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Chinese

PublicAdministration

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Volume6,N

umber1/2

•September/D

ecember2009

CPAR 6 1-2 Cover 9-29-09:Layout 1 9/29/09 12:51 PM

Chinese Public Administration ReviewMarc Holzer, Editor-in-ChiefNational Center for Public Performance

School of Public Affairs and AdministrationRutgers University, Newark Campus

Mengzhong Zhang, Managing EditorSchool of Public Policy

University of Maryland at College Park

Ginger Swiston, Production EditorSchool of Public Affairs and Administration

Rutgers University, Newark Campus

International Editorial BoardP.R. China (Mainland)Jing Bao, Chinese Public Administration SocietyQingyun Chen, Peking UniversityRuilian Chen, Zhongshan UniversityZhenming Chen, Xiamen UniversityKeyong Dong, Renmin University of ChinaXiaoping Gao, Chinese Public Administration SocietyXiangming Hu, Wuhan UniversityWeiping Huang, Shengzhen UniversityJianghao Jin, Chinese Public Administration SocietyTaijun Jin, Suzhou UniversityLefu Wang, Zhongshan UniversityJiannan Wu, Xian Jiaotong UniversityShuzhang Xia, Zhongshan UniversityJinmin Xiao, Shandong UniversityLan Xue, Tsinghua UniversityXiaoling Xu, Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyChengfu Zhang, Renmin University of ChinaDexin Zhang, National School of AdministrationGuanghui Zhou, Jilin UniversityQianwei Zhu, Fudan University

MacaoYufan Hao, Macao University

Hong KongHon Chan, City University of Hong KongAnthony Cheung, City University of Hong KongIan Holliday, City University of Hing KongKing K. Tsao, Chinese Univeristy of Hong KongShaoguang Wang, Chinese University of Hong Kong

TaiwanChung-yuang Jan, Taiwan National Chengzhi UniversityChyung-En Wu, Taiwan National Chengzhi UniversityDinp Ricky Wu, Taiwan National Chengzhi University

South KoreaYun-Won Hwang, The Korea Institute of Public AdministrationCahn-Gon Kim, Vice Mayor Guro District, SeoulM. Jae Moon, Yonsei UniversityPan S. Kim, Yonsei University

JapanMao Guirong, Meijigakuin University

IndiaVinay Sharma, University of Petroleum and Energy StudiesVinod Singh, Gurukul Kangri University

NetherlandsPeter B. Boorsma, University of Twente

ArmeniaVatche Gabrielian, Yerevan State University

United Staes of AmericaDaniel Ahern, American Society for Public AdministrationMichael Brintnall, American Political Science AssociationJeanne Marie Col, John Jay College, CUNYGlen Cope, American Society for Public AdministrationGregory Chow, Princeton UniversityArie Halachmi, Tennessee State UniversityMary Hamilton, University of Nebraska, OmahaEdward Jennings, University of KentuckyDonald Klingner, University of ColoradoZhiyong Lan, Arizona State UniversityRobert Lavery, University of Central FloridaEmily Michaud, NASA-Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)Allan Rosenbaum, Florida International UniversityRoger Stough, George Mason UniversityZixiang (Alex) Tan, Syracuse UniversityJohn Abbott Worthley, Seton Hall UniversityHua Xu, Auburn University at Montgomery

CanadaKenneth W. Foster, University of British Columbia, Canada

SingaporeJak Jabes, National University of SingaporeYunhua Liu, Nanyang Technological UniversityWenxuan Yu, Nanyang Technological University

United NationsHaiyan Qian, United Nations

The Chinese Public Administration Review (CPAR) seeks papers from scholars. Thefirst international academic journal specifically addressing the issues of Chinese publicadministration, the Chinese Public Administration Review covers a number of topics,such as Chinese administrative reform, Chinese public policy, Chinese administrativelaw, public productivity improvement and performance measurement, Chinese civilservice, Chinese social security, Chinese public finance, Chinese e-government,the intellectual history of public administration in China, comparative publicadministration, and so forth. CPAR functions as a peer-reviewed journal emphasizingscholarly contributions to the burgeoning field of Chinese public administration.

Please send manuscripts via e-mail to both:Editor-in-Chief, Marc Holzer: [email protected] Editor, Mengzhong Zhang: [email protected]

PublisherThe Chinese Public Administration Review is published by the National Center forPublic Performance (NCPP) at the School of Public Affairs and Administration(SPAA), Rutgers University, Newark Campus.Copyright © 2009ISSN: 1539-6754

CPAR: www.CPAR.netNCPP: www.NCPP.usSPAA: http://spaa.newark.rutgers.edu

SubscriptionsThe regular institution rate is $120 per year. Individuals may subscribe at a one-yearrate of $50. Single issue prices are $30 for individuals, $65 for institutions. Add $15for subscriptions outside of the United States. Non-institutional orders must be paid bypersonal check or money order. Send any subscription inquires to:CPARSchool of Public Affairs and Administration/NCPPRutgers University, Newark Campus111 Washington Street, Newark, NJ [email protected]

Call for PapersChinese Public Administration Review

中国公共管理评论

CPAR 6 1-2 Cover 9-29-09:Layout 1 9/29/09 12:51 PM

中国公共管理评论Chinese Public Administration Review

Volume 6, Number 1/2 • September/December 2009

Editor-in-ChiefMarc Holzer


Managing EditorMengzhong Zhang

School of Public PolicyUniversity of Maryland at College Park

Co-sponsoring Organizations:

Section on Chinese Public AdministrationA section of the American Society for Public Administration

Rutgers University-NewarkU.S./China ASPA-NASPAA Public Administration Secretariat

School of Public Affairs and AdministrationNational Center for Public Performance

