HRD Challenges Facing Decentralized Local Governments in Africa

Human Resource Development Challenges Facing Decentralized Local Governments in Africa: Empirical evidence from Ghana

By

Antwi, K B., Analoui, F., Cusworth, J.W.

A Paper submitted to:

Leadership, Learning, Institutes and Public Service

A Conference for leaders who shape and deliver Learning and

Development

ACCRA, GHANA, NOVEMBER 7-9, 2007

Corresponding Author: Professor Farhad Analoui, Bradford Centre for International Development, University of Bradford, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD7 1DP, UK; E-mail: [email protected]; Tel: +44 (0) 1274233958; Fax: +44 (0) 1274235280 K. B. Antwi, PhD is lecturer at the Department of Geography & Tourism, University of Cape-Coast, Ghana. He is currently, collaborates as research associate with the Bradford Centre for International Development, University of Bradford. Dr. F. Analoui, PhD is Professor of International Development and Human Resource Management at the Bradford Centre for International Development (BCID), University of Bradford. J. W, Cusworth is Professor of Development Management at Bradford Centre for International Development (BCID). He is Dean of the School for the School of Social and International Studies, University of Bradford

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Human Resource Development Challenges Facing Decentralized Local

Governments in Africa: Empirical evidence from Ghana ABSTRACT

For more than a decade, ‘Decentralization’ and ‘Human Resource Development’ have become indispensable dimensions on Ghana’s socio-economic development agenda, particularly on her system-wide public sector management reform. This research sought to explore and understand the human resource development challenges facing local governments within the context of the public sector reforms. The central argument of the study is that decentralization is in both theory and practice a means to improving good local governance and provision of high quality public services that citizen’s value. However, this assumption is contingent upon its design, and more importantly the institutional and human resource capacity arrangements governing its implementation. Adopting an exploratory case study design, it triangulated both secondary and primary sources of data. Primary data came from self-completing questionnaire and interview schedule tools covering 105 local government employees selected from national, regional and district levels. Semi-structured interviews also solicited views from 16 senior public officers and managers in 9 public and quasi-public organisations. These primary sources were complemented with relevant secondary documents from the organisations investigated. We found that Ghana’s public sector reforms have significantly influenced the strategic direction of human resource development policies of the decentralised local government service. Major human resource capacity challenges manifest three-dimensionally as: policy, task/skill/organisation and performance motivation induced. Addressing the human resource capacity challenges has enormous strategic and financial resource implications for policy makers in transition and developing economies, due to their over-reliance on external donors for funding. KEY WORDS: Ghana, Human Resource Development, Capacity Building, Decentralization, Local Government, Public Sector Reform.

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Human Resource Development Challenges Facing Decentralized Local

Governments in Africa: Empirical evidence from Ghana

INTRODUCTION

Development of ‘human resources’ in both public and private sector organizations has

become critical in an increasingly knowledge-based globalizing economy (Analoui,

2007). In particular, human resource capacity building for public service delivery has

been recognised by developed, transition, and developing economies under the notion of

the ‘new public management’ reform.

In the context of new public management (NPM) or public sector reform (PSR),

decentralization, and human resource management and development (HRM/D) have

been recognised as crucial strategic policy elements of concern in the implementation of

reforms in both developed, transitional and developing countries. It has been argued by

Hope (2001: 124) that ‘decentralization is seen as the means through which

governments are able to provide high quality services that citizens value; for increasing

managerial autonomy, particularly by reducing central administrative controls; for

demanding, measuring and rewarding both organizational and individual performance’.

In a sense, decentralization is commonly accepted in both theory and practice as a

means to ensuring good local governance and the delivery of effective public service by

increasing ‘allocative’ and ‘productive’ efficiency. However, this assumption of great

promise is contingent on its design, and the institutional, technical and human resource

development (HRD) capacity arrangements governing its strategic implementation

(World Bank, 2003; Kahkonen and Lynya, 2001; Pollit, et al., 1998).

