IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jic/wpaper/119.html

Outsourced Technical Cooperation Reconsidered: Agency Problems in the Support of Decentralized Public Service Delivery in Sierra Leone

Author

Listed:
  • Mikami, Satoru
  • Furukawa, Mitsuaki

Abstract

Technical cooperation at the implementation stage is indispensable for translating the effects of fund flows by way of budgetary support into the actual delivery of public services on the ground. An increasing demand for the streamlining of development aid, however, dictates that donors should contract out technical cooperation to local technical assistants in the name of efficiency and ownership. Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests that outsourced technical cooperation tends to be ineffective due to the structured corruption embedded in the culture of the recipient countries. This paper tries to reveal the agency problems in aid implementation by qualitatively and quantitatively examining records and outputs of public financial management by local governments in Sierra Leone - a fragile and conflict-affected state with a dire need for improved public service delivery. Partial, if not definitive, evidence of the ineffectiveness of outsourced technical cooperation in comparison to directly administered technical cooperation has been found; this warrants further investigation.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikami, Satoru & Furukawa, Mitsuaki, 2016. "Outsourced Technical Cooperation Reconsidered: Agency Problems in the Support of Decentralized Public Service Delivery in Sierra Leone," Working Papers 119, JICA Research Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:jic:wpaper:119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10685/191
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://jicari.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=771&file_id=9&file_no=1
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yongmei Zhou, 2009. "Decentralization, Democracy, and Development : Recent Experience from Sierra Leone," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2672, April.
    2. Barr, Abigail & Lindelow, Magnus & Serneels, Pieter, 2009. "Corruption in public service delivery: An experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 225-239, October.
    3. Omar Azfar & William Nelson, 2007. "Transparency, wages, and the separation of powers: An experimental analysis of corruption," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 471-493, March.
    4. Nazmul Chaudhury & Jeffrey Hammer & Michael Kremer & Karthik Muralidharan & F. Halsey Rogers, 2006. "Missing in Action: Teacher and Health Worker Absence in Developing Countries," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 91-116, Winter.
    5. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2006. "Addressing Absence," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 117-132, Winter.
    6. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2012-68 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Faust, Jörg & Leiderer, Stefan & Koch, Svea, 2011. "Multi-donor budget support: only halfway to effective coordination," Briefing Papers 8/2011, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    8. Imran Rasul & Daniel Rogger, 2018. "Management of Bureaucrats and Public Service Delivery: Evidence from the Nigerian Civil Service," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 413-446, February.
    9. Furukawa, Mitsuaki & Mikami, Satoru, 2014. "Is Country-system-based Aid Really Better than Project-based Aid? Evidence from Rural Water Supply Management in Uganda," Working Papers 64, JICA Research Institute.
    10. Gauthier, Bernard & Wane, Waly, 2007. "Leakage of public resources in the health sector : an empirical investigation of Chad," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4351, The World Bank.
    11. Serneels, Pieter & Lindelow, Magnus & Garcia-Montalvo, Jose & Barr, Abigail, 2005. "For public service or money : understanding geographical imbalances in the health workforce," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3686, The World Bank.
    12. Stefan Koeberle & Zoran Stavreski & Jan Walliser, 2006. "Budget Support as More Effective Aid? Recent Experiences and Emerging Lessons," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6958, April.
    13. Martina Björkman & Jakob Svensson, 2009. "Power to the People: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment on Community-Based Monitoring in Uganda," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 735-769.
    14. AfDB AfDB, . "Annual Report 2012," Annual Report, African Development Bank, number 461.
    15. Shah, Anwar & Thompson, Theresa, 2004. "Implementing decentralized local governance: a treacherous road with potholes, detours, and road closures," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3353, The World Bank.
    16. Ritva Reinikka & Jakob Svensson, 2010. "Working for God? Evidence from a Change in Financing of Nonprofit Health Care Providers in Uganda," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(6), pages 1159-1178, December.
