Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By
K. B. Antwi, PhD is lecturer at the Department of Geography & Tourism, University of Cape-Coast, Ghana. He is
currently, collaborates as research associate with the Bradford Centre for International Development, University of
Bradford.
Dr. F. Analoui, PhD is Professor of International Development and Human Resource Management at the Bradford
Centre for International Development (BCID), University of Bradford.
J. W, Cusworth is Professor of Development Management at Bradford Centre for International Development (BCID).
He is Dean of the School for the School of Social and International Studies, University of Bradford
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Human Resource Development Challenges Facing Decentralized Local
Governments in Africa: Empirical evidence from Ghana
ABSTRACT
For more than a decade, ‘Decentralization’ and ‘Human Resource Development’ have become
indispensable dimensions on Ghana’s socio-economic development agenda, particularly on her
system-wide public sector management reform. This research sought to explore and understand
the human resource development challenges facing local governments within the context of the
public sector reforms. The central argument of the study is that decentralization is in both theory
and practice a means to improving good local governance and provision of high quality public
services that citizen’s value. However, this assumption is contingent upon its design, and more
importantly the institutional and human resource capacity arrangements governing its
implementation.
Adopting an exploratory case study design, it triangulated both secondary and primary sources
of data. Primary data came from self-completing questionnaire and interview schedule tools
covering 105 local government employees selected from national, regional and district levels.
Semi-structured interviews also solicited views from 16 senior public officers and managers in 9
public and quasi-public organisations. These primary sources were complemented with relevant
secondary documents from the organisations investigated.
We found that Ghana’s public sector reforms have significantly influenced the strategic
direction of human resource development policies of the decentralised local government service.
Major human resource capacity challenges manifest three-dimensionally as: policy,
task/skill/organisation and performance motivation induced. Addressing the human resource
capacity challenges has enormous strategic and financial resource implications for policy
makers in transition and developing economies, due to their over-reliance on external donors
for funding.
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Human Resource Development Challenges Facing Decentralized Local
Governments in Africa: Empirical evidence from Ghana
INTRODUCTION
Development of ‘human resources’ in both public and private sector organizations has
2007). In particular, human resource capacity building for public service delivery has
been recognised by developed, transition, and developing economies under the notion of
In the context of new public management (NPM) or public sector reform (PSR),
reforms in both developed, transitional and developing countries. It has been argued by
Hope (2001: 124) that ‘decentralization is seen as the means through which
governments are able to provide high quality services that citizens value; for increasing
means to ensuring good local governance and the delivery of effective public service by
promise is contingent on its design, and the institutional, technical and human resource
(World Bank, 2003; Kahkonen and Lynya, 2001; Pollit, et al., 1998).
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The strategic importance of the development of human resource capacity, for example,
was raised at the African Leadership Forum on June 21st, 1990 in Nigeria. At that
meeting, Robert McNamara, the former President of the World Bank emphasized ‘the
imperative of building local African capacities’ as the cutting edge of Africa’s strategic
development agenda. In his view, the lack of ‘necessary skills and well-managed public
and private institutions for long-term, sustainable growth was a priority to be included
development management and good governance’ (cited by Wood, 2000: 88). Similarly,
in a recent publication entitled ‘Can Africa Claim the 21st Century? The World Bank
noted that: ‘Africa’s future lies in its people. Indeed, Africa must solve its current
human development crisis if it is to claim the 21st century. Africa’s future economic
growth will depend less on its natural resources, which are being depleted and are
subject to long-run price declines, … and more on its labour skills and its ability to
The World Bank observation is underscored by the reality that the most valuable and
critical organizational resource is its people (Analoui, 2002). Recognizing that people
conceive, plan, and execute all tasks, coordinate and organise inputs and produce
outputs, it can thus be safely assumed that endeavours would succeed or fail because of
the people involved (Powell, 2001). It is, therefore, not surprising that human resource
management and development issues have been of great concern to public sector
reformers, against the assumption that NPM reform is a management philosophy largely
practiced in the private sector. The question has often been asked whether these
philosophies and practices would work in the public domain with its bureaucratic and
non-participative tendencies (Taylor, 2001; Hope, 2001; Turner and Hulme, 1997).
