Publish : 17 Jan 2022, 05:25 PMUpdate : 18 Jan 2022, 03:29 PM
Mid-level officials in the bureaucracy are often considered a problem.
They do not like change, they stall reforms and, whenever they can get away with it, they go slow on implementing policies and programs initiated by their superiors.
There is some truth to these allegations. But that is not the whole truth.
Mid-level officials can often be the solution, instead of being the problem.
I say this from first-hand experience, not as a bureaucrat but as someone who has interacted with bureaucracies across the globe.
Some of this interaction has been in Bangladesh and this note is largely based on that experience.
Several years ago, I was posted in Dhaka with the International Finance Corporation and charged with co-managing a large program aimed at improving the investment climate in Bangladesh.
This three-and-a-half-year stint came after spending sixteen years in the World Bank headquarters in Washington D.C.
During those sixteen years, I had the opportunity to travel to a diverse set of countries, from Afghanistan to Zambia, where my interactions with many pro-active, bright, and dedicated mid-level officers made me comprehend what could be achieved when the mid-tier of the bureaucracy is sufficiently incentivized to do good.
As we designed the ambitious investment climate program that I was going to help implement in Bangladesh, there was concern about the reform commitment of the government.
In particular, there was worry that even if the senior officials agreed to carry out the regulatory and other reforms needed to create a conducive investment climate, their efforts may be stifled by recalcitrant mid-level officers.
The latter were seen as the problem. Some of us wondered if, instead, they could be seen as the solution.
We were already interacting with a critical mass of such officers from across several ministries and agencies.
It was getting clear that the problem lay in misperceptions many such officers had about the business sector.
Even when they recognized that the private sector could play a useful role in the economy, they were not fully aware of the issues being faced by businesses.
And, even if they were, they did not know what exactly to do.
A more serious problem was that sometimes they thought they had all the answers but these were not the appropriate ones.
Recognizing this, the International Finance Corporation carried out the Private Sector Development (PSD) Core Group program designed to build awareness in Bangladeshi government officials about business-related issues.
More than 100 mid-level officers went through this program, joined by a few representatives from business associations.
The officers came from about twenty different ministries, departments, and other government agencies that had something to do with private sector development.
Outcome
Over a period of eight to ten months, they attended seminars and lectures and went on field visits.
As part of a learning-by-doing exercise, they did short assignments on resolving business-related issues.
They interacted with businesses and with experts who work on business-related issues.
They got an opportunity to go abroad and see how business-oriented governments work.
For example, one group went to South Korea to learn about that country’s effective regulatory reform program.
Another went to Jordan where they saw first-hand the functioning and facilities of the Aqaba Free Trade Zone.
Several members of this group were later involved in the design and implementation of the ambitious economic zones program of Bangladesh; others got involved in various regulatory reform initiatives of the government.
Throughout the process, the presence of private sector representatives within the group exposed the government officials to business perspectives which often challenged the officers’ preconceived notions of the private sector.
At the same time, the representatives of the business world came to better appreciate the viewpoints of the bureaucrats and the constraints under which they operated.
I remember a large meeting of these officials where some top business leaders were invited as guests.
There was a very animated, sometimes a little heated, discussion between these leaders and the mid-level officials.
After the 2-hour meeting ended, one of the business leaders came to me and said: “This is one of the most productive meetings I have ever attended. I now know much better where the officials are coming from, what their perceptions and concerns are. Hopefully, they would also go back with a better appreciation of our issues.”
The interaction with colleagues from other parts of the government was also helpful for the officers who got to know better what their colleagues were doing.
Let me share an experience. Some members of the group were from the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority.
One day, they organized a field trip to the Dhaka EPZ in Savar.
After spending the day listening to presentations by the zone officials followed by visits to various factories in the zones, some of which had cutting-edge technology and well-organized factory floors, we headed back to Dhaka.