    17. Abigail Barr & Danila Serra, 2006. "Culture and Corruption," Economics Series Working Papers GPRG-WPS-040, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    18. Leiderer, Stefan, 2012. "Fungibility and the Choice of Aid Modalities," WIDER Working Paper Series 068, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Rachel Hayman, 2011. "Budget Support and Democracy: a twist in the conditionality tale," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 673-688.
    20. Izabela Jelovac & Frieda Vandeninden, 2008. "How should donors give foreign aid? Project aid versus budget support," Post-Print halshs-00293130, HAL.
    21. Stefan Leiderer, 2012. "Fungibility and the Choice of Aid Modalities," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-068, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jiang, Shuguang & Wei, Qian & Zhao, Lei, 2024. "Synergizing anti-corruption strategies: Group monitoring and endogenous crackdown – An experimental investigation," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    2. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/eu4vqp9ompqllr09iatqiagpl is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Shuguang Jiang & Marie Claire Villeval, 2022. "Dishonesty in Developing Countries -What Can We Learn From Experiments?," Working Papers hal-03899654, HAL.
    4. Isaac Mbiti & Danila Serra, 2022. "Health workers’ behavior, patient reporting and reputational concerns: lab-in-the-field experimental evidence from Kenya," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(2), pages 514-556, April.
    5. Ayako Wakano, 2016. "The effect of locally hired teachers on school outcomes (the Dose response function estimation evidence from Kenya)," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 16-15, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    6. Bold, Tessa & Gauthier, Bernard & Svensson, Jakob & Wane, Waly, 2010. "Delivering service indicators in education and health in Africa : a proposal," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5327, The World Bank.
    7. Leiderer, Stefan, 2013. "Donor Coordination for Effective Government Policies? Implementation of the New Aid Effectiveness Agenda in Health and Education in Zambia," WIDER Working Paper Series 049, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Benjamin A. Olken, 2020. "Banerjee, Duflo, Kremer, and the Rise of Modern Development Economics," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 853-878, July.
    9. Callen, Michael & Gulzar, Saad & Hasanain, Ali & Khan, Muhammad Yasir & Rezaee, Arman, 2020. "Data and policy decisions: Experimental evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    10. Svea Koch & Stefan Leiderer & Jörg Faust & Nadia Molenaers, 2017. "The rise and demise of European budget support: political economy of collective European Union donor action," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35(4), pages 455-473, July.
    11. Giulia Mugellini & Sara Della Bella & Marco Colagrossi & Giang Ly Isenring & Martin Killias, 2021. "Public sector reforms and their impact on the level of corruption: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), June.
    12. Ayako Wakano, 2016. "The effect of ratio between PTA teachers and Government employed teachers on Education outcomes in Kenya Primary Schools," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 16-14, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    13. Rebecca Dizon-Ross & Pascaline Dupas & Jonathan Robinson, 2015. "Governance and the Effectiveness of Public Health Subsidies," NBER Working Papers 21324, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Elizabeth Beasley & Elise Huillery, 2011. "Understanding Community Participation to Make Services Work," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-01073687, HAL.
    15. Stefan Leiderer, 2013. "Donor Coordination for Effective Government Policies?: Implementation of the New Aid Effectiveness Agenda in Health and Education in Zambia," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-049, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Patrick Legros & Mohamed Mounir Sraieb, 2015. "Money or Projects: How Should Altruistic Donors Give Aid ?," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2015-18, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    17. Michael Callen & Saad Gulzar & Syed Ali Hasanain & Muhammad Yasir Khan, 2016. "The Political Economy of Public Sector Absence: Experimental Evidence from Pakistan," NBER Working Papers 22340, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Friedman, Willa, 2018. "Corruption and averting AIDS deaths," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 13-25.
    19. B Kelsey Jack, "undated". "Market Inefficiencies and the Adoption of Agricultural Technologies in Developing Countries," CID Working Papers 50, Center for International Development at Harvard University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jic:wpaper:119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Japan International Cooperation Agency Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/jicgvjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.