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The strategic importance of the development of human resource capacity, for example,

was raised at the African Leadership Forum on June 21st, 1990 in Nigeria. At that

meeting, Robert McNamara, the former President of the World Bank emphasized ‘the

imperative of building local African capacities’ as the cutting edge of Africa’s strategic

development agenda. In his view, the lack of ‘necessary skills and well-managed public

and private institutions for long-term, sustainable growth was a priority to be included

in every development activity in Africa because of its implications for improved

development management and good governance’ (cited by Wood, 2000: 88). Similarly,

in a recent publication entitled ‘Can Africa Claim the 21st Century? The World Bank

noted that: ‘Africa’s future lies in its people. Indeed, Africa must solve its current

human development crisis if it is to claim the 21st century. Africa’s future economic

growth will depend less on its natural resources, which are being depleted and are

subject to long-run price declines, … and more on its labour skills and its ability to

accelerate a demographic transition’ (World Bank, 2000:103)

The World Bank observation is underscored by the reality that the most valuable and

critical organizational resource is its people (Analoui, 2002). Recognizing that people

conceive, plan, and execute all tasks, coordinate and organise inputs and produce

outputs, it can thus be safely assumed that endeavours would succeed or fail because of

the people involved (Powell, 2001). It is, therefore, not surprising that human resource

management and development issues have been of great concern to public sector

reformers, against the assumption that NPM reform is a management philosophy largely

practiced in the private sector. The question has often been asked whether these

philosophies and practices would work in the public domain with its bureaucratic and

non-participative tendencies (Taylor, 2001; Hope, 2001; Turner and Hulme, 1997).

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In Ghana, the key systemic constraints in the public sector identified before the

launching of her Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) in April 1984, include:

institutional weaknesses, under-development, under-utilization and management of

human resources, poor performance management and incentives systems, and lack of

effective management of information system (Republic of Ghana, 1997, 1999i; World

Bank, 1999ii). To address these complex issues, the Government of Ghana (GoG) has

for nearly two decades been reforming the public sector. These reform efforts have

resulted in major changes in policy, processes and practices with the aim of

strengthening the capacity of her public administrative system. One consequential

outcome has been the adoption of an ambitious yet innovative programme of

decentralization policy, which the government has been implementing, since 1988

(Republic of Ghana, 1999: 10-11).

The need to pay attention to the human resource development equation in local

governance comes from the historical analysis that Ghana as a country has been ruled

from the centre by non-democratic institutions for years; the local bureaucracy that had

been part of a centralized scheme of things needs to be re-educated to fit into the

decentralized way of local governance. Thus, building capacity of local government

officials for effective administration and management must therefore, be of high

priority. Recognizing that inadequacy of capacity in terms of trained and competent

technical and generalists’ human resources on the part of local authorities to carry out

their responsibilities has in the past been a significant contributory factor in the

centralization of public services (Wood, 2000: 90).

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The background information presented thus far raises questions about the potential

difficulties and challenges of investing in people for Ghana’s decentralized local

governments. Secondly, with the managerialism assumption of the NPM, how has

Ghana’s on-going reform been responding to the HRD challenges and concerns facing

the decentralised local government (bureaucratic) workforce? The rest of the paper is

organised as follows. Section two places the study in theoretical context and raises the

appropriate research questions that would address the research problem. The third

section takes up the methodology; whilst section four presents the results with the fifth

section discussing the key findings. The concluding section incorporates the

implications of the key findings for policy and human resource development practice.

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

The Concept of Capacity

The question of capacity and capacity building has been featured in development

discourse for some time now. According to Larbi (1998), ‘capacity’ is not the same as

‘capacity-building’. Rather the absence of capacity necessitates capacity building; hence

effective capacity building must be preceded by assessment of existing capacity. He

cites Cecil Saldhana of the Asian Development Bank, definition of capacity in the

context of public sector as the abilities of governments to plan, manage and sustain the

development process of their economies and societies; and in keeping with the

aspirations and potential of their respective countries people (ECDPM, 1994:7; cited by

Larbi, 1998:37).