Renmin University of China

中国公共管理评论Chinese Public Administration Review

Volume 6, Number 1/2 • September/December 2009

ArticlesMotivation absorbs Magnitude: An analysis of Health Care Services of KUMBH MELADr. Vinay Sharma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Citizen-Participation Performance Evaluation for Local Governments in Mainland ChinaThe State of Practice, Analytical Framework and Research AgendaWU Jiannan and GAO Xiaoping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Discussion of a Utilization-Driven Approach for Performance-Informed Budgeting in ChinaYi Lu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Gender-Responsive Budgeting:Moving Women in China Further Along the Road to Full EqualityMarilyn Marks Rubin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Improving Public Service Delivery in Qingdao Municipality of Shandong ProvinceCui Jing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

1Sharma • An analysis of Health Care Services of KUMBHMELA

This paper puts forward a case based first handanalysis about how this event was conductedespecially in context to the health care, hygiene

and sanitation services, wherein the allocated re-sources for this purpose were highly limited especiallyin terms of doctors i.e. 200 creating a doctor popula-tion ratio of 1: 150000 on the day of 24th January,2001. The analysis in this paper is based on the pri-mary data collected in the form of the interviews con-ducted with the superior most officials concerned withthe Health Care Services especially the Head of theHealth Care Division, the thenAdditional Director ofHealth, Allahabad and the Officer Incharge of theHealth Care Services of KUMBH MELA 2001, Dr.G. R. Sharma. The said analysis is complimented bythe observations made by the author himself, while hephysically attended the mega event and stayed therefor four days.

In the light of unlimited inefficiencies usuallydiscussed about the Government machinery and itsworking, this paper wonders about the reasons for this

kind of a successful administration complete with allthe best of the ingredients and the strategies otherwiseonly mentioned in the books.

Was it the sensitivity of the event?Was it the number of people themselves?Was it because of the attention of whole of the

World’s media?ORWas it because of the concentration of every-

one associated?Was it because of the motivated workforce?Was it the Leadership?ORWas it an appropriate and sustained amalga-

mation of all?And whatever made it successful; can it be

replicated in general also?

Managing the Maha Kumbha Mela:http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/economy/kumbha.html

Motivation absorbs Magnitude:An analysis of Health Care Services

of KUMBHMELADr.Vinay Sharma, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)

Abstract: This paper highlights the levels of commitment, purposefulness, transparency, efficiency, effectiveadministration and good governance in the delivery of Health Care Services observed and experienced at the largestever gathering of humans (30 million people on 24th January 2001 on the occasion of Mauni Amavasya) at one sin-gle place of a 3000 acre temporary township since the inception of Human race on our planet Earth. This occasionwas KUMBH MELA in the year 2001 wherein 70 million people congregated over a period of few weeks. Duringthis Allahabad (the city where Kumbh was organized) turned into the most densely populated city in the world. (Fordetailed description of KUMBH and the legend behind please refer to supplementary notes at the end of the papertitled KUMBHMELAa story). The paper tries to analyse the factors behind the successful administration and man-agement of the Health Care Services provided during this period. Though the author himself closely observed thesituation by staying there at the location and throughout otherwise wherein he could find the methodology, but an-swers to few questions still remain to be debated and analysed and one of the major question is that what propels peo-ple to manage and execute tasks so precisely despite of the magnitude and high constraints associated with suchtasks? The felt and understood answer is ‘Motivation absorbs Magnitude’ but the question is How one gets so muchmotivated? For example, Dr. G.R.Sharma, Additional Director of Medical and Health Care Services of the Alla-habad Region who headed the team of Health Care Services at the time of this unheard congregation of Human Be-ings on this Earth had to retire from his services just after this occasion and serving the State Medical and HealthCare Services for 30 odd years as a Medical Doctor and an Administrator, he very well understood the nuances oftaking such a task at hand. Taking responsibilities and then accomplishing those has a passage of extreme concen-tration, commitment and conviction in between.

2 Chinese Public Administration Review • Volume 6, Number 1/2 • September/December 2009

India's management skillsdeliver the Kumbha MelaAny developed country that had anything a fractionof what the Kumbha Mela was, would have hyped itup, marketed it and congratulated itself.

In India, world history's largest ever people-event spread over six weeks, passed off without fuss orincident. Perhaps it's a sign of India's self-confidencethat it doesn't chortle about what it has just brought off.The colour and the theatre of the event have been well-covered by the world media. Puzzled audiences theworld over have been shown the strange and varied lotcalled Indians -30 million of them- trudging up to ariver, without a prompt or any publicity, to take a dipand assert a uniqueness all their own.

No alibis! But not enough has been said aboutwhat it took to organise so mammoth a festival, whichcannot be canceled by anyone's diktat nor can restric-tions be placed on anyone who wanted to be there.The Kumbha Mela arrives with a force all its own andis a ticket less, open festival that is everyone's right toparticipate in.

The administration faced a logistical night-mare: Planning began several months before inAlla-habad in UP, a state much reviled for its disorder andlawlessness. Supply of water, food, electricity, tele-com, grocery, fuel, shelter was planned. Special camp-site space had to be reserved for hundreds of religiousand quasi-religious organisations. For over threemonths, construction went on at the Kumbha site.

Specifications: 70 million attendees over 6weeks, 30 million visited on Jan 24th alone, A 3000acre temporary township, featuring 140 km of spe-cially laid roads, 500,000 tents, 16000 street lights, 150watch towers, 28 police stations, 17000 toilets, 5000phones, a hospital and 20 clinics, That is the hardware.

The software required to run so vast a projectcalled for an equally staggering set of numbers: 40companies of para-military forces, 18000 policemen,200 doctors, 100s of shops, 6000 conservancy work-ers clearing up to 200 tons of garbage per day.

