Administrative Reforms in Bangladesh in a Time of Financial Crisis:Lessons and Future Directions

In a time of financial crisis governments in many countries are taking measures to continue to serve the citizens efficiently by improving government productivity and evolving new cost‐effective governance structures and systems. One of the fundamental tools for enhancing efficiency, effectiveness and economy in governmental operations is to undertake meaningful administrative reform (AR) measures that would cut cost without in any significant manner reducing quality of services provided to the clientele. There is now a broad agreement among policy planners. Policy implementers and academics in advanced countries that there is no alternative but to adopt such measures in the public domain that would enable public servants to do more with less in terms of both human and financial resources. The paper attempts to review and analyze Bangladesh's poor experience with AR and recommend appropriate measures to enable major AR proposals take root in the country to successfully tackle and move ahead in a time of financial upheaval. Fundamental AR efforts have mostly not been successful in Bangladesh. Poor implementation of major AR proposals is the result of a number of factors. First, there was very little political commitment for reform. Second, there was no organized and sustained movement from outside to put pressure on the government to implement major reforms. Third, there was no centrally located and politically powerful agency for reform monitoring and implementation. Fourth, professionals from outside the civil service with relevant background were not involved in the reform implementation process. Fifth, there was very little interest and enthusiasm on the part of civil servants in implementing major reforms. In a globalized, highly competitive and interdependent world Bangladesh has no option but to implement major AR proposals .to move forward. Bangladesh policy makers must learn from rich international experiences that are now available in the arena AR to face the challenges of the future.