In the context of public policy, Lane and Wolf (1990) have defined capacity as the

ability to govern, which rests on the human resources of governmental agencies - the

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people who participate in and enable the process of governance i.e. their collective

memory, commitment, technical proficiency and programme competence. Given that

state administrative capacity rests on human resources (HRs) the issue of motivation,

attitudes and performance are critical. Hildebrand and Grinole (1995:100) define

capacity simply as ‘the ability to perform appropriate tasks’. Implying that capacity is

task performance i.e. what is required to achieve purposes effectively, efficiently and

sustainable either at individual, group, community, organization or governmental level.

Having briefly examined the concept of capacity and capacity-building therefore, it is

useful to consider the open systems theory, whose underlying philosophy seems

appropriate and relevant to enhancing our understanding of the role of human resource

development (HRD) in any given organizational setting, be it public or private.

Open Systems Theory

Systems theory is premised on the assumption that organizations have similar

characteristics with other living organisms (Analoui and Karami, 2003; Analoui, 1998;

Hanna, 1997). A system is generally defined as an arrangement of interrelated parts.

The words arrangement and interrelated describe interdependent elements forming an

entity that is the system (Jackson and Schuler, 1999; von Bertalanffy, 1950). In using a

systems approach to understand a phenomenon, it is important to begin to identify the

individual parts and then seek to understand the nature of their collective interaction to

make the whole unique - it is the whole, not the parts alone that counts. An open system

depends on its external environment for inputs that are transformed during throughput

to produce outputs that are exchanged in the environment. The key elements of a typical

open system model with its basic interrelated parts are summarized in figure 1 below.

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Figure .1: Model of an Open System

Feedback

EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT – Political, Socio-cultural, Technological,

Economic Factors

INPUTS

TRANSFORMATION o Task Core Process o Group Core Process o Individual Core

Process OUTPUT

Source: Adapted from Hanna (1997:16)

The general view is that managing organizations with the view to contributing towards

socio-economic development requires effective deployment of three resources:

economic (monetary), physical (material) and human (social). However, the most vital

asset to any organization is ‘the people’ (human resources). Many contributors to the

HRD literature are of the view that the development dimension of HRM is

conceptualized as a sub-system of HRM, which is embedded in a larger organizational

system (Analoui and Karami, 2003; Armstrong, 2001; Analoui, 1998; Kanungo and

Mendunca, 1994). Analoui (2002) in his discussion of the ‘choice’ model of HRM, in

the context of open system organisations, views the HR policies, including the HRD, as

input to the process which will be expected to result in ‘change’ as a planned and

desired output.

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Wright and Snell (1991) for instance, have used the open system theory to describe a

competent management model of organizations. They treated the ‘skills and abilities’ of

employees as ‘inputs’ from the environment; employee behaviours as

‘throughput/transformation’ and their satisfaction and performance as ‘outputs’.

Chalofsky and Reinhart (1988:31) argue that an effective HRD function as a sub-system

of an organization should have a highly trained professional staff; demonstrating close

working relationships with line and staff management; and develop a track record of

delivering high quality products and/or services. This implies the capacity to acquire,

utilize, train, develop, retain and displace the needed competencies for the organization,

recognizing that ‘micro and macro level phenomena interact and influence each other’

(Cassar and Bezzina, 2005: 206).

The study explores how these elements empirically occur or happen under Ghana’s

reforming local government administrative system or how the challenges become

constraining situations imposed by the external environmental factors of the open

systems theory. From the perspective of building the human resource capacity of local

governments within the context of the open systems theory therefore, three useful

questions engaged the attention of the research in an exploratory fashion:

1. What specific importance has been given to the ‘development of human resources’

towards strengthening the administrative decentralized local government system?

2. What are the major HRD issues of common concern facing effective

decentralization of the local government service in the context of Ghana’s public

sector reforms?

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3. How do the employees perceive the main HRD ‘concerns’ and ‘challenges’ towards

enhancing an effective decentralized local government system?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The methodological choice for the study was influenced by the presence of multiple

actors in the public organizational setting, hence the adoption of an exploratory case

study research design. Due to financial, logistical, time and practical reasons, the actual

data collection covered the decentralized local government service, comprising the

Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) at the national level

in Accra, the Central Regional Coordinating Council (CRCC) in Cape Coast, and the

Komenda Edina Eguafo District Assembly (KEEA-DA) in Elmina.

