DOWNSIZING THE CIVIL-SERVICE IN DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES - THE GOLDEN HANDSHAKE OPTION REVISITED

In recent years, more and more calls are being heard in a growing numb er of developing countries to downsize their civil services. It is arg ued that downsizing is needed because of the increasing shortfalls in government recurrent and development budgets. This situation results i n underutilized, underfunded staff and often in the siphoning-off of d onor funds in the development budget for recurrent expenditure. The ma in problems addressed in this article are why should and how can the c ivil service in developing countries be downsized. The questions of ho w much to trim the bureaucracy and how to redeploy redundant public se rvants in the private sector are also addressed. The article examines alternative strategies for significantly downsizing the civil service. It is contended that problems in this area are indeed common to many developing countries. Various golden handshake options for civil servi ce leavers receive particular attention. It is suggested that economic jumpstart is a better term than golden handshake to characterize the incentives package offered to induce staff to accept voluntary redunda ncy. Civil service reform is not presented here as a panacea for all d eveloping countries' ills. The article makes a number of mostly untrie d but nevertheless attractive suggestions that bring some fresh thinki ng to bear on a difficult issue. Paths and avenues worth exploring whe n starting to design civil service trimming operations are presented, including some of their limitations. The point is finally made that th is type of downsizing is overdue in many places. The article should be considered as a contribution to demystifying the process of downsizin g the civil service in developing countries. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.