Sitting next to me on the bus was a deputy secretary of the Labour Ministry.
He confessed to me: “I had heard about these EPZs but had no idea what these were like. I never knew that we had such state-of-the-art factories in Bangladesh with such good facilities for workers. If they can do it, why can’t others? This trip has been an eye-opener for me.”
Through this program, a reform-minded community of officials started forming.
This network soon produced dividends. Once a top-down reform to facilitate the reimbursement of duty-drawback claims – a major headache for exporters – stalled.
There was concern about fraudulent claims. Some mid-level officials stepped in, studied the reform, assessed what work was still needed and persuaded colleagues in the middle tiers of government, as well as their superiors, to revive the reform.
Using creative thinking, the mid-level officials came up with a solution that successfully balanced the twin objectives of expediting payments and minimizing fraud, and thus met with the approval of senior decision-makers.
The key to the creative thinking was a desire to do good, something that was latent in them, and an appreciation of the problems of businesses, which they had acquired by participating in the program.
The network that was created through the program also came handy because this reform required the buy-in from different parts of government.
Clearly, the program helped create influential “nudgers” within the system who are able to convince both colleagues and superiors to deliver viable local solutions for sustaining reforms.
Community
This community of mid-level officials was also instrumental in creating “reform ripples.”
When the Office of the Registrar of Joint-Stock Companies became a pioneer in automating processes within the Bangladesh government, the details of that initiative reached the National Bureau of Revenue (NBR) through this community, which had representatives from both agencies.
That triggered an interest in NBR in automation of taxpayer services.
With twenty different ministries and agencies represented, it is not surprising that substantial intra-governmental knowledge flow was catalyzed.
An important impact of the program was mindset change.
After the program was over, a survey was done to capture the attitudes of these officials on private sector issues.
The same survey was conducted on their peers who had not been exposed to this program and were thus likely to be less aware of business issues.
Individual respondents from both groups were presented with a set of statements and were asked if they agreed or disagreed with them.
These statements covered four important aspects of a bureaucrat’s mindset: a) views on the importance of the private sector; b) perceptions about private sector behavior; c) belief in the capacity of mid-level officials to proactively bring change; and d) the approach to designing and implementing private sector related reforms.
The graph provides a snapshot of the responses, focusing on three statements:
Officials who attended the program agreed with all three statements more strongly than their peers who had not participated in the program.
For example, they are much more inclined to agree that many laws are unfriendly to private-sector growth and need to be reformed.
They believe more strongly that there is indeed scope within government to proactively take these reform actions.
They have also developed a more sophisticated understanding of how to approach reform formulation.
As the last bar shows, they believe more strongly than their peers that reform priorities and approaches should be identified based on systematic diagnosis, rather than on uninformed gut reactions.
Greater awareness of business issues has clearly shaped their views on how to conduct public policy toward business.
The findings captured in the chart, although based on a small sample, are important.
They show that, with some effort, the mindsets and attitudes of government officials can be changed.
This enhances their sense of accountability and improves the formulation and implementation of business-related policies and regulations.
The 2015 World Development Report of the World Bank: Mind, Society and Behavior points to the need to understand the motivations and behavioral characteristics of different players, such as politicians and government bureaucrats, and how these affect their decisions and actions.
The WDR argues that such an understanding helps design policy interventions and reforms that stand a chance of success even in seemingly intractable situations.
Our experience with mid-level officials in Bangladesh is proof of this.
It tells us that, deep inside, many civil servants indeed have a desire to learn and do something good, even if it must be within their limited jurisdictions.
A critical mass of latent reformers often exists within the bureaucracy, and those would-be reformers have the potential to become agents of change.
The trick is to trigger this latent desire, the desire to do something good.
We should start recognizing the potential of mid-level officers.
We should start seeing them as the solution, and not as the problem.
The author is an economist, previously with an international development
PATTERNS & TRENDS BY SYED AKHTAR MAHMOODPowered by Froala Editor
Mid-level officials: The solution or the problem?