The political situation in the country beingwhat it is, security issues had to be addressed: 12 anti-sabotage squads, 8 mine detection teams, 2 com-mando groups, Tens of 'trouble-spotters' minglingwith the crowd, 6 infra red scanners for night vigil,Closed circuit surveillance TV network.

This Kumbhwas one of themost organized ever.Authorities spentmillions on planning, infrastructure, lo-gistics and security. In preparation for the gathering, or-ders for 13,000 tons of flour, 7,800 tons of rice and 5,000tons of sugar were placed. 20,000 latrines were con-structed. Fifteen temporary pontoon bridgeswere placed

to span the river, complete with repair crews who con-stantly rebuilt sections of the bridges damaged by thestaggering foot traffic. Five computer centers, a plethoraof outdoor movie theaters, six petrol stations, countlesstea shops, ashrams and dining facilities rounded out the18 squaremile temporary tent city that had sprung up onthe dusty riverbed. Some 20,000 police were deployedalong with navy divers, mine sweepers and bomb sniff-ing dogs. On January 24th, Mela officials reported30,000 people lost or separated from their families.Using the worlds largest public address system, theMela's lost and found centers set up at strategic locationsall over the fairgrounds attempted to reunite discon-nected families. Despite a history of deadly stampedesat theKumbhwhich killed 500-1000 people in 1954 andanother 60 people in 1989, alongwith disturbing reportsof possible terrorist attacks-VIP's including the DalaiLama and Sonia Gandhi were in attendance.

Now, some reviews:Whew...but how did it allplay? Sandipan Deb a columnist for 'Outlook' wasthere and notes of the pilgrims: "...two unbelievablecrore [20,000,000!] of them on one single day, theholy MauniAmavasya, and if all of them stood in sin-gle file the line would have stretched fromAllahabadto Miami." Not a single untoward incident took place.No epidemic, no riots. Many were 'lost' but helped tobe 'found' again.A few tempers ran high but becalmedin time. Religious groups declared 'hostilities', but itwas all more theatre than violent. Hundreds ofvoyeuristic foreign photographers pried on the livesof Indians; they were shooed off and not attacked:

Here is Sandipan Deb reporting again:"The Maha Kumbha is history's biggestlogistical exercise of its type and it is or-ganised amazingly well. Kumbhnagar isspotlessly clean from roads to public la-trines the garbage is invisible, the offi-cials are polite and efficient, and it's amiracle that the policemen on duty arenot cracking up..."

'India Today' called it the "KleenexKumbha" and said: "the Kumbha hasbeen a revelation of India's hitherto hid-den skills in civic management."

The Maha Kumbha such as the one justpassed occurs but once in 144 years.Long before the next one arrives, Indiawill have learnt to replicate the Kumbh-nagar success all across the country.

Health Care Services System and the KUMBHMagnitude, Resources and Limitations: The De-


partment of Health during this period arranged for20 Sulabh Toilet Complexes (reference: http://www.sulabhinternational.org/), a composite arrange-ment of toilet and cleaning activities run by an organ-ization called Sulabh International doing so in wholeof the country. 21000 Lavatories and toilets were es-tablished, 50000 trench based lavatories, 2000 gen-eral purpose urinals were arranged, one 100 bedshospital, 14 circle medical care units of 20 beds eachand 14 primary health care centers were established.There was a special 30 beds Police Hospital for thePolice Personnel. Ambulatory Services having a fleetof 23 ambulances were available round the clock. 200doctors, 6000 conservancy workers clearing up to 200tonnes of garbage, digging 5000 trench based lavato-ries per day were present for 24 hours there at thistownship. Around 2,25,000 people got treated,wherein 1741 were admitted as inpatients. This wasthe first time that the tele-medicine system was usedon such an occasion with the network of SanjayGandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences,Lucknow, wherein 300 patients got treated throughthis mode as well.

Cleanliness was the buzzword and insecticidesto eliminate mosquitoes and flies the major carriers ofthe communicable diseases were used.

Planning and Foresightedness: The planningfor this coming occasion was initiated around one yearin advance.

The objectives decided were:a)To maintain clean and healthy environment

in the Mela/Event area.b)To deliver medical and the health care facil-

ities to the Yatries/Visitors or the Mela visitors as perthe requirement and as and when needed on the im-mediate basis. (Because it is imperative to suggesthere that if any disease would have broken out and gotcommunicated it would have been a disaster).

c)Control of the inception and flow of com-municable diseases.

d)Assurance of clean and disinfected water.e)Preparedness for the control on the adulter-

ation of food and food products.f) To keep the complete area without mosqui-

toes and flies.For this the organizational structure constituted

comprised of Dr. G. R. Sharma, the then AdditionalDirector, Health, Medical Care and Family Planning,Allahabad Division as the Mela Officer – Health andMedical Care along with his team of Officer Inchargefor Main Health Logistics Unit, Head of the MainHospital, Officer Incharge for the Anti Flies Unit (astrategic unit for a self explanatory purpose) and then

12 Officer Incharges for 12 different zones as wholeof the area of Kumbh Mela was divided into zones.

There was a Control Room Unit for internalcommunication amongst the teammembers. The teammembers were given unique identification for the con-venience of the people around. Although it is impera-tive but still to be mentioned that this workforcespecifically deputed for cleaning and operating at thefront had to work 24 hours so were made comfortablewith all the basic and genuine requirements for stayand especially to keep healthy by themselves.

Effective Administration, Managementand Good Governance

Methodology: The main subject of concentra-tion was avoiding the breaking of any communicabledisease and if couldn’t then preventing its spread.

