1. In your dissertation you studied good functioning institutions in weaker states, with the case study of Nigeria. You graduated in June 2012 from the GPAC² programme, obtaining the desired PhD degree at Maastricht University. As of this month, you made a career change, which appears to be linked to your PhD topic of interest. You will now work as Director General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms in the Office of the President of Nigeria. Your role is to lead the reform of public services in Nigeria. Can you briefly explain your new job?

JA: My main roles are to clarify government policies on the reform of public services and conduct research on implementation efforts and best practice models. I’ll also be launching reform action plans while coordinating, monitoring and evaluating reform implementation activities. Finally, at a broader level, my job requires me to nurture an environment of learning within the public service.

2. The topic of your dissertation matches very nicely with this new job function. Do you believe writing the dissertation was positive for this career change?

JA: Public sector reforms are what I have done all my working life. However, I believe that completing the PhD itself added the formal educational credibility to my long years of practical knowledge, and may have given me an edge over others. I believe the focus of my dissertation, ‘Strong Organisations in Weak States’, prepared me for the challenges ahead in the new job.

3. Your study ends with the development of the theory of convergent demand, indicating a good functioning institution needs Passion (in the form of a need for the institution), Pressure for the institution (national and international) and Power (in the form of ability and capacity to change). Will this model guide you in driving public service reform, and if so how?

JA: The model is based on many years of experience about what seems to work in difficult environments. It is somewhat explanatory in nature. Now that I work in this role in government, I can engineer some of the pressure (e.g., through peer review), help to demand the passion (through performance reporting) and ensure that organisations have the power to make the required changes (through proposed revisions to legislation). However,  the real value of my research – at least in terms of this new job – was my articulation of internal and external factors that affect performance, and, more importantly, the nuances that affect success in dysfunctional environments. These include Leadership, Funding, Recruitment Process, Performance Management, Pay, Technical Capacity and Public Support. My findings about what appears to work with regards to these issues will heavily shape my approach to the reform of all ministries, departments and agencies.

4. You will leave your current job as director of DFID’s governance programme in Nigeria. What will you miss most?

JA: The money! Public servants earn much less than development practitioners!! Seriously though, I will miss the people that I have worked with over the years and the level of expertise that I have had available to me. Skills like project management, monitoring and evaluation, strategic communications and change management are in short supply in the public service. However, the privilege of being able to exercise state power means that I can bring in some people with these skills, even if it means making a demand on DFID itself. Following my appointment, I think all donors in Nigeria know what’s coming!

Questions by School of Governance PhD Director Dr. Mindel van de Laar. Answers by PhD alumnus Joe Abah. Image: H.Pijpers

Many states are public service states. In some, the main economic activities in the state revolve around the public service. The only good jobs available are public service jobs. Public servants are the elite. Everybody’s ambition is to join the public service. It’s prestigious.

The public servants are, if you like, the representatives of those in the rural areas. They are the educated elite who tell others what to do, even what to think. The salary of each public servant supports 30 dependents. They know how to write petitions. You don’t mess with them.

Because each salary supports 30 people, having high salary costs as a percentage of the budget is not seen by the people as a big deal in the states. It is seen as a means of direct distribution. So, a governor MUST recruit, pay and do infrastructure. Borrow, if necessary!

In some cases, personnel costs consume as much as 90% of state resources, even though the public service of that state is much less than 5% of the population. If you sack people, you’ll lose elections. It’s that simple. You may be forgiven if you sack AND REPLACE, like el Rufai.

So, you have less than 10% of resources available to spend on infrastructure, healthcare, education, security, youth, etc. As a governor, you know that if you don’t build roads, you’ll lose elections. If you don’t build gigantic structures in bricks and mortar, you lose elections

Now, assume that you defeated the incumbent governor to become governor. A month before he hands over, he will recruit an additional

10,000 people and dump them on you. They’ll report for work IMMEDIATELY! When you are sworn in, to sack them is a problem. To pay them is war.

At a point, Ekiti State which has about the smallest allocation from the Federation Account had the largest civil service in the country: 60,000 people. Even the Federal Civil Service is only 82,000 …and some people say it is bloated. You take over as a governor, in shock!