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Both primary and secondary sources of data were employed for the study. Self-

completing questionnaire and interview schedule tools were used to elicit data from 105

local government employees selected from the main targeted organizations at the

nationaliii, regionaliv and districtv levels (See Figure 2). A semi-structured interview

guide was also employed to seek the views of ‘key persons’ in 9 public and quasi-public

organizations, reaching 16 senior public officials and managers. Appropriate and

relevant secondary documents complemented the two primary data sources.

Triangulating sources and data, qualitative and quantitative methods were used to

analyse the data. Qualitative analysis took the form of transcribing recorded tapes and

content analysis of interviews and documents, whilst quantitative analysis took the form

of descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, mean, mode, median standard

deviation supported with relevant charts and graphs. Figure 2 below brings together the

summary details of the sources of data, the organisations covered and the employee

sample selection and the actual coverage.

RESULTS On the question of what specific importance has been given to the development of

human resources towards strengthening administrative decentralized local governments,

the study found that as part of the on-going sector reforms an HRD unit has been

created, headed by a trained human resource professional. The newly created HRD unit

at the macro level has since 2002 formulated a ‘human resource capacity development’

(HRCD) plan for the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs). The

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ministry has also established an Institute for Local Government Studies (ILGS), whose

mandate is to train both the political and bureaucratic workforces of the local

governments.

Figure 2: Data Sources and Methods

Source: Data Analysis

** KEY 1. MRGRD – Ministry of Local Government & Rural Development: Accra (National level) 2. CRCC – Central Regional Coordinating Council: -Cape Coast (Regional Level) 3. KEEADA – Komenda Edina Eguafo District Assembly:- Elmina (District level) 4. NIRP – National Institutionnel Renewal Programme:- Accra 5. NIRP – National Institutionnel Renewal Programme:- Accra 6. PSC – Public Service Commission: -Accra 7. OHCS – Office of the Head of Civil Service: -Accra 8. ILGS – Institute of Local Government Studies: -Accra 9. GIMPA – Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration: -Accra 10. MDPI – Management Development and Productivity Institute: -Accra

Employee Sample Selection and Actual Coverage

Office Location

No of Staff1 Target Population1

Actual Coverage

Coverage as % of Total Target

Population National 88(29.2%) 44(50%) 22(50%) 21.0 Region 106(35.2%) 53(50%) 42(79.2%) 40.0 District 107(35.5%) 53(50%) 41(773%) 39.0 Total 301(100.0%) 150(50%) 105(70.0%) 70.0

Questionnaire: - Administered on sampled employees: -Self-completion -Interview schedule approach

Semi-structured Interviews ( SSI): –With key people in targeted **organizations

Desk study -Literature review

Documents: -Published & unpublished annual reports

-Policy papers

-Acts of parliament & related Legislative & Executive instruments

-Project evaluation reports

Primary sources Secondary Sources

Exploratory Case Study -Triangulating qualitative and quantitative data

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The research explored current HRD policies and programmes with the view to

understanding the level of top management support for HRD. Table 1 below gives a

summary of the respondents’ views on an ordinal scale from the perspective of work

location. The data generally shows that on average, employees considered three factors

as the most important, namely: (a) Current HRD policies are relevant to my work

(2.97); (b) HRD department has full management support (2.82); and (c) HRD policies

are formulated with line managers (2.67). On the other hand, we found two factors as

important obstacles for HRD. They were: (i) members of staff are aware of the HRD

policy of this organization (1.89); and (ii) management spend time and money to ensure

the development of all staff (2.02). These views were generally reflected at district,

regional and national levels, as well as by category of staff (junior verses senior).