But the million Dollar question is How to iden-tify and stop the people already infected and carryingthe diseases especially the communicable diseases toenter in the Mela/Event area? And if this couldn’t bedone then the only aspects which remain at hand are:

a)To be vigilant 24-7.b)To treat the patient of any sort immediately

as and when identified.c)And above all to keep whole of the area

clean and hygienic so much so that any sort of spreadof disease becomes impossible, because if it wouldhave happened, it might have created a disaster ofhigh magnitude.

Therefore the major concentration apart fromthe immediate treatment of patients was keeping theplace clean and managing any or everything respon-sible for development of unhygienic conditions. Asmentioned earlier also the number of patients treatedwere 2,25,000 in number wherein 1741 inpatientswere treated including Surgeries, Obstetrics and Gy-necological patients (even child births were handledthere), Dental, Orthopaedics and almost every kind ofailment was handled.

The methodology for keeping the hygienicconditions and maintenance of cleanliness was specif-ically focused on:

a)Removal of tones of garbage and humanexcreta, which was done by digging of the newtrenches and closing the old ones on the daily basisbecause as mentioned earlier this township is alwaystemporary in nature and there is no provision or sys-tem of sewage here.

b)Further judicious usage of insecticides wasdone to not to let the mosquitoes and flies multiply,because these are the major carriers of diseases andalso the large and extreme usage of insecticides could


have effected the general usage of the populationlooking at the density of the area.

c)There is always a sizable population inKumbh Mela of the people who stay there for fewweeks, so a provision of regular attention to theirhealth and hygiene has to be done and a significantfactor emerges in the form of these people relievingthemselves near the river especially along the areaswhere the river water has entered in to large pits dueto high tides and then has stagnated. This is dangerousbecause once this stagnated water re-enters the mainstream it pollutes the same and extensive usage of dis-infectants can also pollute the river on the one handand on the other hand is against the religious ethicsfollowed. So this paradoxical situation has also to bestrategically catered by excavating the polluted waternot through the river but through other passages whichis taxing.

d)No such drive having so many people canbecome successful without the involvement of thepeople themselves and therefore an all round aware-ness campaign went on throughout these days,wherein the department of Health kept on making thepopulation aware of not only about the facilities butalso about how to remain clean and hygienic so asgenerate their involvement in this magnimonious task.The methodology used was the arrangement of streetplays, local musical plays in all the possible local andregional languages along with display of large hoard-ings, distribution of pamphlets and an extensive usageof other devices, methods and materials.

e)Another aspect is not only to provide clean-ing support in the river also but also to provide healthcare there inside the rivers, because round the clockfor around 45 days there were a sizable number ofpeople who were there inside the river who were tak-ing a dip/bath. For this boat hospitals and clinics alongwith the cleaning staff on the boats were deputed.

f) One of the most important factors was re-lated to checking on the adulteration of food and con-tamination of drinking water and for this continuoussampling of water and food driven by intense vigi-lance was the only method, because it seems redun-dant but is important to mention that the resourcesespecially the man power were extremely limited andthe number of shops, the sources of drinking waterwere in thousands along with the unlicensed vendorswho were eliminated from the area time and again.

Transparency and Efficiency: Conductingsuch a huge task requires a life time experience andset of skills which Dr. G. R. Sharma a very senior of-ficer and his team had. But it also requires a wonder-ful communication with the team and an extreme

element of transparency and efficiency in almost allthe spheres namely selection of team, delegation oftasks, work regulations (it was a 24 hours job) and es-pecially budgeting, procurement and disbursement ofsupplies. For this:

a)A defined Human Resource Managementand Administration system led by the efficient lead-ership skills of the senior team members was used.

b)Budgeting one of the most important aspectshighly depended on the foresight of the planners hadto include every specific details on the one hand andon the other hand it had to be seen that how muchwould actually be available or approved?And the fig-ure which was approved for the overall expenditureby the department of Health and Medical Care for thispurpose was around Indian Rupees 7,40,00,000 i.e.17,20,930 US$ making practically around IndianRupee ONE i.e. .023 US$ per person visiting theKUMBH MELA.

c)Procurement was done through the Govern-ment norms and the most crucial aspect of the dis-bursement of supplies and the judicious usage of theresources was planned and effectively implemented.

ALauded Example of Dedication, Commit-ment, Purposefulness, Motivation and the DrivingForce: Whole of the World’s media followed thisevent and almost everyone who knew about it wasawestruck by the magnitude and little worried aboutanything untoward. But everything went well and thereasons analysed by the people who attended and thepeople who watched can be summarized in the wordslike Self Motivation and Commitment of the team.But the question still remains that can it be replicated?And if yes how?Although the system otherwise is notextremely inefficient and things are moving but thesame system doesn’t shows the similar kind of effi-ciency in day to day working and life. The point is wehave an example and the more important point is howto replicate this example/model/methodology?

Some Laurels and Words of PraiseIndia Today A Leading Magazine of India said:Kleenex KumbhaReplicate The Civic Model ofThe World's Largest Melahttp://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010205/edit.shtml

Inmanyways the 1,200-hectare township calledKumbhanagar is amini-India, a temporary home to peo-ple from all over the country and, indeed, the world. Inmany ways, the cloth-and-bamboo city that has sprungup on the banks of the Ganga inAllahabad is everythingthat India is not. It is not dirty; it does not have garbage


piling up at every corner; two flies and three mosqui-toes don't keep every visitor company. In a notoriouslyfilthy land it is a hygienic miracle, a man-made one atthat. The clean Kumbha is a creation of 6,000 sweepersworking virtually round the clock. It has been gratifyingto see workers remove trash from bathing ghats almostas soon as it is spotted. A monumental 200 tonnes ofsolid waste is trucked away from Kumbhanagar everyday. Regular fogging ensures buzzing insects are keptin exile-and epidemic denied a visa.