Now, the public service in the states is TOTALLY politicised. EVERYBODY ACTIVELY belongs to the ruling party. The main preoccupation of the civil service is party politics. Any contestations are within the same party. The only exception I’ve seen is Ekiti: about 50% APC; 50% PDP

Remember I said if you don’t do roads and build white elephant projects, you’ll lose. The same civil servants will tell the whole world that you are not doing anything, so you are not sure of their loyalty. There is no money. People that invested in your election are waiting…

So, to get anything done, you have no choice than to borrow. If you ask your Ministry of Works or Education to give you a quote for re-roofing a school, they’ll quote N50 million. You know you can do it for N5 million. You ignore the Ministries and do it yourself directly.

Because each successive governor has ignored them, they haven’t done any work in years and years. Any capacity they came to the Service with is now COMPLETELY lost. Indeed, you’ll need some convincing that some even have degrees. Many have fake degrees but that’s for another day. So now, as a governor, you are asking yourself why you should be spending 90% of State resources on this “useless, unproductive” 2%. You find it totally maddening. Also, you can’t raise taxes either. You can’t make enough money to be politically independent of your political sponsors.

Because capacity is so low and the cost of going through the public service is so high, you bring in your own staff and just award contracts from government house. You decide to throw a big party for your wife. The civil service prepares its dossier for EFCC when the time comes.

The choices before you are stark:

• Do the right thing, sack some and risk your political future
• Continue to pay them, do no projects and lose re-election
• Borrow massively to do projects and leave the Federal allocation to them
• Raise IGR, annoy market traders and lose.

Many governors will choose Option 3 and borrow massively. The problem comes when you’ve borrowed so much that you can no longer service the debt. You can’t afford to default on your loans. FGN guarantees international ones and will deduct at source. Also, local debtors don’t give time.

All of a sudden, you realise you can’t pay workers salaries. You promise them you’ll pay. Don’t forget that 30 people depend on EACH salary. The heat is so much that you start looking to borrow more. If you get “bailout funds”, you either want to do projects or pay other debts.

Since the public service has captured 90%, if you don’t do projects, you don’t make any money for yourself in kickbacks. So you build schools nobody needs, a state university or even an airport with the bailout funds. You continue to owe, and that’s how the cookie crumbles. End!

Join the trend of workers salaries herehttps://twitter.com/DrJoeAbah/status/962235146933071872

Follow Dr Joe Abah on

Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/DrJoeAbah/

Twitterhttps://twitter.com/DrJoeAbah

For four years of his service (2013-2017), he led the transformation process for the Nigerian public sector and has left a legacy of excellence and innovation in the BPSR. He retired this year.

On Decmber 24, 2017, Dr. Joe Abah shared his wealth of experience and insight into governance and administration on Twitter via his handle @DrJoeAbah to address the current state of the Nigerian polity and chart a pathway for progress.

Related Link: https://twitter.com/DrJoeAbah/status/944835329378476033

Background

Dr. Abah begins by pointing out that during election campaigns, politicians promise a better life. better health, better education, more jobs, less taxes, etc. among others to woo voters. He is of the opinion that Experienced politicians are very careful about quantifying these. According to him They don’t say “We’ll create 3 million jobs annually.”

Looking at the last 2015  general elections, Abah  believed that in order to dislodge the PDP Government, the APC managed successfully to paint a picture of Eldorado, which will be achieved overnight by May 30th 2015, after they are sworn in on May 29th. “Many of the young believed it. Those who studied Governance knew it was just politics”, he said.

As a governance expert Dr Joe Abah identified three areas where the current administration needs to address immediately.

Inability to manage expectations

The former DG, BPSR noted that having got into power then, the job of the government was to manage expectations. He said communication with the citizens, would have carried words like  “Look, we know we said this, but we didn’t know things were as bad as this. We will still try our best to do it but it will take us much longer than we thought.”

He said “You see, when you are outside government, you think everyone in government must be complete idiots. You can’t understand why “simple and straightforward” things cannot just be done. You bring a private sector mindset and preach about KPIs, discipline and the supremacy of markets”.

Underestimation Giving further insight into this, Abah stresses that apart from President Buhari, he is not aware of any senior FEC member with FEDERAL experience. For him it matters so much and  most had zero.

Speaking further he raises the concern that at state level, governors are virtually emperors. While at the Federal level, the  President isn’t. He further notes that at State level, “The Governor will just call the Speaker of the State House Of Assembly and say “You know that Budget I gave you, bring it and collect a different one.” Stressing that this cannot happen at the Federal level, because NASS is unlike State Houses of Assembly.

Apart from lack of Federal level experience, Dr Abah believed  the other aspect of Underestimation was automatically assuming that EVERYTHING that happened before you came was wrong. This according to him leads to time wasting and reinventing the wheel. The Learning curve is steeper  and there was no need for it.

