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Background
This session focused on an initiative by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to develop an integrated framework of practices that would constitute “sound public governance,” based on empirical evidence of good practice gleaned from OECD’s work in this area in Member and Partner countries over the past decade.
This initiative to craft a practice-based “Policy Framework on Sound Public Governance” will lead to a discussion in November 2019 by OECD Delegates to the Public Governance Committee during which they will be asked to approve a final draft of the Framework. Calendar 2019 will enable engagement and consultations with the other main OECD policy committees, relevant international non-governmental organizations and national stakeholders and concerned citizens in Member and Partner countries.
Ultimately, the aim of the Framework is to enable countries to self-assess their own governance systems against OECD good practices in this area so that they can engage in public-governance reforms to serve citizens better.
Discussants
Presentation Highlights
The ongoing development of this framework is a milestone project for OECD. The seeds for this effort were first planted in 2013 and after nearly a decade of work on various initiatives -- such as improving customer service, budgeting, and procurement -- the team is looking for commonalities in approaches between countries, their challenges and responses, that can be codified by OECD’s governance council as best practices.
The project team found the various elements of sound public governance were largely siloed and found a need to integrate them into a larger model or framework so policymakers could sequence reforms or make tradeoffs between different elements of reform. They noted that “reform” is intended to solve problems, not necessarily serve as a vehicle to cut costs.
To date, the project has created a three-part framework that identifies several topic areas to be integrated into a whole:
OECD envisions that the final product would serve as a self-evaluation diagnostic or benchmarking guide for countries wanting to frame a government reform initiative, or to help enact a major policy initiative. It would likely be used by non-OECD countries, as well.
Each chapter of the report ends with a series of questions for self-assessment.
The OECD project team will be placing the draft document on-line and seek public comments, and then the country delegates can consider these before they vote on a final version in November. The accompanying slide deck is an initial draft that will be modified as additional input is received by the OECD project team.
Select Discussion Items
Q: Will the guide be used as an internal assessment only, or would you envision countries engaging an independent third-party to conduct the assessment (e.g., the national audit office)?
A: There is not an intent for the guide to be applied by third-party. Different governments have undertaken different actions in different circumstance to address common problems. Therefore, the framework document is not intended to be prescriptive, but rather just “bearing witness” to what is going on in member countries. The document is not intended to be a static framework but would be revisited and revised every 2-5 years.
Q: What evidence convinces you that these are effective practices? What areas are you more or less confident about drawing conclusions?
A: OECD’s research is stronger in more traditional areas such as budgeting. In other areas, their insights and advice are more aspirational, e.g., - does citizen engagement actually lead to better policy? Does better coordination and collaboration lead to better results?
Q: Will OECD get state-local input?
A: this is being done indirectly via country delegates and the OECD regional development policy committee.
Multiple Frameworks. One discussion participant noted that multiple assessment frameworks already exist. For example:
In the case of OECD, the value of developing its own framework is that it becomes a platform for sharing best practices it has already identified (e.g., the US Digital Service was inspired by a pioneering effort in the UK), and it provides non-OECD countries a path to explore when they want to move forward (e.g., Colombia recently incorporated performance management framework into its governance institutions via statute, such as the use of Delivery Units).
Next Steps: Engaging with the OECD Consultation Process