2 world administrations have inadequate systems of establishment control, personnel information management, and manpower planniag. They cannot provide sufficient incentives to motivate staff performance. Appropriate career development and training programs for civil servants are mainly non-existent.

Although Bank operations have begun to addr,,is some of these problems (30 projects have included CSM components since 1981 -- s;ee Tables 1-2), efforts to date have been ad hoc and experimental in nature, constrained. by a limited knowledge of what constitutes 'best practice'. Technologies used in these programs have tended to be drawn from a narrow range of advanced country models, in some instances applying outmoded or unsound techniques, unrepresentative of leading-edge civil service management approaches. Because rapid changes are taking place in global thining about. the management and motivation of human resources for both the private and public sectors, and because developing country programs must be able to assess the latest wisdom on these issues, it is particularlv vital to scrutinize CSM assistance strategy at this time.

This paper seeks to provide some guidance for Bank borrowers on how to manage their civil services better. It does so by surveying stuccessful or promising experiences in advanced and newly industrialized countries. The objective is to identify models or elements therein which might be usefully applied and adapted to LDC administrations for improved government performance.

Two caveats should be duly noted. First, a st ict construction of the notion of 'best CSM practice" is simplistic. Despite significant global commonalities, the diversity of successful personnel administration approaches, even in apparently similar environments, belies the possibility of a standardized modeL Differences in socio-cultural, economic, and political endowments significantly affect what is feasible in a given country, thus undermining attempts at uniformity. The search should be for "good" management practice suitable for particular country conditions. Second, the human resource focus of CSM used in this paper represents an attempt to narrow the scope of an already overwhelming topic. The links between personnel ptactices and other aspects of administration, especially financial management, are, of course, intricate. In this last respect, a forthcoming CECPS analysis of public financial management reforms in OECD countries complements the present study.' The paper analyzes the implications for specific CSM functions of two (ideal) types of administrative systems: a traditional model of centralized, hierarchical, administrative control and a "reform" model that, utilizing sophisticated information management mechanisms, devolves greater financial and personnel responsibilities down the administrative line and relies increasingly on market signals to orient civil service management behavior.

The industrialized country experience with these two broad models is examined in the hope, if not the hypothesis, that the selective introduction of successful and/or innovative CSM 'See, Michael Stevens, "Innovations in Public Expenditure Management in OECD Countrics", forthcoming, **isi2. Organrzauiu-a,** structural and, for lack of a less iritating term, "proces" aspects of civil service management are also important (and too often ignored in Bank work) but could not be reasonably accommodated in the scope of this study. Ile terse reference to the political (and sociocultural) dimensions of civil service reform is not intended to underestimate the centrality of these variables, but rather to acknowledge that these ame in themseles vast topics, the subject of extensive literatures; it was not possible to address them seriously in this review. Finally, despite the paperes human resoure focus, the mbric, "civil service management" Is used in place of the more precise 'civil servie pesonnel management" on grounds of linguistic economy.