Table 1: Employees Views on HR Policies and Programmes

MEAN SCORES (N=105) Human Resource Policy Issues

District Regional National Total a. Current HRD policies are relevant to my work. 2.77 3.06 3.29 2.97 b. Human resource Department has full management support. 2.59 2.76 3.22 2.82 c. HRD policies are formulated with other line managers 2.48 2.73 2.87 2.67 d. All members of staff are aware of the HRD policy of this organisation 2.12 1.69 1.90 1.89 e. Management regard peoples' development as one of the important policy issues 2.81 1.92 2.79 2.43 f. Management makes sure all staff enjoy their work 2.53 1.79 2.58 2.23 g. Management see people as the most important resource 2.84 2.03 2.68 2.48 h. Management spend time and money to ensure the development of all staff 2.16 1.73 2.40 2.02 I. This organisation has a policy to reward the contributions made by members of staff 2.56 1.91 2.89 2.37 Survey Scale: Strongly Disagree (1); Disagree (2); Agree (3); Strongly Agree (4); Don’t Know (0)

Source: Data Analysis

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On the performance of the HR function or departments, the respondents evaluated ten

key roles. A careful observation of the overall mean scores on the ten roles in table 2

suggests that the performance of the HR departments were rated as generally fair.

However, whenever a particular function/role is rated poor, a sizable proportion of the

respondents come from the regional and national level. Second, where the rating is

good, less of the overall contribution came from the region and national. These

observations have a lot of implications for the need to nurture the HRD function at all

local government levels. The results can be interpreted as an indication of how slow

public sector reforms takes to mature and to trickle down to the lower levels of

operation in a technically, materially and financially under-resourced developing

country such as Ghana.

Table 2: Employees rating of the HRD Department’s Performance

AVERAGE (Median Score =3.0) (N = 105) HRD Roles

District Region National Total

a. Keeping of Employees Records 2.85 2.83 2.59 2.79 b. Advocating for Employee's Rights 2.56 1.67 2.14 2.11 c. Helping Staff to Manage Change 2.49 1.60 2.09 2.05 d. Working in Partnership with Management 2.61 2.02 2.77 2.41 e. Working in Partnership with Line Managers 2.80 2.40 2.77 2.64 f. Promoting Team Work Among Staff 2.98 2.45 2.41 2.65 g. Providing Advice and Counsel to Staff 2.85 1.95 1.95 2.30 h. Planning and Organisation of Staff Training 2.10 1.69 2.55 2.03 I. Providing Equal Opportunity to the Training of All Staff 2.12 1.48 2.00 1.84 j. Helping Staff to Claim Retirement Benefits 2.80 2.17 2.59 2.50 Survey Scale: Poor (1), Fair (2), Good (3), Very Good (4), Excellent (5)

Source: Data Analysis

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Focusing on problems facing staff development, over 80 percent (82.9%) of the

respondents did affirm that all is not well. To understand the nature of the problems in

the context of HRD the respondents stated three major problems that affect the

development of human resources in their organization (see Table 3). The results have

been presented in the form of simple ranking depending on which concern or challenge

was identified by most of the respondents. The top three challenges identified are: low

job-satisfaction due to poor salaries, inadequate funds for training and development, and

unequal training and development opportunities for all employees.

Table 3: Ranking of Major Problems Affecting HRD

Work Location (N=105) Important Issue of Most Concern District Region National Total

Unclear career development path 4(5th)* 8 (5th) 3 (5th) 15 (6th) Lack of people with required skills and competence 2(7th) 5 (6th) 1 (7th) 8 (8th)

Inadequate funds for T& D of people 24(1st) 15 (4th) 9 (2nd) 48 (2nd) Unequal T& D opportunity for all staff 8(4th) 23 (2nd) 10 (1st) 41(3rd) Poor interpersonal relationship among staff. 3(6th) 1 (8th) 5 (3rd) 9 (7th) Individual Interest in jobs with financial gains 0(8th) 21 (3rd) 2 (6th) 23 (4th) Inadequate recognition delays in promotions 2(7th) 3 (7th) 3(5th) 8 (9th) Low job satisfaction due to poor salaries 18(2nd) 29 (1st) 2(6th) 49 (1ST) No HR department with trained professionals 2(7th) 0(9th) 0 (8th) 2 (10th) Other 12(3rd) 5 (6th) 4 (4th) 21 (5th) *Figures in brackets are the ranking positions)

