Role of Government in Adjusting Economies – serie

Batley and Larbi examine how governments of developing countries are organized to deliver public services. The book is based on comparative international studies of four service sectors: health care, urban water, business promotion and agricultural marketing. Governments everywhere are being driven to adopt an 'indirect' approach managing, contracting and regulating public agencies or private partners, rather than providing services directly. It questions how governments are responding and whether this approach is appropriate to the capacities of developing countries.

New thinking about the management of public health services has stimulated a widespread movement for health sector reform across the world. This study examines the feasibility and desirability of common reforms in low-income countries, based on case studies in Ghana, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, and asks whether governments possess or can develop the capacities needed for these new and often complex roles. The text challenges conventional reform wisdom, and argues that reform approaches are needed that are more sensitive to the institutional characteristics of individual countries.

Food security is of vital importance to all nations, but particularly so in developing countries. Governments worldwide are seeking to lideralize agricultural trade and to change their role from one of controlling trade and prices. Instead these governments seek new roles in encouraging market developments, ensuring quality and providing food security by giving income assistance rather than controling food supplies. The issue of how this process is being managed in developing countries is the focus of this book. A series of case studies including India, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ivory Coast highlights the individuality of approaches and the varying capability and will of governments to take on these new roles.

This text examines the challenge of reform of the urban water supply sector in developing countries, based on case studies of state-owned water companies in Ghana, India, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. The growing public private partnership for urban water supply is analysed, focusing on the concession contract model. The implications for meeting the water needs of the urban poor, for the regulatory role of the state and for state capacity building are also discussed.

This book addresses the new role of the state in supporting the private sector in Africa and Asia. The book starts from the premise that governments have lost their previous roles of direct control and regulation, and moves on to examine their new set of roles within a 'free' market. It concentrates on examining these new roles and whether or not the agencies charged with the task have the capacities to deal with these new expectations.

Batley and Larbi examine how governments of developing countries are organized to deliver public services. Governments everywhere are being driven to adopt an 'indirect' approach - managing, contracting and regulating public agencies or private partners, rather than providing services directly.

Instead these governments seek new roles in encouraging market developments, ensuring quality and providing food security by giving income assistance rather than controlling food supplies.