Arab Monetary Fund publishes a report {civil service reforms}

28/7/2018 12:00 am

Abu Dhabi / Agencies
As part of the efforts of the Arab Monetary Fund to support decision-makers and economic policy makers in the Arab countries, the Fund considered the importance of issuing a "Window on the Reform" report as a specialized report that deals in a detailed and analytical manner with one of the axes of economic reform programs being implemented in the Arab countries. In this area, what policies and procedures are being implemented, existing challenges and lessons learned from similar reform programs implemented globally.
The report aims to support Member States' efforts to implement various economic reform policies and programs that are being implemented in specific areas, including reforms of civil service systems, pension funds, labor markets and products, promotion of competitiveness and targeting of the poor. The Arab Monetary Fund hopes that the report represents a new addition to its research efforts to serve its member states in order to contribute to the policy-making process and to support the Arab countries' march towards economic progress.
The theme of "civil service reforms" was chosen as the focus of the report for 2018, as reform of the civil service system is one of the most important elements of fiscal reforms in many countries at different levels of economic progress. The importance of civil service reforms in the light of the expansion of these systems in some countries and the resulting pressures on the state of public budgets as a result of the high cost of government wages to the amount of about 20 percent of the average total public expenditure in the world, To 27 percent at the level of developing countries and emerging market economies.
This ratio varies from country to country, reflecting the size of the public sector in each country, the level of economic development and the constraints of available financial resources.
The report pointed out that although the initiatives of Arab governments to reform the civil service systems have been going on for many years, these initiatives and efforts have witnessed remarkable acceleration and great interest in recent years in the light of the challenges faced by the Arab countries during that period with different economic structures that necessitated Many Arab countries have moved ahead with fiscal reforms aimed at fiscal discipline and fiscal sustainability.
In order to draw lessons from international experiences, the report addressed the reforms of civil service systems in developed and developing countries and noted that, with the trend towards civil service reform, a number of countries have adopted what is known as the first generation of civil service reforms that focus primarily on quantitative reform By reducing the number of civil servants and freezing wages.
Although these policies may succeed in achieving short-term financial savings, they may be counterproductive as skilled staff leave civil service systems with a low wage level and thus only low-productivity, The most important of which is corruption.
International experiences indicate that a number of developed countries have succeeded in implementing civil service reforms, while there is little evidence that these reforms are successful in developing countries, among the most difficult sustainable development reforms.
The report concluded that there was no single civil service reform model for all States. Nor is there a single model that can provide magical solutions to the challenges inherent in civil service systems, especially in developing countries, since the specificity of each State must be taken into account in terms of specific elements of reforming civil service systems. A hybrid approach to civil service reforms closer to its economic and domestic conditions and more applicable. However, it is important that the essence of these reforms is to adopt measures of a structural and institutional nature to rationalize the number of employees in the public sector, increase the levels of competitiveness of their performance and improve the quality of the human resources working in this sector, thus helping to achieve a qualitative leap in the delivery of government services.
It is noteworthy that the report is based on the results of a questionnaire on this subject prepared by the Arab Monetary Fund and has been met by the concerned authorities in the Arab countries represented by the ministries of finance and civil service to monitor the experiences of Arab countries in this area.


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