The challenge, according to the vice-president, is putting recommendations arising from the international dialogue into action, considering Africa’s often tumultuous geopolitical context, its poor history in public administration and its leadership challenges.

“The violence and non-participatory environment in some countries stand in the way of progress and dilute Africa’s achievements in the pursuit of democratic governance,” he said. “Africa needs to redress this backslide,” he emphasised.

The need for a participatory framework that takes into account the requirements and expectations of citizens at all levels in an effort to create a better life for all was a point of interest for participants in an earlier ministerial roundtable.

Referring to UNPSF recommendations for governments to create and implement pro-poor policies to redress socio-economic inequalities, chairperson of the Pan-African Conference of Ministers of Public Service Dalmas Otieno Anyango argued that policies alone won’t bring about any significant change.

Anyango, who is also Kenyan minister of State for Public Service, thinks the idea of a functionally isolated pro-poor policy framework is a fallacy.

“Going slowly by saying pro-poor policies, we will not reach anywhere,” he said, adding that African leaders should be looking into strategies that empower the poor and uplift them out of poverty.

The very foundation of Africa’s current governance systems has to change, according to him.

“We have to move to a regime of comprehensive human rights,” he said, adding that the legal and constitutional framework in many countries needed to anchor the demands of the poor.

Ashraf Abdel-Wahab, Egyptian acting minister of State for Administrative Development shared this world view. He highlighted the need for governments to establish measurable policies that map out progression toward empowering the poor and the marginalised.

To oversee implementation, however, more involvement is required from the civil society, according to him.

“Civil society has a big role in pushing the government to act,” he said.

For Dr Bilal, the government can only deliver if its leaders are transformative, if in their position they actively and solely work to “make a difference to African countries and to the lives of their people.”

Innovative leadership in the public sector and integrity are crucial to achieving this aim, according to him. He said he hoped one of the outcomes of the UN Forum was a strategic approach that could be utilised to “reinforce leadership in the public sector which is characterised by a high degree of integrity and innovativeness.”

However, there is scepticism as to whether African leaders are truly committed to such a maverick approach to public administration.

One delegate pointedly asked the ministers during the roundtable discussions earlier whether they were prepared to let public servants “think outside the box” because in his experience, deviation from what was considered normative was rarely tolerated by African political leaders.

The four-day UN Public Service Forum came to a close yesterday with the presentation of the 2011 UN Public Service Awards, in which Tanzania received the first place award in the category 'Improving Delivery of Public Services” for the Mkurabita initiative.

Better known as the Property and Business Formalisation Programme, Mkurabita aims at allowing those in the informal sector, particularly in rural areas, to own property and transform their businesses into legally held entities in the formal economy.