Despite the traffic bottlenecks and odd brushesbetween policemen and journalists, the Kumbha hasbeen a revelation of India's hitherto hidden skills incivic management. The 30 million pilgrims who tooka holy dip on January 24 numbered more than the res-idents of Delhi and Mumbai put together; to use an-other reference point, they equalled the Canadianpopulation. Failure was simply not an option for thecivil servants running Kumbhanagar. The outbreak ofdisease, for instance, could have proved catastrophic;and ruined their careers. Still, it would be churlish notto acknowledge their achievement. The question is:why can't these standards be maintained elsewhere?As the world's largest mela proves, keeping the envi-ronment healthy and being a good Indian are not quitemutually exclusive. For a start, Uttar Pradesh couldconsider replicating the Kumbhanagar model in itsonce proud but now shabby towns.

Time Magazine of USA covered it, all thechannels and several other people extended theirwishes and greetings/congratulations, including thethen Prime Minister of India Shri Atal Behari Vajpai,the then Chief Minister of the State of Uttar Pradesh,Shri Raj Nath Singh, several religious and social lead-ers, the top bureaucracy and soon. Felicitations wereorganized and letters were sent.

ConclusionThis paper has tried to put forth the relevance of‘Human Will’, Commitment and Dedication, leadingtowards Transparency and Efficiency in GovernanceandAdministration especially quoting the example asa case of The Department of Health and Family Wel-fare’s conduction and delivery of services with ex-tremely limited resources during the MAHAKUMBHMELA at Prayag, Allahabad, in the State of UttarPradesh, in India. The occasion which is regarded asthe largest congregation Human Beings since the in-ception of Human Race on this planet Earth. Thepaper proposes that this efficiency if could be repli-cated in the daily routine execution of works andprocesses could do wonders especially in the provi-sion of vital services like Health Care.

Supplementary NotesKUMBH MELA a storyThe Mahakumbh 2001 – the storyhttp://www.the-south-asian.com/Jan2001/Mahakumbh%20-%20the%20story.htmby Nalini Bakshi

Seldom do 70 million people congregate overa period of few weeks to seek salvation – irrespectiveof their individual belief and creed or ethos. The Ma-hakumbh at Allahabad, which began on 9 January2001, is perhaps the only spiritual event that gatherssuch mega numbers of humanity in one place in thetrue spirit of ‘Jagat Kutumbkam’– or one global fam-ily. It is a secular tradition shared by people of allfaiths and cultures. It is considered by many to sym-bolise the soul of Indian culture and thought. For theperiod until 21 February 2001Allahabad will turn intothe most densely populated city in the world. The in-ternational media coverage of the Mahakumbh 2001is unprecedented – so is the zeal and faith of the mil-lions who arrive from all over the world.

Modern day Allahabad is the erstwhile city ofPrayag, also referred to as Teerthraj Prayag – the holi-est of the holy pilgrimages. Akbar, the Mughal Em-peror named it Allahabad – ‘the city of Allah’ – thedivine reference remained unchanged. Allahabad isalso where three holy rivers meet – the Ganges, theYamuna and the elusive and mythical Saraswati – sup-posedly a subterranean channel, invisible to thehuman eye. These sandy fluvial shores have hostedmany Kumbh melas over the past centuries or evenmillenniums. The origins of the Kumbh and the statusof sanctity granted to Prayag/Allahabad lie in Hindumythology and date back to the creation of the uni-verse and the victory of good over evil.

According to Puranic legends, the sage Dur-vasa [also known for his fierce temper] once visitedLord Indra in Heaven and gave him a garland of ‘eter-nal flowers’. Lord Indra casually passed on the gar-land to Airawat – the divine elephant – who had noclue about the significance of these flowers andpromptly crushed the petals. Durvasa Rishi (sage) wasangered by Lord Indra’s insensitive gesture and pro-nounced that he would lose all his riches and power.Seeing this as a good opportunity to take advantageof the curse, a demon king attacked Lord Indra andtook away his riches. The Gods in Heaven felt weak-ened. Lord Vishnu [the preserver of the cosmos] thenadvised Lord Indra that in order to restrengthen him-self, Lord Indra required Amrit or the divine nectar,which lay under the depths of the mighty ocean in akumbh or a pitcher.

The kumbh [pitcher] of Amrit could be recov-


ered only through the churning of the ocean – a su-pernatural effort was required to do that. The Godsmotivated and lured the demons to help them churnthe ocean. When the Amrit kumbh emerged from theocean, the Gods and the demons rushed to claim it.But Lord Vishnu successfully handed over the kumbh[pitcher] to his mount Garuda who was instructed totake it to Heaven. On its way to Heaven, Garuda wasstopped at four places by the demons and some of thedivine nectar spilled at these four places – which arepresent day Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik –all in India. The spilled nectar sanctified all fourplaces and Kumbh is held in turn in all four places.On its flight towards Heaven, Garuda was guided byLord Brihaspati [Jupiter], who was at the time tran-siting through the sky. The Sun, Saturn and the Moonalso guarded the flight path of Garuda – a flight thattook 12 days [12 human years]. Hence Kumbh is cel-ebrated at the time of the same astronomical and plan-etary combination every twelve years. These planetarypositions are said to sanctify and medicate the watersof the Ganges and turn it into nectar. It is believed thatthe planets and the heavenly bodies at the time ofKumbh, charge the waters of the rivers Ganges andYamuna with positive healing effects. Hence the sig-nificance of holy dips, which are also believed tocleanse the pilgrim of all sins, granting him salvationfrom the recycle of births.

