How can Public Professional Services be Restored in a Weak State? Options for Animal Health in Congo's South Kivu
| Author | Timothy P. Robinson,David K. Leonard,Mugumo F. Mushi |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1811 |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
HOW CAN PUBLIC PROFESSIONAL SERVICES BE RESTORED IN A
WEAK STATE? OPTIONS FOR ANIMAL HEALTH IN CONGO’S
SOUTH KIVU
DAVID K. LEONARD
1
*, MUGUMO F. MUSHI
2
AND TIMOTHY P. ROBINSON
3,4
1
Institute of Development Studies, UK
2
Université Catholique de Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
3
International Livestock Research Institute, Kenya
4
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Italy
SUMMARY
How does one deal with a shortcoming in a public service when even a state “pocket of effectiveness”is unlikely to fill it di-
rectly? In the Belgian colonial era, South Kivu Province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo had a vibrant animal produc-
tion system, which then was shattered by successive wars. The regeneration of Kivu’s livestock industry is greatly constrained
by the unreliability of the province’s state and private animal health services, which have become commercialized and are un-
able to overcome the asymmetric information problem inherent to the professions and provide the trustworthy effectiveness
farmers need to use them effectively. The Congolese state is unlikely to be able to fill this gap itself. Nonetheless, it can be
an architect of solutions to the problem. We were able to identify in the local institutional repertoire at least four possible ways
policy-makers could use non-governmental organizations to provide missing trustworthiness to the market. This conclusion is
hopeful for places with development potential that have weak states and imperfect markets. © 2017 International Livestock Re-
search Institute. Public Administration and Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words—weak states; imperfect markets; asymmetric information; quality; rural services delivery
INTRODUCTION
Is there ever really nothing to be done when we face a serious governance gap? Those of us who work in the
vineyards of public administration and development all too frequently face conditions in which, figuratively, the
soils or rain are poor, the prospect of a decent harvest is inauspicious, and the resulting wine is barely palatable.
We identify multiple circumstances in which markets are imperfect or inequitable and in which capable public
intervention would be a highly desirable corrective, supplement, or replacement (e.g., Vogel, 1996; Chaudhry,
1997; Leonard, 2000) but then find that governance by the relevant state is weak (Kaufmann et al., 2006). We have
been heartened that by “working with the grain”of local politics or administrative culture (Booth, 2012; Levy,
2014) we nonetheless can sometimes create “pockets of effectiveness”in the relevant part of the bureaucracy
(e.g., Leonard, 1991, 2010; Barma et al., 2014; Roll, 2014). We have identified several approaches for analyzing
when the conditions might be ripe for general civil service reform or for interventions in particular agencies,
together with corresponding tools (Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff, 2015). All of this means that in most countries
most of the time there is some part of the public sector in which there is a reasonable prospect that an effort at
reform could be successful.
The preceding grudgingly optimistic view of the prospects of finding a target for enhancement of performance
somewhere in the public sector applies, however, only if one is indifferent about the developmental sector in which
it is to take place. The very same analytics for identifying when and where “incentives are aligned”to achieve
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and
distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
*Correspondence to: D. K. Leonard, Visiting Professorial Fellow in Governance, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, BN1 9RE UK.
E-mail: leonard@berkeley.edu; d.leonard@ids.ac.uk
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 37, 297–306 (2017)
Published online 27 September 2017 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1811
© 2017 International Livestock Research Institute. Public Administration and Development published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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