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IAF Egyptian Participants' Reports |
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Report on the Seminar on New Public Management Participant: Wael Nawara Date: 27 September – 4 October 2009  Report :Introduction The Seminar was between July 2009 and October 2009. The first 2 ½ months utilized e-Learning techniques, such as forum discussions, group projects, assignments, emails all through THA IAF online LCMS. During this "virtual" phase intensive work and screening of participants was done in preparation for the physical seminar. Most people participated quite actively, despite the limitations of the technology. Only 25% of the initial 100+ participants in the online seminar were selected to participate in the "physical" seminar held at Gummersbach between 27 Sep and 4th October 2009. About 7 or 8 of the 25 participants were from Latin America, the rest were from Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The Seminar wass conducted in 2 languages, English and Spanish. Why NPM? Public administration is criticised almost all over the world for being too slow, too costly, too bureaucratic and often, too corrupt! In our part of the world, added to these problems is a major issue at the core of any authoritarian regime; Control. Control is surely an important element of any system design and as a result on modern management which often follows a system approach. Control, however, is only one element. Other elements are "effectiveness", i.e., can the system deliver desired objectives; and "efficiency", i.e., how efficient is the system when we compare outputs to inputs and "user-satisfaction / user-friendliness", i.e., how satisfied the users of the system are with its performance, among other things. Traditional public administration approach, however, emphasized "control" over any other element when designing and evaluating public administration systems. This surely came on the expense of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction of the users, citizens or the public, with regards to system performance. Under authoritarian regimes, specially, this emphasis on "control" had an additional political imperative, since authoritarian regimes rely for their survival on "control". In Egypt, for instance, Hernando de Soto, in his book, Mystery of Capital observes that a citizen wishing to obtain a permit for building a house and registering the deed for such a house in his name must go through some staggering 76 different procedures to complete that task which would take many years to complete. Since people must live and will usually require houses for this purpose, the reality today in Egypt is that millions of homes are what is called "Random Housing" clusters. Slums where no urban planning or design standards are followed. At the end, the government has to bow its head and connect those millions of people with necessary utilities and we have to live for decades or centuries to come with the deadly consequences. The same goes for business licenses, car licenses, and all possible interactions with the government. The more procedures the government tried to install to ensure absolute control over the lives of the people, the weaker the government control in fact, since people could not and would not comply with these procedures, which renders the objective of absolute control as a self-defeating fallacy. This is why NPM is particularly important for a party like El Ghad which has submitted since 2003 radical reforms for Public Management based on the priniciples of New Public Management (NPM). What is NPM? New Public Management (NPM) is a philosophy and an approach for management of public enterprises with the spirit, techniques and methodologies successfully utilized in the private sector. It is based on a paradigm shift in management culture which emphasizes on the centrality of the "customer" as well as on accountability for results. The customer here is parimarily the "citizen", the tax payer who basically pays the salaries of government officials, who are considered in the context of NPM as "Public" servants instead of being the "demigods" typically found in authoritarian regimes who have wide powers and their loyalty is not to the citizen but to the government or the regime or even to the "procedures". NPM introduces this paradigm shift where such demigods are accountable to those who pay their salaries and expect a good, efficient, speedy and courtesous service in return. Other customers could be other agencies or government departments using the service, including internal departments. The core philosophy of New Public Management includes the following basic principles: • Management culture that emphasizes the centrality of the customer • Transparency about resource allocation and results • Organization that promotes decentralized control through a wide variety of alternative service delivery mechanisms (including quasi-markets = public and private service providers are competing for public budgets) • NPM represents the idea of a cascading chain of contracts leading to the single goal for public employees, to get better results within a sector portfolio over which he/she has significant authority (contract management) • NPM is the attempt to transfer management instruments from the private sector in a modified way into the public administration transparency, more efficiency and more quality as well as reduction of expenses are them in targets of NPM! Elements of NPM • Lean State : Reduced tasks performed by state • Separation of Decision Making Levels: Separation of the strategic from the operative level, politics decides the WHAT, administration the HOW • Lean Management: Combination of management by objectives, flat hierarchy, project management, performance related payments, modern methods of leadership • New Service Attitude : Customer orientation: Satisfaction in the center of all considerations, behavioral changes • New Model of Control : Steering by clear targets, measurement of results, transparency of resource allocation • Decentralization : Task, responsibility, competence and budget in one hand (eg. of department manager) • Quality Management : Ensure high service quality through qualification, competition, transparency • Product approach : Describing all administrative service as products": features, cost, needed resources, time to deliver Example Let me give you an example of NHS (National Health Service) in Britian. It is financed by Tax Payers Money (Gov Budget) bgut is performed by many private entities such as: * Independent GPs (General Practitioners) * Hospitals with Independent BOT (Board of Trustees) * Private Chemists (Like Boots and other Pharmacists) My Input This subject is of specific importance to me. Since 2003, I have participated in the development of El Ghad Party’s Reform Agenda. My main tools was using NPM, Strategic Management and Strategic Marketing techniques to improve service quality, responsiveness and efficiency as means to improve quality of life for citizens, save resources which are otherwise wasted in unnecessary procedures and enhance Egypt’s competitiveness. During the online "virtual" part of the seminar I participated with various posts in the forum and I also submitted a paper with the title: "Egypt’s Autocracy Time to Make a U-Turn", I also developed a proposal for improving a public service utilizing NPM principles, and I here borrowed the concept we had been developing since 2003 for reforming education in Egypt