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In Ghana, the key systemic constraints in the public sector identified before the
human resources, poor performance management and incentives systems, and lack of
Bank, 1999 ii ). To address these complex issues, the Government of Ghana (GoG) has
for nearly two decades been reforming the public sector. These reform efforts have
resulted in major changes in policy, processes and practices with the aim of
decentralization policy, which the government has been implementing, since 1988
The need to pay attention to the human resource development equation in local
governance comes from the historical analysis that Ghana as a country has been ruled
from the centre by non-democratic institutions for years; the local bureaucracy that had
been part of a centralized scheme of things needs to be re-educated to fit into the
technical and generalists’ human resources on the part of local authorities to carry out
their responsibilities has in the past been a significant contributory factor in the
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The background information presented thus far raises questions about the potential
governments. Secondly, with the managerialism assumption of the NPM, how has
Ghana’s on-going reform been responding to the HRD challenges and concerns facing
the decentralised local government (bureaucratic) workforce? The rest of the paper is
organised as follows. Section two places the study in theoretical context and raises the
appropriate research questions that would address the research problem. The third
section takes up the methodology; whilst section four presents the results with the fifth
section discussing the key findings. The concluding section incorporates the
implications of the key findings for policy and human resource development practice.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
The question of capacity and capacity building has been featured in development
discourse for some time now. According to Larbi (1998), ‘capacity’ is not the same as
cites Cecil Saldhana of the Asian Development Bank, definition of capacity in the
context of public sector as the abilities of governments to plan, manage and sustain the
development process of their economies and societies; and in keeping with the
aspirations and potential of their respective countries people (ECDPM, 1994:7; cited by
Larbi, 1998:37).
In the context of public policy, Lane and Wolf (1990) have defined capacity as the
ability to govern, which rests on the human resources of governmental agencies - the
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people who participate in and enable the process of governance i.e. their collective
state administrative capacity rests on human resources (HRs) the issue of motivation,
attitudes and performance are critical. Hildebrand and Grinole (1995:100) define
capacity simply as ‘the ability to perform appropriate tasks’. Implying that capacity is
task performance i.e. what is required to achieve purposes effectively, efficiently and
useful to consider the open systems theory, whose underlying philosophy seems
appropriate and relevant to enhancing our understanding of the role of human resource
characteristics with other living organisms (Analoui and Karami, 2003; Analoui, 1998;
entity that is the system (Jackson and Schuler, 1999; von Bertalanffy, 1950). In using a
individual parts and then seek to understand the nature of their collective interaction to
make the whole unique - it is the whole, not the parts alone that counts. An open system
depends on its external environment for inputs that are transformed during throughput
to produce outputs that are exchanged in the environment. The key elements of a typical
open system model with its basic interrelated parts are summarized in figure 1 below.
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Figure .1: Model of an Open System
EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT –
Political, Socio-cultural, Technological,
Economic Factors
TRANSFORMATION
o Task Core Process
o Group Core Process
o Individual Core
INPUTS Process OUTPUT
Feedback
The general view is that managing organizations with the view to contributing towards
economic (monetary), physical (material) and human (social). However, the most vital
asset to any organization is ‘the people’ (human resources). Many contributors to the
HRD literature are of the view that the development dimension of HRM is
system (Analoui and Karami, 2003; Armstrong, 2001; Analoui, 1998; Kanungo and
Mendunca, 1994). Analoui (2002) in his discussion of the ‘choice’ model of HRM, in
the context of open system organisations, views the HR policies, including the HRD, as
input to the process which will be expected to result in ‘change’ as a planned and
desired output.
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Wright and Snell (1991) for instance, have used the open system theory to describe a
competent management model of organizations. They treated the ‘skills and abilities’ of
Chalofsky and Reinhart (1988:31) argue that an effective HRD function as a sub-system
working relationships with line and staff management; and develop a track record of
delivering high quality products and/or services. This implies the capacity to acquire,
utilize, train, develop, retain and displace the needed competencies for the organization,
recognizing that ‘micro and macro level phenomena interact and influence each other’
The study explores how these elements empirically occur or happen under Ghana’s
systems theory. From the perspective of building the human resource capacity of local
governments within the context of the open systems theory therefore, three useful
1. What specific importance has been given to the ‘development of human resources’
2. What are the major HRD issues of common concern facing effective
sector reforms?
