China : Urban Services and Governance

Brixi, Hana

关键词: ACCOUNTABILITY;    ACCOUNTING;    ADMINISTRATIVE BARRIERS;    ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEMS;    APPROPRIATE INCENTIVES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5030
RP-ID  :  WPS5030

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The study addresses governancechallenges in public service delivery in China. It builds onthe citizen scorecard survey conducted in five Chinesecities in 2006 to gauge citizensexperience with publicservices, and demonstrates the usefulness of citizens feedback for policy development and implementation. Thesurvey found that citizens were generally pleased with urbanpublic services, but worried about the associated fees.Compared with the official urban residents, the urban poorand rural migrants in cities reported sharper utilizationconstraints, lower readiness to complain or pay informalfees, and a much larger income share spent on publicservices. The reported citizensperceptions sometimesdiverged from the evidence and pointed to significantinformation asymmetries. Explaining the survey results, thestudy reveals problems of inadequacy, inequality andmisaligned incentives in public resource allocation. Thestudy presents several successful experiments reducing thedependence on user fees in basic education and primaryhealthcare. It recognizes that China has been undertakingcomprehensive reforms to enhance equity and quality inpublic service delivery. Such reforms have included measuresto strengthen the regulatory, monitoring, and enforcementsystems and accountability relationships. In the context ofthe ongoing reforms, this study highlights the need to: a)hold the provincial governments accountable for publicservice delivery performance; b) develop effectivemechanisms to align public resources and incentives at eachlevel of government with the national priorities; and c)develop proper means to empower the citizens. In thiscontext, the study affirms that the Chinese government isrightly placing reforms in the intergovernmental,administrative, and public finance systems at the top of its agenda.