and which we also presented to the Egyptian people during 2005 first multi-candidate presidential elections. I also participated in a televised Presidential Debates in 2005 with our education program – my opponent in the debate with Dr. Hossam Badrawi, head of the education committee in the NDP which we challenged in 2005. Also during the online "virtual" part of the seminar I participated with background information about the political situation in Egypt, MENA and Africa and I had the pleasure to tell my colleagues of our new initiative, NAL. During the "physical" conference in Gummersbach, I made a presentation to show these ideas to my colleagues and the moderators of the seminar. I attached a copy of the presentation. Below is the basic principles of my proposal for education reform. Proposal for Reforming Education • Currently Egyptian government budget for education is around LE 30 billion. Egyptian families additionally spend almost the same amount on : o Private Schooling o Private Books o Private Tuition (lessons) as a support to State schooling • The resources dedicated to each student is around LE 2,000 per annum ($350) • This amount, albeit being small, compared to purchase power in Egypt and tuition fees for most private schools, can still deliver reasonable education level. Most private schools charge around that figure • The problem, therefore, is in the management, efficient and effectiveness of managing these resources dedicated to Education • To apply NPM principles, El Ghad Party suggested in 2003 that education should be privatized in the following manner o Centralized Vision/ with a local component, Curriculum development and Decentralized management o State Finances education on a per-head basis o ESP (education service provider) companies should be encouraged and appropriate legislation introduced o State ensures quality of Education and examination/certification policies o Exams to balance between learning objectives: Knowledge, Skill and Attitudes o Universities are encouraged to consider various kinds of achievement and not just exam-centered achivements o ESPs - Service Providers can be from private sectors and civil society o ESPs compete for students in their locales and nationally o State pays ESPs per capita based on a rating system (e.g., Tier (A) Schools receive LE 2500 per head per year, Tier (B) Schools receive LE 2250 per head per year, etc.) o Rating system is based on continuous audits and computerized system which includes a variety of criteria such as: • Customer Satisfaction (Parents) • End of Year Results • Classrooms, Labs, IT Equipment, Courts, Utilities and Facilities • Teacher-to-Student Ratio • Teacher Qualifications • Extra-curriculum activities • Hygiene and Cleanliness • Participation in nation-wide-activities such as Talent Competitions, Feedback, o Introduce e-Learning & e-Training at all educational and vocational levels o Books and learning Aids developed by the private sector o A Gradual Conversion Plan where Current Schools are rented to new ESPs o Admins, Teachers and Staff are encouraged to form their own ESP (Educational Service Provider) Companies or NGOs through MBO (Management Buy-out) Approach to gradually phase out teacher employment to the state o Banks and Social Fund are encouraged to provide loans for new ESPs and MBO ESPs • System to be continuously monitored and improved based on actual performance and findings Note: The State still pays for Schooling - and it is FREE for each child - but the service itself is mostly delivered through Independently Managed Schools – NGOs and Private Companies - which get Annual Grants from Governments proportional to the size of demand from Parents at their area to Finance their operations according to many criteria and UNDER SUPERVISION and MONITORING from Government - So, the Bottom line is - the Government still has the upper hand in such an important activity - and still finances education through Tax Payers Money - the Services however are delivered though ESP (Education Service Providers) and local NGOs ... Seminar Atmosphere The seminar was held in Gummersbach in a beautiful spot on the hills surrounded by meadows and nearby forest! The atmosphere in the seminar was very friendly yet disciplined and efficient. I think everyone enjoyed themselves and benefited a great deal from the learnings or the seminar and from the interactions with other participants and the wealth of experience everyone brought to the table. The moderators were rather facilitators and more than ½ of the activities relied on interactive group-projects and discussions which enriched the seminar greatly. I was asked to play the role of the Mayor in a town hall meeting debating municipal policies regarding public management in a small town. Learnings Although I have formally studied management and marketing at post graduate levels, I must say that I benefited greatly from attending the seminar. It is almost impossible to count the lessons learned, but I would just mention a few inspiring thoughts: 1. The idea of Citizen Charter was presented by our colleagues from the Philippines and India. And although I found that these countries could have applied the principle in a much more effective way, the concept itself provided me with great insights which I plan to use in our party program. 2. Listening to the head of the Federation of Towns and Municipalities in Cologne, I realized that democracy is far more than elections, parliament and cabinet. In fact, decentralization gives a great weight to towns and municipalities in the running of things. Often the federal government can take decisions and delegate the implementation to towns and municipalities which may not have the resources to deliver on decisions taken at the federal level! Of course this is way too advanced for a country like Egypt where 30 years villagers would elect their mayor (Omada), but now the situation is reversed and Minister of Interior appoints the mayors of villages while the president appoints governors. In the near future, however, it will be important to develop such additional institutions such as federation of towns and municipalities in Egypt. 3. Listening to one of the leaders of the FDP in our visit to Cologne, I realized that Germany has a law which supports citizen participation in political life in a very pragmatic way, where employers who consent to employees participating, get some sort of compensation or tax break from the government for the time spent by the politicians in public affairs. I have always wondered how can politicians make a living and this is a problem in Egypt which stands behind a lot of corruption and abuse of power because there is no law which supports politicians, especially those who are in opposition, in making a living. I intend to write about these issues and I did already publish a number of these ideas on my blog: http://weekite.blogspot.com One of the great benefits of the seminar was meeting, working and socializing with so many inspiring liberals from all over the world including the moderators, seminar coordinators and the Academy Director and staff. I created a Facebook Group for participants in IAF seminars to keep in touch and share photos, reflections and news. Finally, I must say that I enjoyed myself although it was very hard work since the sessions ran until very late, sometimes until 9 p.m. I had to take several days off to rest after I came back to Cairo! |
Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty in Egypt : www.fnst-egypt.org
