BCURE Pakistan Civil Service Reform Policy Dialogue Report, Lahore, Pakistan March 20-21, 2014
Building Capacity to use Research Evidence (BCURE) is a DFID funded programme
Abstract
The first Policy Dialogue under the BCURE program tackled the challenge of Civil Service Reform in Pakistan. The event was held on the 20th and 21st March, 2014 in Lahore, Pakistan, and was delivered in collaboration with a number of local partners and international researchers.
The theme of Civil Service Reform was selected to address the key governance challenge in developing countries - and in Pakistan in particular – of effectively mobilizing public sector human resources to provide quality public services. The dialogue therefore focused both on issues of screening/selection of public servants as well as performance incentives, focusing specifically on new evidence on the impact of pay-for-performance and monitoring schemes in the public sector, and on the effect of wages and other job characteristics on the selection and behavior of individuals in the civil service. This evidence is being generated through research projects already underway in Pakistan through collaborative arrangements between researchers based at EPoD, affiliates at CERP (Center for Economic Research in Pakistan), and key policymakers within the government.The event promoted researcher and policymaker collaboration by highlighting Asim Kwhaja, Ben Olken and Adnan Khan’s Property Tax Project in the Punjab.
This report first provides an overview of the BCURE programme and the objectives of the BCURE policy dialogues. It then focuses on the theme of civil service reform in Pakistan covered by this policy dialogue meeting, describing the partners, participants and approach used, the process of tracking programme impact, and the challenges and lessons learned.
Citation
Harvard University. BCURE Pakistan Civil Service Reform Policy Dialogue Report, Lahore, Pakistan March 20-21, 2014. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA (2014) 16 pp.