The quality of governance: 'Second-generation' civil service reform in Africa

This paper argues that an important ingredient missing in the set of 'secon d-generation' reforms that has been advocated for Africa is the development of human capital in the public sector Over the past three decades, the sto ck of human capital in tie public sector, which was comparatively lower tha n that of other developing countries to begin with, has been seriously erod ed by increasingly compressed government wages and a general flight of huma n capital from many of the countries ill the continent, leading to low qual ity of governance. The paper develops a simple theoretical framework to dis cuss these issues and the continent's experience with foreign technical ass istance in supplementing the low level of domestic human capital.