He makes a strong case for intellectualism in leadership, stating that “A week before the government took power, it also held an APC Policy Dialogue where some deep thinking happened about what should be done in all key sectors. I am not aware that much of this thinking has been taken forward. It is what I referred to as a disdain for Intellectualism”.

Lethargy

Dr. Abah observes that it takes way too long for the current administration to take decisions. He says “Governance is full of wicked problems. That don’t go away, but only get worse the longer you don’t act”. You won’t get it right all the time and I know you must be careful to do no harm”.

“However, when you don’t take prompt action on even the little things, the buzz in the environment dissipates. Everybody starts waiting for every single thing. Nobody wants to do something that may run counter to a decision that has still not been taken. Lethargy sets in”.

He warns against  underestimating the bureaucracy, or the virulence of Boko Haram, or the corruption in the Security sector, particularly the armed forces, or how bad the Education system is or how disillusioned the Youth are. “Don’t underestimate ANYTHING at all. It’ll come back to bite you”.

Underscoring the value of Intellectualism in the nation, he asserts that “Intellectuals can often be annoying but no nation has developed without them. Research is the bedrock of development. Populism wins elections, Intellectualism develops nations. It is very vital to bring together clusters of intellectuals and challenge them with wicked problems”.

Way Forward Dr. Abah wants the The APC Policy Dialogue of May 2015 to be revisited. In his words “It is the approach the PDP used with great success on issues such as Agriculture, Integrated Transportation, and Sports”. “Successes in these areas did not happen by accident. Thoughts matter!

He also calls for a pragmatic step in decision making, which should be done urgently and relentlessly. According to him “Public Servants must feel that they have the freedom & authority to implement agreed approaches without seeking yet another approval. Not having it brings lethargy”.

In conclusion Abah a strategist by all measures alludes to the perception that some things in this government are working well, just as some things in the previous government worked well. For him the most important thing that is missing is the sense of a “Movement” to a better place. A feeling that the thing is greater than the sum of its parts.

He believes that It is still doable by the current administration.  

1. ON HIS VISION/AMBITION AS DIRECTOR GENERAL, BPSR:

What I set out to achieve, I did 100%.

I set out to demonstrate that change is possible in Nigeria and that you can re-orientate the public service.

We successfully intervened in areas that affect the day- to-day lives of citizens through the Enabling Business Environment Secretariat, Visa on Arrival, making airport experiences better, getting passports easier, driving licenses, tax clearances, identity management numbers, and so on.

I aimed to show Nigerians that with skill, determination and courage, change could happen here.

This is what I set out to achieve and is by far, my greatest achievement.

2. ON PUBLIC SERVICE EFFICIENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY:

There are some things I wish we were able to tackle such as the proliferation of agencies and parastatals. The more we spend on unnecessary options, the less there is to spend on more important things.

I am positive that we will still get to it in terms of making sure our (public) agencies are fit for purpose and can deliver better.

Cutting down on the number of agencies does not mean the other ones will perform better. The emphasis must be on delivery. It is important the agencies function because they are the ones that have the power, the law and the money. They need to be able to generate wealth for government, have the best staff because when agencies are working, the people on the street will say government is working. Also, I wish I had more time to work on policing but I am sure it will be worked on. I also wish I was able to work on the collective of revenue generating agencies such as the NNPC.

3. ON THE WORKINGS OF GOVERNMENT:

Detailed knowledge about the workings of government is not common. Even civil society organisations and NGOs who should know, don’t. I think government needs to do more to inform the government about how things are actually happening.

That is why I am pleased that Nigeria signed up for the Open Government Partnership (OGP) and the OGP includes a permanent dialogue mechanism with the civil society.

BPSR will shortly be releasing, ‘A Citizen’s Guide to Budgeting”. The guide will cover a wide range of basic issues about budgeting.

4. ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

Social Media changed my work. When I first came into the bureau, there were a number if basics that had to be put in place. The reforms had no plan, no strategy and there was no co-ordinated mechanism of any sort so there were things that I had to put in place first — reforming the reforms. We produced basic guides that were not available, for example basic guide on running an agency. We also produced basic guides that were not available such as the basic guide on running an agency. We also produced a guide on how to cut down on agencies and parastatals as well as how to merge agencies. The first two years were used to put in place certain things and I did not become active on social media until late 2015. We had partnered with a lot of international bodies, done studies with Harvard, with other governments because the nature of our work can be intellectual.

