Efficiency-improvement of Public Utility Enterprise Sectors under Economic Structural Adjustment in Eastern and Southern African Countries

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In the 1980s, economies of Sub-Saharan Africa including Eastern and Southern Africa, distressed with economic crises, had no alternatives but to adopt economic structural adjustment policies, sponsored by the World Bank. While it was a major aim of the policies to achieve provate sector-led growth, efficiency-improvement of the government and the public enterprise sectors was another important issue.In this research, we selected specific publicutility enterprises, e.g. public health and medical services, grain and cereal marketing, water supply, and others, in Eastern and Southern African countries such as Kenya and Zambia. Taking account of those services' positions in political economy and historical backgrounds, their state of efficiency and causal relations were analyzed.Major observations are as follows : not only macroeconomic stabilization and reforms but rationalization of the government and the public services sector at micro level is indispensable for a success in structural adjustment ; efficiency-impeovement in the sector requires human resources development and institutional reforms including supportive meritocratic personnel management ; efficiency issues of African economies is to be tackled with, taking into consideration Africa's resource allocation systems which are very different from those in industrialized countries.