Deep inside, many civil servants indeed have a desire to learn and do something good, even if it must be within their limited jurisdictions
Mid-level officials in the bureaucracy are often considered a problem.
They do not like change, they stall reforms and, whenever they can get away with it, they go slow on implementing policies and programs initiated by their superiors.
There is some truth to these allegations. But that is not the whole truth.
Mid-level officials can often be the solution, instead of being the problem.
I say this from first-hand experience, not as a bureaucrat but as someone who has interacted with bureaucracies across the globe.
Some of this interaction has been in Bangladesh and this note is largely based on that experience.
Several years ago, I was posted in Dhaka with the International Finance Corporation and charged with co-managing a large program aimed at improving the investment climate in Bangladesh.
This three-and-a-half-year stint came after spending sixteen years in the World Bank headquarters in Washington D.C.
During those sixteen years, I had the opportunity to travel to a diverse set of countries, from Afghanistan to Zambia, where my interactions with many pro-active, bright, and dedicated mid-level officers made me comprehend what could be achieved when the mid-tier of the bureaucracy is sufficiently incentivized to do good.
As we designed the ambitious investment climate program that I was going to help implement in Bangladesh, there was concern about the reform commitment of the government.
In particular, there was worry that even if the senior officials agreed to carry out the regulatory and other reforms needed to create a conducive investment climate, their efforts may be stifled by recalcitrant mid-level officers.
The latter were seen as the problem. Some of us wondered if, instead, they could be seen as the solution.
We were already interacting with a critical mass of such officers from across several ministries and agencies.
It was getting clear that the problem lay in misperceptions many such officers had about the business sector.
Even when they recognized that the private sector could play a useful role in the economy, they were not fully aware of the issues being faced by businesses.
And, even if they were, they did not know what exactly to do.
A more serious problem was that sometimes they thought they had all the answers but these were not the appropriate ones.
Recognizing this, the International Finance Corporation carried out the Private Sector Development (PSD) Core Group program designed to build awareness in Bangladeshi government officials about business-related issues.
More than 100 mid-level officers went through this program, joined by a few representatives from business associations.
The officers came from about twenty different ministries, departments, and other government agencies that had something to do with private sector development.
Outcome
Over a period of eight to ten months, they attended seminars and lectures and went on field visits.
As part of a learning-by-doing exercise, they did short assignments on resolving business-related issues.
They interacted with businesses and with experts who work on business-related issues.
They got an opportunity to go abroad and see how business-oriented governments work.
For example, one group went to South Korea to learn about that country’s effective regulatory reform program.
Another went to Jordan where they saw first-hand the functioning and facilities of the Aqaba Free Trade Zone.
Several members of this group were later involved in the design and implementation of the ambitious economic zones program of Bangladesh; others got involved in various regulatory reform initiatives of the government.
Throughout the process, the presence of private sector representatives within the group exposed the government officials to business perspectives which often challenged the officers’ preconceived notions of the private sector.
At the same time, the representatives of the business world came to better appreciate the viewpoints of the bureaucrats and the constraints under which they operated.
I remember a large meeting of these officials where some top business leaders were invited as guests.
There was a very animated, sometimes a little heated, discussion between these leaders and the mid-level officials.
After the 2-hour meeting ended, one of the business leaders came to me and said: “This is one of the most productive meetings I have ever attended. I now know much better where the officials are coming from, what their perceptions and concerns are. Hopefully, they would also go back with a better appreciation of our issues.”
The interaction with colleagues from other parts of the government was also helpful for the officers who got to know better what their colleagues were doing.
Let me share an experience. Some members of the group were from the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority.
One day, they organized a field trip to the Dhaka EPZ in Savar.
After spending the day listening to presentations by the zone officials followed by visits to various factories in the zones, some of which had cutting-edge technology and well-organized factory floors, we headed back to Dhaka.