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3. How do the employees perceive the main HRD ‘concerns’ and ‘challenges’ towards
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The methodological choice for the study was influenced by the presence of multiple
actors in the public organizational setting, hence the adoption of an exploratory case
study research design. Due to financial, logistical, time and practical reasons, the actual
data collection covered the decentralized local government service, comprising the
Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) at the national level
in Accra, the Central Regional Coordinating Council (CRCC) in Cape Coast, and the
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Both primary and secondary sources of data were employed for the study. Self-
completing questionnaire and interview schedule tools were used to elicit data from 105
local government employees selected from the main targeted organizations at the
national iii , regional iv and district v levels (See Figure 2). A semi-structured interview
guide was also employed to seek the views of ‘key persons’ in 9 public and quasi-public
Triangulating sources and data, qualitative and quantitative methods were used to
analyse the data. Qualitative analysis took the form of transcribing recorded tapes and
content analysis of interviews and documents, whilst quantitative analysis took the form
deviation supported with relevant charts and graphs. Figure 2 below brings together the
summary details of the sources of data, the organisations covered and the employee
RESULTS
On the question of what specific importance has been given to the development of
the study found that as part of the on-going sector reforms an HRD unit has been
created, headed by a trained human resource professional. The newly created HRD unit
at the macro level has since 2002 formulated a ‘human resource capacity development’
(HRCD) plan for the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs). The
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ministry has also established an Institute for Local Government Studies (ILGS), whose
mandate is to train both the political and bureaucratic workforces of the local
governments.
** KEY
1. MRGRD – Ministry of Local Government & Rural Development: Accra (National level)
2. CRCC – Central Regional Coordinating Council: -Cape Coast (Regional Level)
3. KEEADA – Komenda Edina Eguafo District Assembly:- Elmina (District level)
4. NIRP – National Institutionnel Renewal Programme:- Accra
5. NIRP – National Institutionnel Renewal Programme:- Accra
6. PSC – Public Service Commission: -Accra
7. OHCS – Office of the Head of Civil Service: -Accra
8. ILGS – Institute of Local Government Studies: -Accra
9. GIMPA – Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration: -Accra
10. MDPI – Management Development and Productivity Institute: -Accra
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The research explored current HRD policies and programmes with the view to
understanding the level of top management support for HRD. Table 1 below gives a
summary of the respondents’ views on an ordinal scale from the perspective of work
location. The data generally shows that on average, employees considered three factors
as the most important, namely: (a) Current HRD policies are relevant to my work
(2.97); (b) HRD department has full management support (2.82); and (c) HRD policies
are formulated with line managers (2.67). On the other hand, we found two factors as
important obstacles for HRD. They were: (i) members of staff are aware of the HRD
policy of this organization (1.89); and (ii) management spend time and money to ensure
the development of all staff (2.02). These views were generally reflected at district,
regional and national levels, as well as by category of staff (junior verses senior).
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On the performance of the HR function or departments, the respondents evaluated ten
key roles. A careful observation of the overall mean scores on the ten roles in table 2
suggests that the performance of the HR departments were rated as generally fair.
respondents come from the regional and national level. Second, where the rating is
good, less of the overall contribution came from the region and national. These
observations have a lot of implications for the need to nurture the HRD function at all
local government levels. The results can be interpreted as an indication of how slow
public sector reforms takes to mature and to trickle down to the lower levels of
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Focusing on problems facing staff development, over 80 percent (82.9%) of the
respondents did affirm that all is not well. To understand the nature of the problems in
the context of HRD the respondents stated three major problems that affect the
development of human resources in their organization (see Table 3). The results have
been presented in the form of simple ranking depending on which concern or challenge
was identified by most of the respondents. The top three challenges identified are: low
job-satisfaction due to poor salaries, inadequate funds for training and development, and
The issue that ranked fourth among the overall results, which was placed third in the
regions, but not mentioned in the district, was ‘individual or personal interest in jobs
with financial gains’. This finding can be interpreted as emphasising the challenge of
poor salaries for public sector employees in an economy where the daily minimum
wage is about US$1.5. One may argue that this perception probably holds some amount
of water because anecdotal evidence suggests that clients who do business with public
an inducement to fast-track their work. However, the inherent rent seeking behaviour is
a cause for worry since it has implications for fighting corruption. A recent survey
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report by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII, 2005:32), found the civil/public service to
Generally speaking the study found that the HRD challenges facing Ghana’s
below (see Figure 3). They comprised policy-induced challenges; skill, task and
Figure 3: Integrated HRD Challenges Facing the decentralized Local Governments in Ghana
Source: Authors
The policy-induced challenges are essentially due to the design and implementation of
the present local government system and the associated problems that come with it.
