The paper previewed in this articlefocuses on the implementation of a long-term capacitybuilding approach to civil service reform. It starts with areview of past World Bank support to civil service reformand confirms that the cost containment approach achievedneither fiscal stabilization nor efficiency objectivesdespite heavy political and social costs. The ratherdisappointing results are traced to the patrimonialcharacter of the state whose features in the civil servicecontext are: recruitment based on subjective and ascriptivecriteria; public employment managed as a welfare system; paylevels that are unrelated to productivity; loyalty ofofficials to the person of the ruler rather than to thestate; and formalism of administrative rules and proceduresrather than the substance. The paper argues that thedirection of improvement lies in improved governance; abroader approach to civil service reform. Improvinggovernance would begin with an assessment of theinstitutional environment which determines the patrimonialprofile of the country: high when all of these factors areabsent, low when they are present. This would be followed bythe adoption of a strategy for reform that could be acomprehensive approach, an enclave approach or a hybridapproach, depending on whether the country'spatrimonial profile is high, low or average, respectively.
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