I learnt that as a public servant, being able to instantly communicate information to millions of people directly without hoping the press man will not distort the information is a major plus.

Being able to explain things in your own words was great. The downside is that it takes a lot of time.

5. ON COPING WITH THE REALITY OF HIS IMPENDING DEPARTURE:

The work I do here is the work I have done all my life. So even before I got here, I knew the people involved and I expect that will continue.

The fact that I’m leaving as the Director General of BPSR does not mean I will no longer continue to be involved in the reforms.

In some way or the other, I will still be hopefully able to add value.

I will miss my staff and I will miss the power to intervene directly in issues but it is my life’s work and it continues, I never will retire because this is my life’s work.

This is why I do not feel that level of disengagement because I expect to continue to be involved. I never got used to the trappings of power so that makes it easier. I never demanded or enjoyed special privileges.

6. ON HAVING THE RIGHT ATTITUDE:

There is a low level of confidence that people have in themselves and so people did not believe me when I said I was appointed solely because of the strength of my CV. I had no godfather. It is important to believe that some things work and they can work for you. People will always tell you why it is not possible and why you should not try and that is the worst advice you can take for yourself.

My approach in BPSR was that I will keep going until somebody says stop and no one ever stopped me. We mostly feel that as public servants, someone will not like something but it is just that we do not push our agenda enough.

If you are also not hung up on taking the glory, you will go further. You cannot be focused on chasing the right objective and be stopped by anybody. I urge people not to be self-defeatist.

7. ON WHAT’S NEXT, POST-BPSR:

Over the next few years, I will try to earn a lot more money for my family; go back to being able to take scheduled holidays with the family a few times a year.

I will be available to all for hire although I do not expect to still be as active on social media. I will be focused on more intellectual and academic work.

The question is: do donor pilot projects lead to “organic diffusion? Does doing demonstration projects lead to systemic changes in institutions. By Institutions, we mean the way that things are done in a society. This is to be distinguished from Organisations (groups of people intentionally put together to achieve a set purpose).

Institutions are conditioned by history, sociology, culture and politics. They are the socially accepted norms that are practiced by society and handed down to successive generations through education and socialization. These include marriage, tradition, morals and ethical values. Accepted wisdom is that institutions take a long time to shift, sometimes as long as a whole generation or 40 years. Of course, there are occasions where institutions have changed more quickly. This often happens through a process of dislocation, where the normal rhythm of institutions is upset for the greater good. How can we get more dislocation in areas where we urgently need it?

I argue that this tends to happen in cases where there is an imperative to bring about change; that imperative is backed by the power to make the necessary changes; and there is altruistic patriotism to bring about a new order.

You see, reformers generally tend to pursue three, often distinct, approaches to institutional change. The first approach can be loosely termed the “big bang” approach. With this approach, the reformer develops a plan to pursue change in the key areas of planning, budgeting and delivery in priority areas, and complements this with relentless monitoring and evaluation, using feedback from citizens to close the loop and recalibrate interventions. While this approach is holistic, it can often suffer from over-ambition and a loss of focus. It also requires very strong political will, which is often lacking in developing countries. This approach succeeded in the United Kingdom where Tony Blair became perhaps the only recent global politician to have campaigned, and won elections, on a manifesto of public service reforms.

The second main approach is what Professor Matt Andrews of Harvard University termed the “Problem-Driven Iterative Approach.” With this approach, you focus on one major problem at a time. You solve that problem (and all the problems embedded within it, with the expected back and forth) and move on to the next problem. This approach suffers the risk that you could be stuck on one seemingly intractable problem for ever and take your eyes off other balls. For instance, most people agree that stable electricity is a key catalyst for development. However, it is rather difficult and slow to change the institutions (the way things are done) around electricity, particularly where there are strong opposing interests and a consistent failure to productively invest in electricity infrastructure for generations.

The third main approach is pilots, the donor darlings. Pilots are usually demonstration projects that show “the natives” that things are possible, usually followed by an expectation that once this is made clear to them, they would simply adopt the lessons more widely and solve all remaining problems. Do donor demonstration projects have a track record of bringing about institutional change? I argue that they do not. Donor pilot projects tend to be advocacy projects. They tend to demonstrate that, given certain conditions, some things can work differently. We know that! What precisely is the point of doing more and more pilots? The danger with pilots is that they can often ignore the institutional factors that constrain change in the first place. They beg the question: why does it take donor funding and expertise (using locals) to make some things work? Why do they not work without donor involvement? For those that work, why do they stop working when donor involvement ends?

