Public administration reform in Eritrea: Past trends and emerging challenges

Public administration has always been the tool available to African governments for the implementation of developmental goals and objectives. It is seen as being crucial to the growth and development of African economies. To this end efforts have been made in many African countries to increase efficiency through decentralization, restructuring and privatization. This study presents Eritrea’s public administration reform experience, and assesses the extent to which Eritrea has taken up New Public Management reforms. The aim is to show the outcome of reforms on civil service, public enterprises and local government management. It is found that in Eritrea there is a need for periodic review and continuous administrative reform. In the civil service there are absence of promotion, retirement, and lack of competitive wages and salary increments. In local government there are lack of administrative capacity, absence of clear accountability lines and fiscal decentralization, and lack of coordination and information sharing among local government units and line ministries. The Eritrean government should now emphasize on investment in developing human capital towards effective policy formulation, analysis, implementation and evaluation, and on the reform of the public sector itself besides privatization aimed at allowing public enterprises to operate more efficiently and effectively. Key words:  Eritrea, reform, public administration, local government, civil service, public enterprises.