In developing nations

Ø 1) Read this text and do task 1 for text 5.3.

Less-developed countries faced a serious problem with their civil services. After World War II many such countries became independent before they had developed effective administrative structures or bodies of trained civil servants. Few of the colonial powers had enough trained indigenous administrators. The British left a viable administrative structure in India and a partly Indianized civil service, but the newly independent Pakistan had few experienced civil servants. The Belgians left the Congo without any trained administrative or technical staff, and for some years there was near anarchy there.

Even when such countries inherited reasonably efficient administrative organizations, the politicians of newly independent countries could not fulfill their supporters’ expectations. Civil servants from the old colonial powers often thought that radical policies and new masters were unpleasant. At the same time, they were seldom an adequate substitute themselves.

The lack of qualified personnel sometimes led to inefficiency and to a decline in administrative morality. Nepotism, tribalism, and corruption were not rare. In many countries the incapacity of the civil service led to military rule. Military regimes often became the last resort of a country where the civil power could not cope with the problems of independence.

Consequently, the United Nations, together with the governments of advanced countries, began to develop training programs for civil servants from underdeveloped countries. The first request came from Latin America, which led to the founding of a school of public administration in Brazil, followed in 1953 by an Advanced School of Public Administration for Central America. Various other international organizations, including the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Bank, supported institutions for the training of administrators in the less-developed countries. Such institutions included the Arab Planning Institute in Kuwait, the Arab Organization of Administrative Sciences in Jordan, and the Inter-American School of Public Administration in Brazil. Civil servants from the less-developed nations also studied administration at such places as the Institute of Social Studies in the Hague, the Netherlands, the Institute of Local Government Studies in Birmingham, England, and the International Institute of Public Administration in Paris.

After the 1970s the international agencies gave less help toward training, on the assumption that the less-developed nations would take on greater responsibility themselves. Training was usually generalist and academic, and led to acute shortages of trained administrators in specialized fields such as finance and planning. However, organizations such as the British Council began to remedy some of these deficiencies in the early 1980s.

Ø 2) Answer the questions on the text: What was the major problem of developing nations after becoming independent? What was the result of this situation? What was the way out? Was it productive?

Ø 3) Explain what these terms mean: nepotism, tribalism, corruption.

Ø 4) Make a brief plan of the text.