Africa is littered with several of these pilots and demonstration projects. From solar-powered boreholes, to rural electrification schemes, to skills acquisition schemes, to improved processes for licensing. I could go on and on. They often work for some time, achieve the “success” that donors can report to their funders back home and are them swiftly abandoned when the donor programme ends. Many are designed without much thought as to the recurrent implications of maintaining them and without regard to the institutional changes in planning, budgeting, project management, service delivery and personnel requirements needed to even maintain existing initiatives, not to talk of adopting them for wider use.

Unfortunately, the current literature on reforms is such that various scholars are firmly entrenched in each of the three ideological camps. However, reformers with real world experience will know these three key approaches are not mutually exclusive. The “big bang” approach is necessary in order to have a reform “movement” that is based on a clear plan. Within this plan, it is important to ensure that reforms are problem-driven, rather than generic, and there is a need to focus on “wicked” problems that are causing blockages in the system. Finally, demonstration projects are important to build confidence that change is indeed possible.

Therefore, rather than undertake more and more pilots that do not teach us anything new, I would argue that Africa should focus on the levers that can bring about its development. Unknown to many Africans, the African Union has developed an agenda for Africa called “Agenda 2063: The Africa we want.” This agenda is a strategic framework for the socio-economic development of Africa over the next 50 years. The Agenda has 7 main aspirations which I will briefly take in turn.

You see, Africa and/or its donors cannot “pilot” itself out of poverty. Therefore, the first aspiration of Agenda 2063 focuses on prosperity, inclusive growth and sustainable development. Africa must produce more. It must trade more. The African market of 1.1 billion people is enough to generate great wealth for the continent, even by just trading with itself.

This leads to the second aspiration which is for an integrated continent that is united on the basis of Pan Africanism. The European Union, despite Brexit, is one of the world’s most powerful trading blocks. The Asians and the South Americans have similar arrangements. Although southern and western Africa have taken some baby steps in this direction, Africa still does not have a truly integrated continental initiative. It does seem rather odd, for instance, that you can enter South Africa without a visa on a British passport but not on a Nigerian passport.

The third aspiration is good governance, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law. While these are all important, and is an area that donors favour, China and some other Asian countries have shown that you can have development without western-style “good governance.” Therefore, Africa must find what works for Africa in this regard, without constraining human freedoms. Unfortunately, Africa’s history of dictatorship has not had the same track record of “benevolence” as those in Asia. To convincingly argue for any sort of dictatorship as the solution to Africa’s problems is therefore a very difficult endeavor.

The fourth aspiration is peace and security. This is a given. Africa cannot grow without peace and security. The fifth is strong cultural identity, with good values and ethics. Therefore, Africa must eschew harmful traditional practices that constrain its growth. The sixth is to place people at the center of its development. Africa has had too much economic growth that is not people-driven and that merely widens the equality gap. Finally, Africa needs to be a strong, united global partner. The partnership approach is important. Partners are often equals, not donors and beneficiaries. Each partner supports the other for the overall benefit of the partnership enterprise. A poor, dependent Africa is of no benefit to an otherwise prosperous world.

In my opinion, Agenda 2063 provides the levers that can pull Africa out of poverty and into prosperity. Unfortunately, the African Union does not appear to have the convening power to facilitate a continental dialogue that can see this agenda influence the development plans of its constituent members. If this can somehow be done, donors and development partners will know exactly “The Africa We Want” and tailor their interventions accordingly. The era of donor-driven development, focused on pilots and demonstration projects will start to wane. Without pulling the necessary levers, pilots will never be able to take off, no matter how many you have.

*Dr Joe Abah is the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, The Presidency, Nigeria, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.

A few days ago, Mr Bisi Ogunwale, a businessman, reported on Twitter how a young boy had begged him for money at a popular bus stop in Lagos, the bustling commercial capital of Nigeria. When he refused to give the boy any money, the boy is said to have told him: “Remember! When money finishes, it is people that remain.” Mr Ogunwale reported that the statement had had a chilling effect on him and that he was scared and sad at the same time. A short Twitter debate ensued as to the possible meaning of the statement. Some felt that it was an approximation of the quote often attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” Others felt that it meant that you should be nice to the poor because if there is a breakdown of law and order, it is the poor people you have been nice to who will save you, the rich. Yet others felt that it was an admonition not to place too high a value on money, but to invest instead in people, particularly the youth. Virtually every commentator agreed that the statement was sufficiently chilling to concern every Nigerian adult.

