# **Equipment at Work**

Perhaps the most important tool of a civil servant’s job is the file. Processing paper work contained in files is the core work of many civil servants. The information technology revolution of the past two decades could therefore be seen as a revolution in the tools of the bureaucratic trade. To what extent have computers penetrated the developing world’s bureaucracies?

Though we do not have information on equipment for the federal and state levels in Ethiopia, Table 3 provides rates of penetration for the other tiers. Managers were asked to specify the proportion of staff with access to a computer. This did not imply that each official had their own computer, but rather they had a computer that they had regular permission to use for their work. The numbers are not particularly high. Even at the federal level in Nigeria, only 38% of staff have regular access. Where penetration is strikingly low is at the local level. In both countries the rate is below 8%, indicating that the information technology revolution has not really reached local government in the developing world. This is despite many social services being the responsibility of local governments. The Ethiopia survey asked the manager to assess the biggest bottleneck to the organization being better able to utilise information technology. Three-quarters of the respondents stated that the absence of equipment, or funding for that equipment, was the major issue. The implication of these responses was that, rather than a skills shortage (highlighted by 13% of respondents) or an inability to manage the technology (highlighted by only one respondent), public sector managers in Ethiopia believe they simply do not have sufficient resources to equip their staff and could use more.

Even a small number of computers can revolutionise a government’s communication with the rest of government and the outside world if they are connected to the internet. Table 3 once again implies a significant inequality across tiers of government in access to the internet. In Nigeria, local governments stated that they had internet access on only 3% of days, an average that masks a large number of governments that had no access at all. The Ethiopian local governments do better, with 21% of days with access, partly due to the efforts of the Ethiopian Government to extend ‘WoredaNet’ to that tier of government. However, this still amounts to one day in a working week.

Throughout the surveys there are frequent references to how the general environment of government is lacking in resources, a trend which is particularly acute at the local government level. At 5 of the 18 local governments surveyed in Nigeria, managers stated that they never had access to electricity, and half the organizations only had power for half the day on average. Across our local-level surveys, three officers out of ten are said to have access to vehicles for work, despite many local government officials being a key liaison with the community.

Thus, across multiple indicators of equipment, civil servants in the developing world seem to have limited access to infrastructure to aid them in their daily duties. This is most acute at the local government level, but even at the federal level, where staff are most bound to the processing of files, less than half of staff have access to a computer.

To what extent is this simply a product of regional inequalities? It is certainly true that more remote parts of Nigeria and Ethiopia have less access to resources, and this is as true for governments there as it is for citizens. However, we can study this question in a little more detail by looking to the Kaduna local government data in Nigeria. Within the state of Kaduna, the organization-level survey was undertaken at six separate local governments. Restricting analysis to these local governments only, we still see significant variation. The number of hours of electricity available during a typical working day goes from 0 in one local government to continuously available in another. Similarly, the proportion of officers with access to a computer varies almost uniformly throughout the distribution from 0 to 0.6. Hours with 12