At Allahabad, the Kumbh Mela is celebrated inthe Hindu month of Magha {January/February), whenJupiter is in the zodiac house ofAquarius and sun entersAries. Aquarius is also known as Kumbh in Sanskrit.The Amavasya or the new moon of Magha is an espe-cially auspicious day when millions bathe in the con-fluence of Ganges and Yamuna. This year Amavasyafalls on 24 January, which will be the main bathing day.

The KumbhMela or festival has been celebratedforever. It has been mentioned in Vedic literature. Itsearliest history is dated to ca 3500 BC. In more recenttimes, the Chinese traveller Huan Tsang recorded hisvisit to Prayag in the seventh century, at the time ofHarsha Vardhana’s rule. In the eighth century, thephilosopher Jagat Guru Shankaracharya grouped theascetics into ten sects at Prayag and this informal as-sembly of yogis and ascetics "served as a kind of par-liament of Hinduism for the discussion of religiousdoctrine and possible reform and has remained a majorattraction for the pilgrim. Sadhus who stay naked theyear round, ascetics who practice the most severe phys-ical disciplines, hermits who leave their isolation forthese pilgrimages, and true saints – gather in campsalong the riverbank and are visited by pilgrims."

The pilgrims who arrive in Allahabad for the

Kumbh festivities are there for the holy dips on spec-ified days and they also spend time listening to dif-ferent spiritual discourses and exchange ofphilosophies. In recent years, Allahabad has seen pil-grims from Europe, and the United States – whocome with similar fervour and faith. Hollywood willbe represented by Sharon Stone, Pierce Bosnan,Demi Moore and Richard Geere. Music world’sMadonna will be there to seek inspiration. Britishtour operator Cox & Kings confirmed the visit ofmany stars to the Mahakumbh but refused to revealnames on security grounds. ``We are bringing in morethan 600 premium guests to the Kumbh from aroundthe world,''

Spirituality is not the only quest – there is funtoo. Magicians, sadhus performing superhuman feats,processions of different sects of sadhus on horses, ele-phants, and chariots – give the festival a surreal am-bience – it beats the sets of any multi-starrer.

AcknowledgementThe author wishes to extend special thanks to Dr. G.R. Sharma, Additional Director (retired), Departmentof Health and Family Welfare, Uttar Pradesh, India,for detailing him on all the major as well as the fineraspects related to this paper.

AuthorVinay Sharma, Ph.D from U.P.Technical University,Uttar Pradesh. MBA from Philippine Christian Uni-versity. Has around 16 years of Experience, in theareas of Business Opportunity, Development, MarketDevelopment, Brand Development, IT enabled Serv-ices and Teaching for past seven years.

Presently working asAssistant Professor, withthe Department of Management Studies at Indian In-stitute of Technology, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, he hasa considerable experience of working with variousorganizations in the fields of Social Development,Media and Information Technology along with hav-ing worked with the largest read newspaper of India.His areas of interests include Poverty Alleviationthrough Business Development, Market Develop-ment and Technology wherein he has designed andproposed a specialized model recognized by thename “Affordability for the Poor and Profitabilityfor the Provider” for the provision of health to therural and the poor population in India through an ex-tensive research which, has been acknowledged atvarious platforms. The model and his research con-centrates on development of health leading to busi-ness opportunity development which leads toco-creation of value and that subsequently leads to


the capability development of the people at the bot-tom of the pyramid.

He is an associate and a member of the found-ing group of the Network ofAsia Pacific Schools andInstitutes of Public Administration and Governanceconstituted by Asian Development Bank in Decem-ber 2004 and the Member of Editorial Board of theE-Journal of NAPSIPAG called Journal of Adminis-tration and Governance. Vinay Sharma teaches Mar-keting and the allied subjects and has been a foundingHOD of Department of Management Studies of an In-stitution at Lucknow and also has been an AssociateDean of College of Management and Economic Stud-ies, of a University at Dehradun where he was alsothe member of the prestigious Academic Council ofthe University. He has published and presented pa-pers, Chaired sessions at national and internationalplatforms especially in his areas of interest. He hasedited an internationally circulated journal and is amember of Editorial Board of Gurukul Business Re-view, African Journal of Political Science and Inter-national Relations and Chinese PublicAdministrationReview published by Rutgers University USA and isalso the member of academic and advisory councils ofprestigious institutions.

He can be reached at: Dr. Vinay Sharma, As-sistant Professor, Department of Management Stud-ies, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee,Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India, [email protected],[email protected], Contact: 09839022610.

ReferencesAn Official Report released by Department of Urban

Development Government of Uttar Pradesh.

India Today Issue, February 5, 2001.

Kumbh Darshan,Allahabad, 2001, an Official releaseof Department of Information and Public Re-lations, Government of Uttar Pradesh.

Official Reports of Department of Health and FamilyWelfare, Government of Uttar Pradesh.

OutLook Issue, February 2001.

Performance Report of Department of Health andFamilyWelfare, Government of Uttar Pradesh.

Primary Interviews conducted with the top officialsof the Department of Health and FamilyWelfare deputed for KUMBH MELA.

http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/economy/kumbha.html

http://www.karlgrobl.com/km/index.htm

http://www.lifepositive.com/Spirit/traditional-paths/rituals/mahakumbh.asp

http://www.karlgrobl.com/km/index.htm

http://www.sulabhinternational.org

9Wu and Gao • Citizen-Participation Performance Evaluation for Local Governments

Asthe step of reform quickened with continu-ous achievements and growing anticipations,Government performance evaluations in

Mainland China have evolved to the extent that sev-eral parallels could be scanned, if not clear-cut. Theearliest method local governments employed as todayis named the Objective-Responsibility System, simi-lar to MBO in classic managerial theories. Such ap-proach initiated from 1980s posits evaluation that is‘from top to down’.