High youth unemployment

According to its National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria has a youth labour force of 38.2 million people. For context, that is a youth workforce (between the ages of 15 and 24 years) that is more than three times the entire population of Belgium. Of this number, 48.7% or 15.2 million (much more than the entire population of Belgium) is out of work and actively seeking employment. The NBS figures include those that are unemployed and seeking work, as well as those that are under-employed. The NBS is careful not to include those that are not working and not looking for work, such as fulltime homemakers.

Several reasons have been advanced for the high rate of youth unemployment in Nigeria. These include high population growth rate (understandably), deficient school curricula and poor teacher orientation, lack of focus on manufacturing as a result of overdependence on the oil sector, and flawed and inconsistent government policies on youth unemployment. These will now be discussed in turn.

It is rather difficult to do anything to reduce Nigeria’s high population growth, particularly as it is tied to religious and cultural sentiments. Family planning campaigns are mostly run by foreign donors, and the cultural reliance on multiple births as a response to previously high infant mortality rates is still in the consciousness of many. There is also some evidence that a large population is not necessarily a bad thing if a country can leverage it as an advantage. Countries with large populations such as China, India, Brazil and Indonesia have made very good developmental progress in the last 50 years.

The school curricula at different levels are neither sufficiently geared towards the needs of employers nor do they equip young people for self-employment. Many young people complete even tertiary education without an ability to apply that knowledge to real life situations. This has led some to conclude that a majority of the youth are ‘unemployable’.

It is expected that the drop in oil prices will lead to a sharper focus on manufacturing and industrialisation, which should, in turn, create additional jobs. If it is true that “oil is over”, then there are likely to be more employment opportunities for young people in agriculture, solid minerals, telecommunications and services, as government and the private sector make efforts to diversify the economy.

Uncoordinated policies towards youth employment

The Federal Government of Nigeria has recently launched a programme called Npower, which is targeted at equipping youth with the skills to make them employable. It aims to help build entrepreneurship skills, facilitate mentoring and skills transfer, and provide internships and contract employment to more than 500,000 young persons.

Virtually every government in Nigeria’s history has created one programme or another in an attempt to tackle youth unemployment. The schemes tend to raise hopes and do indeed benefit some young persons while they last. However, policy inconsistencies mean that successive administrations abandon the initiatives of their predecessors and create new initiatives, often justifying their actions with allegations of corruption against their predecessors and accusations of nepotism in the selection of beneficiaries. This means that it would be difficult to point to a consistent, sustained youth empowerment initiative that can be tracked over time and assessed for impact.

It is also difficult to point to a coordinated youth employment agenda that is shared, understood and subscribed to by all relevant government actors. Different parts of government have different initiatives and ambitions for youth empowerment. The Office of the Vice-president, the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development, the Ministry of Labour and Productivity and the National Directorate of Employment, among others, all have initiatives and schemes focused on youth unemployment. What is lacking is a coordinated, overarching youth employment policy, approved at the highest level of government, that guides all the interventions. Such a policy will foster coordinated strategies which should, in turn, produce sensible activities and initiatives in a measurable way across the whole result chain: input-output-outcome-impact.

The Bureau of Public Service Reforms, which I currently lead, will shortly be developing a policy paper titled “Understanding Youth Unemployment”. The paper will evaluate the effectiveness of current and previous efforts, including the major issue of coordination and an overarching policy and strategy, and propose ways forward.

The need to tackle rising youth unemployment is clear to all. Nigeria is currently in a recession and oil prices have been at their lowest for very many years. As the young boy at the Lagos bus stop said, “When the money finishes, it is people that remain.”

About the author

Dr Joe Abah is the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms in the Presidency, Nigeria, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.

Photo: Street in Lagos Centre. Credits: Zouzou Wizman via Flickr.com.

This article was published in GREAT Insights Volume 6, Issue 1 (February/March 2017).

Economic Transformation and TradeEmploymentYouthNigeria

“Success depends upon previous preparation, and without such preparation there is sure to be failure” [Confucius]

Everywhere you go in Africa, you are likely to hear people say “Our problem is not planning, but implementation.” People regale you with various examples of “beautiful plans” that were “technically perfect” but never made it to implementation. Indeed, the refrain “Our problem is not planning but implementation” receives knowing nods of approval from all and sundry and is generally taken as accepted wisdom. It is likely to win you loud ovation at any workshop or seminar in Africa. You could be forgiven for thinking that Africans are born with a deficiency of the implementation gene, if there was such a thing. The statement that planning is not our problem and the notion that Africans are unable to implement are two of the biggest fallacies there are.

