The New Public Management and its Challenges in Africa

Abstract

The years of 1990s were the period of the spread of the so called new public management (NPM) in most African countries. These countries decided to adopt the new public management model as their administrative framework with expectation of getting high efficiency and effectiveness in their public sectors. However, due to various challenges confronting the reform process, new public management reforms have continued to be partially implemented in Africa. Never the less, since the adoption, some African countries have demonstrated improvement in this reform type while others have been driven completely into disappointing situation. Although new public management model seems to have taken a lead all over the world in achievement, in Africa it has been a different case. The program is still facing challenges that will need particular attention before significant success to be realized.  In order to tone down these challenges there should be deliberate efforts of taking into consideration of local context before implementing any outside based reform. This is why this paper also suggests for Africa to shift in new public management in the form of public value management.

Keywords: Africa, new public management, public administration, public sector reform, public value management