Graduate School of Public Policy

Dr. Saltanat Janenova and Prof. Colin Knox won the Best Paper Award at the Annual Conference of the Asian Association of Public Administration (http://aapa.asia/) held in Astana on 13-14 April 2017.
The topic of their paper is “Civil Service Reform in Kazakhstan: trajectory to the thirty most developed countries?

This paper considers whether civil service reforms in Kazakhstan to date and those envisaged under the new plan offer a trajectory to the 2050 stated goal – to join 30 most developed countries. It finds that civil service reforms have focused on institutional, structural and legal changes without the necessary attention to how these will impact on the quality of public services provision. There is a disconnect between civil service reforms and how to achieve an outcomes based approach which has the potential to improve the everyday lives of Kazakh citizens through better public services. The paper highlights the interdependence between civil service reforms and an outcomes based approach and adapts the OECD Better Life framework for Kazakhstan as a way of making this connection.