The statement that planning is not our problem and the notion that Africans are unable to implement are two of the biggest fallacies there are.

For donors by donors

Let us start with planning. There are five main types of plan prevalent in Africa. The first type is “donor plans”: plans written for the benefit of donors. Actually, if the truth be told, they are usually plans written by donors for donors in the name of Africans. From Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, to Structural Adjustment Programmes, to Millennium Development Goals, even to the current Sustainable Development Goals – very few of these plans enjoy top-level government ownership or even, in some cases, awareness. There is often no link to government budgets; no consideration of implementation capacity; and no consideration of institutions and politics. Worse still, purist monitoring and evaluation practitioners virtually force people to promise things they know full well will not happen, just so that the logical framework can be technically perfect. Even the few plans that are “costed” are usually costed by people who do not have basic information about government fiscal policies, unit costs, availability of resources or workable sequence. Is it, therefore, any surprise that many of these plans are never implemented? Do we have an implementation problem or a planning problem?

World peace and goodwill to all

The second type of plan prevalent in Africa is what I would term the “advocacy plan”. These are plans that are intended to be used to put pressure on government to behave in a different way. Most of Africa’s sector plans fall into this category. Sector experts in areas like health and education are rightly passionate about improvements in their field, but are usually blissfully unaware of the pressures on other arms of government. They will write an education or health sector plan which cannot be fully funded even if a country was to spend its entire budget on it to the exclusion of everything else.

When you say to them: “We currently have 100 students to one teacher. Can we first plan to get to 85 students to one teacher over the next two years?” they will say “No! The ‘Education For All’ standard is 30 students to one teacher and we must maintain pressure on government to build more classrooms and engage more teachers.” I approximate with the figures, but you get the gist. When you then ask them where the money should come from to pay for it and still fund security, infrastructure and other priorities, they will usually say that those sectors too should fight for their own resources, as if the resource envelope is endlessly elastic. Do we have an implementation problem or a planning problem?

God forbid!

The third type of plan is the “Plan A Only” plan. The Twitter profile of one Charles Mwabili says “No Plan B – it distracts Plan A.” Yep! You guessed it. He’s African. We have several versions of this type of plan across Africa. Each is usually preceded by good analysis and has at least made an effort to be realistic. However, there is usually no risk analysis, no risk mitigation and no contingency planning. Any questions such as “What if something were to go wrong?” are often met with no more than “God will not let it happen.” Well, Murphy’s law is that whatever can go wrong will. And God lets earthquakes, tsunamis and famines happen. So, with these plans, the moment something does not happen as planned, or happens out of sequence (as life generally tends to do), the plan is immediately thrown into disarray. If you are lucky, aspects of it will be implemented but usually in a haphazard way. Instead of having a Plan B to build a smaller house, given a fall in revenue, the money for the roof of the planned big house gets cut. It never gets built and ends up as an abandoned project. Is not having a Plan B an implementation problem or a planning problem?

In the eye of the beholder

The “beautiful plan” looks technically perfect and ticks all the boxes, but is completely unrealistic.

The fourth type of plan is the “beautiful plan”. This type of plan looks technically perfect and ticks all the boxes, but is completely unrealistic. It is hailed as the answer to all Africa’s problems and is the type of plan that evokes the most anger when it is not implemented. It plans to pave every street with gold, in a country that has no gold and no money to buy any. The beautiful plan will give everybody an immediate 1000% percent pay rise. It will turn the worst slums into Dubai or Singapore overnight, of course without the need for an autocratic ruler and other institutional conditions. It pretends that politics does not exist, that people do not have self-interest and that everyone’s priorities are uniform. Sometimes, the plan is prepared on a ceteris paribus – all other things being equal – basis and assumes that all projected revenue will come in, all budgeted funds will be fully released, and that the required human resource capacity and capability already exist in abundance. Indeed, it assumes that the common sense of it all should be so blindingly obvious that the plan should just deliver itself. After all, it has happened exactly as planned in other countries. Sorry to bastardise the phrase but ceteris is never paribus, particularly in Africa. Do we have an implementation problem or a planning problem?

