Gebeyaw Tadesse

Public Service Delivery: Challenges of Implementing Public Service Delivery Reform in Kombolcha City Administration and Harbu Municipality Gebeyaw Tadesse

Municipal management is a broader discipline concerned with the management of a complex bundle of urban activities that take place in urban settlements. Provision of public service is the main task of municipalities. There have been many problems observed in delivering proper public service in the civil service institutions including municipalities for many years. The government of Ethiopia has implemented service delivery reform as part of the country?s general political and economic restructuring programs. Reform success and failure stories suggest that the outcome of the implementation of reforms to improve service delivery depends largely on the localized contingency factors. Disappointingly, preconditions for the reform measures were undeveloped and the program was begun with high hopes and low implementation capacity. As a result, the reform has proceeded in these municipalities with the knowledge of its failure in advance. The reform measures must be contextualized to the situation of these municipalities and should be executed by identifying priority departments, while taking into account their relationship to clients and their capacity to implement the measures proposed.