The civil service management model inthe Demorcatic Republic of Congo (DRC) still conforms to theold institutional order. The legislation governingemployment in the public sector is unchanged and stillresponds to centralized administration. The publicadministration categorizes public employees in two maingroups: civil servants and local public employees. Civilservants are governed by legislation that is neither meritbased nor performance and result oriented. Local publicemployees are governed by labor legislation.Decentralization also requires the definition of a salarysystem for the new provincial administrations. For the firstsix months of the establishment of the provincial CivilService, the same salary paid to the State civil servantsshould be ensured and paid to the provincial civil servantsby the State administration. The provinces would not haveyet established adequate financial coverage and mechanismsto ensure regular payments. While the provincialadministrations are being consolidated (maximum 2 years),new legislation for public sub national service should beestablished including norms on wages. Such legislationshould be in line with the national civil servicelegislation regarding principles and standards. The DRCGovernment is faced with five main challenges: 1) Tomodernize the Civil Service system and amend its legislationto elevate it to improved standards of efficiency in servicedelivery and human resources management. These can beachieved by instilling values including merit, results,performance, and professionalization. 2) To fill thenormative vacuum by setting rules and procedures to managethe new decentralized Civil Service. 3) To establishinteractive consultation tools and procedures among alllevels of public administration. 4) To harmonize thenational and sub-national Civil Services with the newconstitutional order. 5) To make the public administration amore attractive employer for young skilled professionals byreforming and improving the public sector wage systemthrough systematic and sound reform measures.