The fire brigade

The fifth type of plan is, of course, the “fire brigade plan.” This is the type that was written only to facilitate the theft of public funds from donors or the government itself. It is usually cobbled together shoddily and quickly at the eleventh hour, and only a little intellectual prodding is sufficient to expose its soft underbelly. Fire brigade plans see African countries unable to cater for their athletes during Olympic Games and World Cups. Although we have four years notice that these events will happen, we do not start to plan for them until a few months before the start date. There is little or no preparation, arrangements to take care of athletes at host cities are shoddy, and their allowances are not paid or have been misappropriated. In truth, it would appear that there was never at any time an intention that what was planned would be implemented. Do we have an implementation problem or a planning problem?

Super Falcons’ players training ahead of their final match against the Lionesses of Cameroon during the 10th African Women’s Nations, Cameroon 2016.

The good plan

A good plan will have a deep understanding of political economy: the way it is, not the way it ought to be.

A good plan is a plan that has a good chance of getting delivered. A plan that has no chance of getting delivered is a bad plan. There is, therefore, no such thing as a “beautiful plan” that does not get delivered. “Beautiful plans” are bad plans. A good plan will factor in resources (human and financial), in a realistic manner based on historical patterns. It will not be based on the pipe dream that internally generated revenue will somehow magically double overnight. Funds for Year 1 will not be based on income from a mining programme that hasn’t even been commissioned, let alone being at break even or making profit. A good plan will have a deep understanding of political economy: the way it is, not the way it ought to be. It will have a best case, middle case, and worst case scenario, based on realistic projections for policy, personnel and funds. It will identify a number of quick wins that are virtually cost-free to buy support and build confidence. Finally, a good plan will have an implementation plan that factors in all the risks to its own implementation! This will include rigorous analysis of risks that accepts some of the risks as unmanageable “show-stoppers”, but also identifies those that can be managed and mitigated (and sets out clear steps for doing so). How many of Africa’s plans are good plans?

The implementation gene

Let us now come to implementation. Are Africans born deficient of an “implementation gene”? Of course not; Africans can implement as well as everyone else. However, there is a science to implementation. One of the foremost advocates of what he calls “deliverology” is Sir Michael Barber, author of the book Instruction To Deliver. In essence, he talks about the need to set clear priorities and measurable goals, use data and trajectories to drive progress, build routines around priorities, focus on solving problems and build relentless persistence in tracking the priorities. He also suggests setting up a dedicated unit to manage delivery. Africans are quick to set up units and a number of countries have already set up delivery units. The extent to which these can function without better planning remains to be seen. Barber’s approach is actually not that difficult to follow, particularly if there is a plan and the political will to implement that plan. Often, the basic plan is missing.

Of course, corruption is an impediment to implementation, as are capacity constraints, politics, funding, geography, ethnicity and religion. I must give religion a special mention as a major impediment to implementation in Africa, given the number of tasks that we should ordinarily perform but would rather delegate upwards to God. In my view, it is possible to blame the high level of religiousness in Africa for a lot of the weak risk management. However, none of these is as big an impediment as poor planning and an absence of preparation. Why would God not let us fail at the Olympics if we are busy wrangling over ethnic issues when others are busy preparing for the Games?

Ready, steady, go!

The Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt made GBP£5 million per second at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Let that sink in, please. PER SECOND! But here’s what is important: in order to achieve that level of income he lifted weights for four hours every day and practised his sprinting every day for 15 years, BEFORE he arrived in Rio. He was not punishing himself in training in order to please donors. He was not punishing himself in order to make anyone else perform differently. As he prepared to be a sprinter, he also readied himself to be a footballer or a cricketer, in case he did not make it at sprinting. The good thing about sports is that it makes you be true to yourself. Your success as a competitor will often depend on whether or not you can overcome your own limitations. In the world of sports, you cannot have a “beautiful plan” to run the 100 metres in under 10 seconds within six months when your weak knees mean that you have never even walked 10 metres in your life without pain, and probably never will. Finally, Usain Bolt did not start preparing for Rio three months before the Games – he started 15 years ago. That is why he never had an implementation problem in Rio.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – AUGUST 14: Usain Bolt of Jamaica competes in the Men’s 100 meter semifinal on Day 9 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium on August 14, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

If we are going to get better at implementation, Africa really must get better at planning and preparation. Of course, Usain Bolt is also blessed with great natural attributes – but Africa is blessed with even more.

Dr Joe Abah is Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, The Presidency, Nigeria, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.