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Whilst the other two broad challenges are a synthesis of the concerns and needs of the
DISCUSSIONS
individual parts that makes the whole unique (Hanna, 1997; von Bertalanffy, 1950). In
that respect, it is useful to discover that the local government ministry has in place a
HRCD plan for the local governments (i.e. MMDAs). It thus demonstrates the
knowledge, skills and competencies of the human resources (Pffeper and Veiga, 1999;
Guest, 1987; 1989). However, the HRCD plan appears to be an imposition despite
management’s good intentions because there was little or no input from the region and
practice (Cohen and Peterson, 1997; and Kalin, 1997). It equally undermines the
fundamental assumption of the system theory, which considers every part or element of
the organisation as critical to its survival and sustainability (Hanna, 1997; von
Bertalanffy, 1950).
One interesting HRD capacity concern that was mentioned several times in the study
and featured in the skill, task and organization-induced dimension of figure 2 is the
over-emphasis on ‘staff training’ by the employees. The emphasis on yearning for more
and perhaps fair access to training underscores a comment that ‘training has become the
most popular prescription for curing all organizational pathologies in many developing
countries (Analoui, 1996, 1993; Kiggundu, 1994). Others have also argued that training
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is the most preferred option to solving chronic human resource inadequacies and
organizational weaknesses (Kerrigan and Luke, 1987). However, NPM writers like
Reichard (1998), believe that training is only one factor in the successful development
Kowu’s (2001) study in one of Ghana’s public sector organizations (The Environmental
Protection Agency – EPA). That study concluded that training alone is not enough to
there is the need to create conducive work environment aimed at providing a high level
disregard their personal prejudices for the good of the organization (Kowu, 2001).
conflict with Reichard (1998) and Hasenbolhler’s (1995) argument that for public
managers and employees to be able carry out public sector vision, public sector
reformers have to be circumspect with regard to: (i) selection and recruitment of
suitable public managers and workforce; (ii) career development and promotion for
employees; (iv) adequate interaction between the entire public workforce, managers
and their superiors in the organization; and (v) build a team of employees taking into
oriented ‘HRD effectiveness model’, which argues that the overriding goal of an
support for HRD; a high level of teamwork among staff; close working relationship
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with line and staff management; and a track record of high quality products and/or
services’.
CONCLUSION
This exploratory case study investigated the human resource development capacity
purpose of the study was to explore, describe and understand how the new public
management sector reform paradigm, which Ghana has embraced, is shaping the path of
On reflection, the main research conclusions suggest that human resource capacity
practice.
One of the policy conclusions is that decentralisation has the potential to improve local
public service delivery and ensure good governance. However, for this dream to
materialise, several human resource development policy actions and interventions are
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would require the development of three inter-related human resource capabilities,
This would imply designing strategies to focus on four dimensions of the local
resource strategy’, including its: (i) Culture – the beliefs, values, norms and
management style; (ii) Organisation – the structure, job roles, and reporting lines;
(iii) People – the skill levels, staff potential and management capability; and (iv)
Human Resources System – the people focused mechanisms which deliver the
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NOTES
i
Republic of Ghana (1999) – Governance Issue paper for the 10TH Consultative Group (CG) Meeting
Prepared by the National Instititutionalized Renewal Programme (NIRP) Secretariat, Accra, November
1999
ii
The World Bank (1999) – ‘Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Credit in the amount of SDR
10.5 Million (US$ 14.3 Million Equivalent) to the Republic of Ghana for a Public Sector Management
Reform Project in Support of the First Phase of the Public Sector Management Reform Programme’.
April 6, 1999 – Capacity Building Unit, Country Department 10, Africa Region
iii
iv
v
Special Note:
This research was supported by the Government of Ghana (GoG) through the Scholarship Secretariat in
Accra, Ghana with a 3-year grant to the lead author as part of the University of Cape Coast, Ghana Staff
Development Programme from 2002-2005
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