financial
risks, from both internal and external factors, which may prevent them from achieving their
objectives. Risk management is a planned and systematic approach to identifying, evaluating
and responding to risks and providing assurance that responses are effective.

Good governance means engaging stakeholders and making accountability real

Governing bodies of public services have multiple accountabilities: to the public (citizens) and to
those who have the authority, and responsibility, to hold them to account on the public‟s behalf.
Real accountability is concerned not only with reporting on or discussing actions already
completed, but also with engaging with stakeholders to understand and respond to their views
as the organisation plans and carries out its activities.

CONCLUSIONS
Good governance is the basic principle of our efforts to strengthen public administrations in
partnership with our clients/citizens. This implies that public administrations shall continuously
change and develop to a more open, transparent, accountable, equitable, cost-effective and
responsive form of governance. Public administration through good governance must be
providing services in strengthening institutions, capacity building measures, stakeholder
involvement and decentralisation processes.. Yet, no one-size-fits-all formula was ever
plausible. Indeed, the idea of an “administrative culture” is often evoked, only further
emphasizing how difficult it is to achieve reform in this particular field. A successful reform
process can only be individually tailored to each separate administration although universal
principles do exist. Public administration reform, however, is not still an easy task anywhere.
Also the constraint of good governance are:
- Failure to make clear separation between what is public and what is private.
- Failure to establish a predictable framework of law and government behavior conducive to
development or arbitrariness in the application of rules and laws
- Executive rules, regulations, licensing requirements and so forth, which impede, functioning of
markets and encourage rent seeking.
- Priorities, inconsistent with development, resulting in a misallocation of resources
- Excessively narrowly based or nontransparent decision making.
One of the key recommendations is the imperative to develop a shared understanding of a
coherent institutional architecture to anchor a cross practice that recognizes and re-enforces the
conceptual and operational interconnections between local governance and administration as

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generative force on one hand and sustainable local development as an outcome on the other.
The empowerment of human resources is seen as a priority in the modernisation of the civil
service in our countries and it includes rational planning, purposeful training, a recruitment
based on objectivity and transparency and a system of career opportunities. In order to achieve
transparency and to apply the values of good governance, an effective institutional framework
must be applied, the participation of citizens in governance should be enhanced, and an
effective system of internal and external control needs to be developed. Adopted reforms on law
must introduces the principles of “professionalism, independence and integrity, political
neutrality, transparency, service to the public, career continuity, accountability and correctness
in the application of binding legislation”. In local level good governance is needed for
development Without good governance the grass root development cannot be imagined.
Corruptions, financial maladies, human rights violations, lack of accountability all the elements
of good governance require at local level public institution. It is undoubtedly acknowledged that
local development entails all the elements of good governance. So both of two are extremely
related. As local government is subject of structural reforms like administrative-territorial reform,
a backsight on the result of its implementation and if principles of good governance are
achieved through, would be an interest for further research.

REFERENCES
Decentralization at a crossroads, Territorial Reforms in Europe in time of crisis (CEMR, 2013)
European Principles for Public Administration (Copyright, OECD, Paris 1998)
Evaluation of UNDP contribution to strengthening local governance (UNDP 2010)
Good governance and public administration reform, International Centre for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS),
Dec, 2008
Politics and administration in local government, Publication of Department of Public Administration,
University of Kansas, 2002
The European Code of Good Administrative Behavior, ECommunities, 2005

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