Secretaries without borders

Secretaries without borders is what a colleague joked that the government in Juba needed a few years ago. My friends and colleagues Ben French and Nick Travis have a great post up on the new ODI blog beyondbudgets.org making this point in a bit more detail;

Investment is not just needed in getting the policy ‘right’ but also in making the ‘paper move’. Money needs to be spent on building the capacity of governments to maintain basic administrative and management processes, on training administrators and establishing functional IT systems. No matter how good policies are, without the basics in place - and the people to administer them – implementation will continue to be hindered by chaotic and ineffectual management.

Well worth reading in full. They have also just published a couple of briefing notes on the new government Aid Strategy in South Sudan and the 2009 Donor-Government compact.