Comparing Citizens’ and Employees’ Evaluation of the Roles of Civil Service Reform Program in Building Good Governance in Public Institutions: The Case of Addis Ababa City Government

Abstract

This article comparatively assesses citizens’ and employees’ evaluation of the role of the civil service reform program in building good governance in public institutions of the City Government of Addis Ababa. Both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were followed to generate primary and secondary data through questionnaires, focus group discussion interviews, and document reviews. Primary data were collected through fieldwork from 212 respondents. The result reveals that most public servants believe that civil service reform programs have improved good governance in public sector service delivery. However, the greater majority of surveyed customers believe they have not seen much improvement in public service delivery in the city. The data collected from both categories of respondents indicate that the contribution of the reform in improving accountability, the responsiveness of civil servants, establishing an effective relationship with stakeholders and improving public participation was very limited. Therefore, it is recommended that the city government needs to devise strategies aligned with the existing reforms and follow up on proper implementations of the reforms. In addition, creating proper mechanisms to ensure accountability, transparency, public participation, and effective service delivery could be paramount.