Sitting next to me on the bus was a deputy secretary of the Labour Ministry.
He confessed to me: “I had heard about these EPZs but had no idea what these were like. I never knew that we had such state-of-the-art factories in Bangladesh with such good facilities for workers. If they can do it, why can’t others? This trip has been an eye-opener for me.”
Through this program, a reform-minded community of officials started forming.
This network soon produced dividends. Once a top-down reform to facilitate the reimbursement of duty-drawback claims – a major headache for exporters – stalled.
There was concern about fraudulent claims. Some mid-level officials stepped in, studied the reform, assessed what work was still needed and persuaded colleagues in the middle tiers of government, as well as their superiors, to revive the reform.
Using creative thinking, the mid-level officials came up with a solution that successfully balanced the twin objectives of expediting payments and minimizing fraud, and thus met with the approval of senior decision-makers.
The key to the creative thinking was a desire to do good, something that was latent in them, and an appreciation of the problems of businesses, which they had acquired by participating in the program.
The network that was created through the program also came handy because this reform required the buy-in from different parts of government.
Clearly, the program helped create influential “nudgers” within the system who are able to convince both colleagues and superiors to deliver viable local solutions for sustaining reforms.
Community
This community of mid-level officials was also instrumental in creating “reform ripples.”
When the Office of the Registrar of Joint-Stock Companies became a pioneer in automating processes within the Bangladesh government, the details of that initiative reached the National Bureau of Revenue (NBR) through this community, which had representatives from both agencies.
That triggered an interest in NBR in automation of taxpayer services.
With twenty different ministries and agencies represented, it is not surprising that substantial intra-governmental knowledge flow was catalyzed.
An important impact of the program was mindset change.
After the program was over, a survey was done to capture the attitudes of these officials on private sector issues.
The same survey was conducted on their peers who had not been exposed to this program and were thus likely to be less aware of business issues.
Individual respondents from both groups were presented with a set of statements and were asked if they agreed or disagreed with them.
These statements covered four important aspects of a bureaucrat’s mindset: a) views on the importance of the private sector; b) perceptions about private sector behavior; c) belief in the capacity of mid-level officials to proactively bring change; and d) the approach to designing and implementing private sector related reforms.
The graph provides a snapshot of the responses, focusing on three statements:
Officials who attended the program agreed with all three statements more strongly than their peers who had not participated in the program.
For example, they are much more inclined to agree that many laws are unfriendly to private-sector growth and need to be reformed.
They believe more strongly that there is indeed scope within government to proactively take these reform actions.
They have also developed a more sophisticated understanding of how to approach reform formulation.
As the last bar shows, they believe more strongly than their peers that reform priorities and approaches should be identified based on systematic diagnosis, rather than on uninformed gut reactions.
Greater awareness of business issues has clearly shaped their views on how to conduct public policy toward business.
The findings captured in the chart, although based on a small sample, are important.
They show that, with some effort, the mindsets and attitudes of government officials can be changed.
This enhances their sense of accountability and improves the formulation and implementation of business-related policies and regulations.
The 2015 World Development Report of the World Bank: Mind, Society and Behavior points to the need to understand the motivations and behavioral characteristics of different players, such as politicians and government bureaucrats, and how these affect their decisions and actions.
The WDR argues that such an understanding helps design policy interventions and reforms that stand a chance of success even in seemingly intractable situations.
Our experience with mid-level officials in Bangladesh is proof of this.
It tells us that, deep inside, many civil servants indeed have a desire to learn and do something good, even if it must be within their limited jurisdictions.
A critical mass of latent reformers often exists within the bureaucracy, and those would-be reformers have the potential to become agents of change.
The trick is to trigger this latent desire, the desire to do something good.
We should start recognizing the potential of mid-level officers.
We should start seeing them as the solution, and not as the problem.
The author is an economist, previously with an international development