Source: Data Analysis The issue that ranked fourth among the overall results, which was placed third in the

regions, but not mentioned in the district, was ‘individual or personal interest in jobs

with financial gains’. This finding can be interpreted as emphasising the challenge of

poor salaries for public sector employees in an economy where the daily minimum

wage is about US$1.5. One may argue that this perception probably holds some amount

of water because anecdotal evidence suggests that clients who do business with public

service organizations in Ghana sometimes provide some kind of financial incentives as

an inducement to fast-track their work. However, the inherent rent seeking behaviour is

a cause for worry since it has implications for fighting corruption. A recent survey

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report by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII, 2005:32), found the civil/public service to

be in fourth position among the top ten institutions/sectors identified as contributing to

bribery and corruption in Ghana.

Generally speaking the study found that the HRD challenges facing Ghana’s

decentralized local government service are multi-faceted or integrated in character.

Accordingly, they could be conveniently categorized three-dimensionally as illustrated

below (see Figure 3). They comprised policy-induced challenges; skill, task and

organization induced challenges; and performance motivation induced challenges.

Figure 3: Integrated HRD Challenges Facing the decentralized Local Governments in Ghana

POLICY INDUCED CHALLENGES

PERFORMANCE-MOTIVATION INDUCED

CHALLENGES

o Recognizing the contributions of all employees

o Improving inter-personal working relationship among staff

o Provision of non-monetary incentives e.g. annual citation awards; means of transport to work etc.

o Providing equal T & D opportunities for all staff

o Ensuring regular promotion of staff

o Enhancing job satisfaction of workers

o Securing employee retirement and family security

o Systematic and sustainable response to the issue of low salaries

o Human Resource Development and Management

o Information Communication and Management

o Procurement and Logistics Management

o Territorial Security Requirements

o Development Planning and Implementation

o Financial Management and Balancing Local Budget

o Institutionalizing and Sustaining Maintenance Culture

o Institutionalizing and Nurturing Good Local Governance

o General staff training and development

o Inadequate financial provision for the T & D of people

o Unclear career development path

o Lack of functional HR department with trained professional staff at all levels

o Ensuring staff performance improvement

o Lack of people with required skills and competence

o Inadequate logistics and equipment to facilitate work

o Providing quality service delivery to the public

SKILL/TASK/ORGANIZATION INDUCED CHALLENGES

Source: Authors

The policy-induced challenges are essentially due to the design and implementation of

the present local government system and the associated problems that come with it.

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Whilst the other two broad challenges are a synthesis of the concerns and needs of the

respondents (employees) and key person’s interviewed during the study.

DISCUSSIONS Systems theory thrives on the assumption that it is the collective interaction of

individual parts that makes the whole unique (Hanna, 1997; von Bertalanffy, 1950). In

that respect, it is useful to discover that the local government ministry has in place a

HRCD plan for the local governments (i.e. MMDAs). It thus demonstrates the

conceptual and empirical intentions of an organization that seeks to develop the

knowledge, skills and competencies of the human resources (Pffeper and Veiga, 1999;

Guest, 1987; 1989). However, the HRCD plan appears to be an imposition despite

management’s good intentions because there was little or no input from the region and

district level personnel. To a large extent this is contrary to the principles of

participatory management (Kaufman, 2001) as well as decentralization theory and

practice (Cohen and Peterson, 1997; and Kalin, 1997). It equally undermines the

fundamental assumption of the system theory, which considers every part or element of

the organisation as critical to its survival and sustainability (Hanna, 1997; von

Bertalanffy, 1950).

