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While the other three domains focus on the operational functioning of the public administration, in effect ‘what’ public administrations do or ‘how’ they do it, the People and Processes domain seeks to assess what and how it feels to work in or for the public administration. It is made up of five themes: employee engagement; diversity and inclusion; HR management; procurement; and technology and workplaces. Four of these themes can be measured in our Index, unfortunately at this time we have not identified suitable data with a global coverage that can provide a measure of employee engagement.
Norway ranks first, Estonia and New Zealand rank joint second and Canada, Denmark, and Singapore rank joint fourth. Denmark and New Zealand rank in the top 10 for three of the four themes that make up the People and Processes domain, Norway ranks in the top 10 for two of the four themes, while Canada, Estonia and Singapore each rank in the top 10 for one of the four themes.
Colombia and Malaysia (joint 7th) are the highest ranking upper middle income economies, followed by the Dominican Republic and Paraguay (both 18th). Ukraine (38th) is the highest ranking lower middle income economy, followed by the Philippines (48th) and Honduras (54th). Uganda (52nd) is the highest ranking low income economy followed by Niger (83rd), then Ethiopia and Togo (both 97th).
After Canada, Chile and Colombia (joint 7th) are the highest ranking countries in the Americas followed by Uruguay (10th). After New Zealand (2nd) and Singapore (4th), Malaysia (7th) is the highest ranking country in Asia and Pacific followed by Australia (10th) and South Korea (14th). After Estonia (2nd), Slovenia (18th) is the highest ranking country in Eastern Europe followed by Lithuania (23rd), Czechia and Moldova (joint 24th). Kazakhstan (24th) is the highest ranking country in Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia followed by Armenia (33rd) and Israel (38th). Mauritius (48th) is the highest ranking country in Sub-Saharan Africa followed by Uganda (52nd), Eswatini and Zimbabwe (joint 57th).
Diversity and inclusion
The diversity and inclusion theme seeks to measure the extent to which the public administration workforce reflects the population and society it serves. It is measured using 10 metrics covering the openness of recruitment to different groups of people, the representation of women in public administration at large and the representation of women in management and senior positions in public administration.
Australia and Germany rank joint first and Belgium ranks third. Other countries of note: Costa Rica (8th) is the highest ranking upper middle income economy and joint with Canada (also 8th) the highest ranking country in the Americas, Estonia (13th) is the highest ranking country in Eastern Europe, and Guinea (36th) is the highest ranking country in Sub-Saharan Africa.
HR management
The HR management theme seeks to measure the formal practices that govern the recruitment and management of an effective public administration workforce. In practice it is measured using five metrics focussed on recruitment practices.
Norway ranks first, New Zealand ranks second and Sweden ranks third. Other countries of note: Malaysia (13th) is the highest ranking upper middle income economy, Benin (19th) is the highest ranking lower middle income economy and the highest ranking country in Sub-Saharan Africa, and Morocco (28th) is the highest ranking country in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.
Procurement
The procurement theme seeks to measure the operational quality of public procurement practices. However, in practice this theme is measured using a single measure relating to the openness and availability of public procurement data.
Ukraine ranks first, Paraguay ranks second and Kazakhstan ranks third. Other countries of note: South Korea (9th) is the highest ranking country in Asia and Pacific, Cameroon (28th) is the highest ranking country in Sub-Saharan Africa, and Uganda (41st) is the highest ranking low income country.
Technology and workplaces
The technology and workplaces theme seeks to measure the enabling environment for public employees, the IT systems they use, and the buildings and locations they work in. In practice this theme relies on a single measure relating to the existence and nature of various administrative IT systems.
Due to the nature of the source data, half of the countries take one of three scores. There are 23 countries which rank joint first including countries from all income groups. All geographic regions except for the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia (MENCA) region are also represented in this group of top scoring countries.