In 1998 the author of this book undertook a research visit to South East Asia to analyse and assess the capacity of certain selected states to develop and maintain sustainable public services delivery systems in their territory.

Local government is at the forefront of development. In South Africa the ambitious policy objectives of post-apartheid reconstruction and development hinge on the successful creation of a democratic tier of government close to the people. An entirely new system of 'developmental local government' has thus been introduced. As is the case in many developing countries, the responsibilities of municipalities in South Africa have been extended dramatically, often without adequate resources. Managing municipalities for development therefore requires political will and strategic intervention. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to developmental local government. It includes: the design of the new local government system and the issues posed by decentralisation; an overview of specific challenges of urban and rural municipalities; a discussion of special issues facing local government including poverty, gender and environment; new tools for local government, including budgeting, indicators, municipal partnerships and capacity building.

This book examines the various ways in which some fragile states in the Global South (or states with limited statehood) have adopted, and adapted to, processes of governance in their quests to address the socialized problems affecting their societies. It tells the story of these states’ resilience in the societal adaptation to a liberalized notion of governance. In addition to comparative case studies, the book also analyzes the engendered interplay of culture, economics, and politics in the creation of people-centric governance reforms. The contributing authors shed light on weak states’ often constructive engagement in the promotion of state governance under a variety of societal conditions, adverse or otherwise, and on their ability to remain resilient despite the complexities of the political and economic challenges they face.

Comparative analysis of the public bureaucracy's implementation of two ASEAN policies in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.

Includes contributions, which revolve around the application of ICT in the activities and structures of Public Administration (PA) of some European countries. In this book, these contributions discuss the various development stages of the implementation of e-government as well as the different actors of PA itself.

This report summarises the need for and potential applications of selected user-friendly, state-of-theart, electronic policy support tools to promote more successful strategic policy management in the public sector.