One interesting HRD capacity concern that was mentioned several times in the study

and featured in the skill, task and organization-induced dimension of figure 2 is the

over-emphasis on ‘staff training’ by the employees. The emphasis on yearning for more

and perhaps fair access to training underscores a comment that ‘training has become the

most popular prescription for curing all organizational pathologies in many developing

countries (Analoui, 1996, 1993; Kiggundu, 1994). Others have also argued that training

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is the most preferred option to solving chronic human resource inadequacies and

organizational weaknesses (Kerrigan and Luke, 1987). However, NPM writers like

Reichard (1998), believe that training is only one factor in the successful development

of the human side of new public managers. Reichard’s observation is supported by

Kowu’s (2001) study in one of Ghana’s public sector organizations (The Environmental

Protection Agency – EPA). That study concluded that training alone is not enough to

produce effectiveness in the workplace, especially among senior managers. Rather,

there is the need to create conducive work environment aimed at providing a high level

of job satisfaction and to recruit enthusiastic, broad-minded individuals prepared to

disregard their personal prejudices for the good of the organization (Kowu, 2001).

A careful assessment of the key performance motivation-induced challenges tends to

conflict with Reichard (1998) and Hasenbolhler’s (1995) argument that for public

managers and employees to be able carry out public sector vision, public sector

reformers have to be circumspect with regard to: (i) selection and recruitment of

suitable public managers and workforce; (ii) career development and promotion for

public employees; (iii) provision of a motivating incentive system for public

employees; (iv) adequate interaction between the entire public workforce, managers

and their superiors in the organization; and (v) build a team of employees taking into

consideration leadership, communication and control. Reichard and Hasenbolhler’s

argument is in conformity with Chalofsky and Reinhart (1988: 31) performance-

oriented ‘HRD effectiveness model’, which argues that the overriding goal of an

effective HRD function is to ‘build a responsive resource (workforce)’ and should be

contingent upon having: professional human resource personnel; top management

support for HRD; a high level of teamwork among staff; close working relationship

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with line and staff management; and a track record of high quality products and/or

services’.

CONCLUSION This exploratory case study investigated the human resource development capacity

challenges facing local governments in a developing country, Ghana. The overall

purpose of the study was to explore, describe and understand how the new public

management sector reform paradigm, which Ghana has embraced, is shaping the path of

decentralisation reform. In particular, it sought to explore the major human resource

development capacity building challenges facing local government administration.

On reflection, the main research conclusions suggest that human resource capacity

challenges manifest in three-dimensions as: policy-related, task/skill/organisation-

related and performance motivation-related. Confronting these challenges has far

reaching implications for policy and human resource management development

practice.

One of the policy conclusions is that decentralisation has the potential to improve local

public service delivery and ensure good governance. However, for this dream to

materialise, several human resource development policy actions and interventions are

required, including: establishing functional, well re-tooled and professional HRD

institutional structures at all levels of local government administration.

In respect of the implications for human resource development practice, it might be

useful to focus on the following issues:

Improving the core competencies of staff and management in decentralised local

governments:- by promoting an integrated approach to organisational learning that

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would require the development of three inter-related human resource capabilities,

including: human capital (knowledge, skills and competencies); social capital

(network of reciprocal relationships and support); and corporate capital (embedded

culture, assets and information system).

Synchronising the nature and content of training offered by the different

stakeholders contributing to local governments human resource capacity building:-

This would imply designing strategies to focus on four dimensions of the local

government institution or what is commonly referred to as the ‘organisation human

resource strategy’, including its: (i) Culture – the beliefs, values, norms and

management style; (ii) Organisation – the structure, job roles, and reporting lines;

(iii) People – the skill levels, staff potential and management capability; and (iv)

Human Resources System – the people focused mechanisms which deliver the

strategy: communications, training, rewards, career development.

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NOTES

i Republic of Ghana (1999) – Governance Issue paper for the 10TH Consultative Group (CG) Meeting Prepared by the National Instititutionalized Renewal Programme (NIRP) Secretariat, Accra, November 1999 ii The World Bank (1999) – ‘Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Credit in the amount of SDR 10.5 Million (US$ 14.3 Million Equivalent) to the Republic of Ghana for a Public Sector Management Reform Project in Support of the First Phase of the Public Sector Management Reform Programme’. April 6, 1999 – Capacity Building Unit, Country Department 10, Africa Region iii iv v Special Note: This research was supported by the Government of Ghana (GoG) through the Scholarship Secretariat in Accra, Ghana with a 3-year grant to the lead author as part of the University of Cape Coast, Ghana Staff Development Programme from 2002-2005