Contract plans help clarify goals, increase managerial autonomy, and open a dialogue between management and government -- but their benefits have been oversold.

This book sets out in some detail the mechanisms for determining enterprise performance and a framework for assessing enterprise productivity accross the board.

This, the second title in the World Bank Policy Research Reports (the first was the headline-making The East Asian Miracle), discusses the economic situation in Africa as it has evolved over the past several decades. To reverse the economic decline that began in the 1970s, many sub-Saharan African countries have undertaken efforts to restructure their economies. This has included liberalizing trade, deregulating markets and prices, privatizing public enterprises, and strengthening management of the financial and public sectors. Implementation has been uneven in different countries, and even those countries that have attempted major reforms have not achieved policies that are considered sound by international standards. A key finding is that improving policies paid off in higher GDR and sectoral growth rates, which are vital to reducing poverty; but in countries where policies deteriorated economic performance worsened. The report also shows that, despite the importance of reforming economic policies, countries need to invest more in human capital and infrastructure, expand their institutional capacity, and develop better governance.

As globalization brings different cultures together, human performance interventions and training solutions may be strained by cultures, policies and other lines of thinking specific to a particular country, region or continent. What is considered a systematic process of discovering and analyzing important human performance gaps, such as designing and developing costeffective and ethically justifiable strategies to close those gaps, implementing the strategies, and evaluating the financial results in one country may not apply in another. Human Performance Models Revealed in the Global Context powerfully presents different models of human performance from across the globe, and enables readers to understand a much broader range of interactions, perceptions, models, and possibilities for HR management, training and development. Human performance is high on the agenda of organizations around the globe because they must raise the level of company performance and bring about organizational change in order to continue to survive and thrive in a global economy. Human Performance Models Revealed in the Global Context unveils worldwide, lessons about organizations facing similar, and different challenges focusing on this pressing need to improve human performance. Indeed human performance is seen as the greatest asset to affect organizational performance than any other. Although physical, financial, intangible, and other assets are crucial in varying degrees in different organizations, human performance is the “glue” that holds all the other assets together and guides their use to achieve results. Effective use of an organizational human capital will no doubt be one of the most valuable strategies to help a firm gain a competitive advantage in this global, and changing, economy. Human Performance Models Revealed in the Global Context's valuable presentation of the developments and future of this field is informative and inspiring for a wide readership, because of its broad constellation of cases, its insights and recommendations and foundational lessons for guiding human performance initiatives in organizations. Readers who will find the volume valuable will include a wide spectrum including, trainers in Human Resource Development; Human Resource Managers; Military trainers; adult learning professionals; business administrators and aspiring administrators; public school administrators; business managers; nonprofit, NGO, hospital and community organization administrators;, managers, directors, and supervisors; educational administrators; college professors/teachers, undergraduate and graduate students.

Expectations are high regarding the potential benefits of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure development in low-income countries. The development community, led by the G20, the United Nations, and others, expects these partnerships between goverments and private companies in infrastructure service provision to aid "transformational" mega-projects, as well as efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet PPPs have been widely used only since the 1990s, and discussion of their efficacy is still dominated by best-practice guidance, academic studies that focus on developed countries, or ideological criticism. Meanwhile, practitioners have quietly accumulated a large body of empirical evidence on the actual performance of PPPs. The purpose of this book is to summarize and consolidate what this critical mass of evidence-based research indicates about PPPs in low-income countries, and thereby develop a more realistic perspective on the practical value of these mechanisms. With a primary focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, though drawing on critical insights from other regions, it demonstrates that the benefits of such partnerships will only be realised if expectations remain modest and projects are subject to transparent evaluation and competition.

In many parts of the world public enterprise is in crisis. Privatisation programmes are being widely touted as the solution to many of the problems of inefficiency and slow rates of growth associated with public enterprise. This book discusses the underlying causes of those problems, and critically examines some of the solutions that have been adopted. Its geographical coverage is wide and it cuts across the political spectrum. The experiences of countries in four continents are analysed in an attempt to shed light on current dilemmas. Recurrent patterns are found; problems are frequently seen to be political as much as economic, and bureaucracy and administrative confusion is often found to be at the heart of poor financial performance.Yet since political aims, economic environment, and administrative and managerial capabilities vary so widely, universal solutions remain more difficult to define than universal problems.

Governance, as defined by the World Bank in its 1992 report, Governance and Development, is the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources for development. The report deemed it is within the Bank's mandate to focus on the following: -the process by which authority is exercised in the management of a country's economic and social resources -the capacity of governments to design, formulate, and implement policies and discharge functions. Also available: Governance: The World Bank's Experience (ISBN 0-8213-2804-2) Stock No. 12804.

Public sector pricing policies may undermine incentives to reduce costs. Therefore measures to promote cost reduction should be part of any pricing policy reform designed to increase cost recovery.

In many parts of the world public enterprise is in crisis. Privatisation programmes are being widely touted as the solution to many of the problems of inefficiency and slow rates of growth associated with public enterprise. This book discusses the underlying causes of those problems, and critically examines some of the solutions that have been adopted. Its geographical coverage is wide and it cuts across the political spectrum. The experiences of countries in four continents are analysed in an attempt to shed light on current dilemmas. Recurrent patterns are found; problems are frequently seen to be political as much as economic, and bureaucracy and administrative confusion is often found to be at the heart of poor financial performance.Yet since political aims, economic environment, and administrative and managerial capabilities vary so widely, universal solutions remain more difficult to define than universal problems.