The other means is ‘bottom-up’, i.e. the Citi-zen-Participation evaluation (C-P evaluation forshort). This undertaking starting in 1990s has beenprevalent in the Mainland China. It aimed to evaluatethe service level and the images of government agen-cies in certain social and political context. For the na-ture that in such an evaluation the main evaluators arethe ordinary people living and working in the area, thetitle ‘Citizen-Participation’ is credited.

With more and more practices, recognitions onthe C-P evaluation have deepened from theoreticaland political confirmations into critical and detailedreviews. The optimistic commentators have stated that

the C-P evaluation has created new channels for citi-zens to engage and supervise the public affairs; im-pacted the perception of how citizens perceive andreact with the government and enforced the govern-ment to be more responsible and accountable for itsbehaviors.

In contrast, on tangible operations of C-P eval-uations, practitioners and bystanders have realized thatmore problems need to be solved at different aspects,causing the evaluation not merely a government be-havior but a complex social process. Specifically, theseproblems involve the citizens expressing unwilling-ness to evaluate, public servants in the evaluated agen-cies noting the indicators yet to be improved, officialsconcerning about the standardization of the evaluationsand other concerns raised on information insufficiencyand impartiality. The controversial views imply thatthe C-P evaluation questions are interrelated and onlyby explaining systematically with a holistic approach,might these puzzles be better clarified.

With this rationale the current research re-viewed the literatures done by Chinese and scholarsabroad. There has been an increasing body of re-

Citizen-Participation PerformanceEvaluation for Local

Governments in Mainland ChinaThe State of Practice, AnalyticalFramework and Research Agenda

WU Jiannan, China Financial Policy Research Center, Renmin University of China,School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China

GAO Xiaoping, Chinese Public Administration Society, Beijing, China

Abstract: Nowadays, a great volume of citizen-participation (C-P for short) activities serving the purpose ofperformance evaluation have been initiated. Among these innovative activities, both the positive and negativecomments on the significances have come out. While the criticisms were elicited from distinct points of view, thecurrent study tried to provide a synthesizing description in order to further understand C-P evaluation. Through a caserepresenting how in practice a typical C-P evaluation was implemented, traits were spotted to form an analyticalframework that was considered helpful in identifying the key issues. Finally, based on the findings in theframework, an agenda against the further research on C-P evaluation was discussed.

KeyWords: Citizen-Participation Performance Evaluation; Local Governments; Mainland China; ResearchAgenda


searches in Mainland China dealing with the domes-tic C-P evaluation, with more and more results pub-lished. Now 400 papers with C-P evolution as keywords could be found on CNKI (Chinese NationalKnowledge Infrastructure), and a representativeprogress is the book analyzing the evaluation in Nan-jing city, Jiangsu Prov. contributed by WU Jiang in2006. Concerning their contents, the majority arereports from various places to state who was evalu-ated (XIA Geng, 2001), what was evaluated (XU,2002;WANG and HAN, 2003; ZHANG, 2005) andhow to address equity (FENG yan, 2001).

Practical issue were spotted and analyzed, e.g.some practitioners arguing that the C-P evaluationfunctions more like formalizations instead of achievingtangible goals, and needs institutionalized (LI Chen-grong, 2005), reporters finding that the newspaperspublishing questionnaires were bought out by the staffrequired by the agencies leaders so that faked infor-mation were submitted to have better results(FU Hai-hou, 2006). Some authors with more critical opinionseven doubt whether the evaluators at disadvantage arecapable of providing a authentic perceptions due topressures (YING Xian, 2004). Other issues such astransparency and equity (SONG Kuiyu, 2002), mech-anism design flaws (XU Lifu, 2002) were discussedtoo but generally with separate views and approaches.

The academic attentions are also growing interms of exploring the topics such as loss and gainsof C-P evaluations (WU Jiannan, ZHUANGQiushuang, 2004), the ’best’ evaluators based onstakeholder theory (WU Jiannan and YAN Bo,2005),the introduction of customer satisfaction theoryand applications (ZHU, HUANG, WANG, 2004;WU, ZHUANG, 2005, ZHAO, 2005; YOU, SHAO,YANG, 2004, WU, KONG, 2005), and comprehen-sive research directions (WU Jiannan, GAO Xiaop-ing, 2006).

Concerning the studies on citizen-participationevolutions, a longer history and larger volume wasdiscovered. In their tradition, C-P evaluation has beenconsidered as performance-oriented, a tool to meas-ure, manage and enhance the government perform-ance. In detail, subjective and objective descriptionon service and attitude measurement have been givenemphasis�Brown et al, 1983), and indicator applica-tion and refining were often put into practice to furtherthe understanding of the real world while testing thevalidity (Kelly, 2002; Kelly, 2005). Based on theprogress gained through government implementa-tions, the latest term to modify the citizens’ functionis the ‘citizen-driven’ (Yang Kaifeng, 2004) insteadof mere participations.

Regardless of more empirical researchesabroad being done, a similar trait with studies inMainland China is the noticeable ‘gap’ between thepractice diversity and researches progress, implyingfurther work to be intensified. During this processthere needs a synthesizing approach to integrate di-verse standpoints in order to reflect the existingproblems and therein to guide the actions. To meetthis end, the current research would represent the ex-plicit practices with a holistic point of view, and tryto draw a framework to present the general processof C-P evaluation identifying relevant problems,based on which future researches agenda would befinally outlined.

The State of PracticeNowadays there are several types of citizen-partici-pation performance evaluations among local govern-ment. One of them is named “Hang Feng Ping Yi”.We could not find a standard English name but let ustemporarily present it as ‘Professional Climate Eval-uation and Discussion’, which is the evaluation fo-cusing on certain public sectors of which the serviceis of the major interests of citizens such as education,power, transportation, tax, communication, etc.

It is originated in 1995 and organized by thesupervisory department in the government, and cur-rently tends to be installed as a widespread routine.Another one called “Gong Ming Ping Yi Ji Guan”(Agencies Evaluated by the Public). Starting from late1980s, the CCP system exerts an independent role,thus the agencies referred here include not only ad-ministrative branches but also other branches, e.g.CCP’s�so the scale of objects usually amounts to 100or more agencies. It could be found that a great vari-ety of practices have been undertaken in MainlandChina, with different backgrounds and titles. Espe-cially since the year of 1998, there have been moreand more governmental units being assessed under thename of ‘Citizen-Participation Evaluation of Per-formance’. The typical are as followed.

• 1998: ‘Citizens’ Evaluation of GovernmentPerformance’, Shenyang, Liaoning Prov.

• 1999: ‘Government Performance Evaluatedby Over 10,000 Citizens’, Zhuhai, Guangdong Prov.

• 2000: ‘Citizen Survey on Government andAgencies’, Handan, Hebei Prov.

• 2001: ‘Agencies Performance Evaluated byOver 10,000 Citizens’, Nanjing, Jiangsu Prov.

• 2002: ‘Citizen Satisfaction Survey on Per-formance of 48 Agencies’, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Prov.

• 2003: ‘Citizens’ Evaluation of GovernmentPerformance’, Beijing


After we compared and contrasted natures ofvarious activities, a normal procedure in which citi-zens participate in the local government performanceevaluation was found, which could be expressed inthe following steps.

• Intention: The evaluation has a set of well-defined goals to introduce citizens, often determinedby the CCP leaders and government chief officials inthe area.

• Setting up Offices: Responsible agencies fordesigning indicators, organizing evaluations and otherdaily affairs.

• Targets Selected: They might be the key serv-ice providers, and might be the state-run enterprises inmonopoly industries. Other public organizations suchasYouth’ s Union,Women’s Federation, even the Peo-ple’s Court and People’s Procuratorate might be listed.

• Citizens Invited: Included the one willing tobe involved anonymously and with real name; the onebeing asked to evaluated because of expertise such asknowledge, experience and service relevance; eventhe direct leaders sometimes.

• Citizens Action: Having right and concretechannels to obtain info by meetings, public hearings,and reading files, then offering their perceptions onthe performance through some fixed measurementssuch as questionnaires.

• Report and Stimulations: Citizens' opinionssorted into rankings and reported to the leaders, whotake positive and negative measures to stimulate theagencies with extreme scores.

• Publicity: Through the media, citizens re-gardless of whether participating the activities mightknow the results.

While such a procedure is applied to representhow certain C-P evaluation activity was carried out,traits could be found. The following case might helpthe comprehension on the state of practice.

The evaluation in the case takes place in the cap-ital of a southeast province, which continuously gainedrapid economic growth since the Mainland ChinaOpening and Reform. Since the year of 2001, a specialcampaign involving more than 10,000 citizens to eval-uate the performance of public agencies was initiated.The purpose of the evaluation lay in the announcementthat the city should do a better job lifting people’s liv-ing standard and strengthening the economic dynam-ics by improving the economic circumstances.

The citizen participation was considered es-sential since the internal evaluation was not as effec-tive as imagined in assessing the environment. Theagency approving the evaluation design was the CCPstanding committee as well as the government of the

city. Before the support was obtained, a guiding teamwas set up comprised by a number of the committee,the presidents of both the provincially and municipalofficial academy for social science, professors fromthe universities nearby, officials in the organizationaldepartment of the CCP committee and municipal per-sonnel department. This team was regarded authorityfor generating the scheme but did not implement it.TheWork Commission for Offices Directly Under theCPC Municipal Committee was responsible for or-ganizing the evaluation at the top level. It was capa-ble of monitoring the working status of bothadministrative branch and other type of public agen-cies. It establishes a special office for the daily activ-ities and entrust some external and independent agentsto operationalize it.

From 2001, there were approximately 90 agen-cies evaluated. These agencies have been classifiedinto three groups. The first one provided direct serv-ice to the citizens including some institutions and en-terprises, or had contact with them in law-executingprocess. The second was the ones without direct serv-ices and law-executing functions in the administrativefunctions. The third one was the CCP system, Work-ers’ Union, Women's Federation, Youth’s League,Committee of People’s Representatives, People’s Po-litical Consultative Conference, People’s Court andPeople’s Procuratorate and other agencies directlyunder the central government.

The ‘citizen’ here is a wide concept consistingof different professions and communities, includingthe staff from the agencies evaluated and others, thedirect leaders, and the ordinary people. Ten types ofstakeholders were involved including 40 municipalleaders, 460 CCP committee members in the central,provincial and municipal levels. 450 officers servingin the municipal agencies, 1350 officers at county anddistrict level, 150 representatives from the county/dis-trict and development zone, 3000 managers from en-terprises, 500 representatives from provincialagencies, the arm force with its affiliated schools, andforeign agencies, 1440 technicians, 660 from street/town level, 4500 from local community, and finally,200 monitors comprising retired officers and mem-bers of democratic members. Except 40 municipalleaders, all the evaluator members were sampled froma database. This great volume of evaluator set enter-prise and community as dominant evaluator to high-light the citizens’ participation.

The citizens asked to evaluate the performancehave several methods to know what had happened andvoice their opinions. Information was accessible bymeeting and interviews. Questionnaires were given to


citizens in collecting their perceptions. The result inform of ranking will be applied first on awarding theagencies evaluated better, while the ones with lowestscore would be re-evaluated by the organizational de-partment of the municipal CCP committee. For the oneevaluated lowest for two consecutive years, a leading-group adjustment was necessary. However, results indetail were not known by the public, which has beencriticized (Xi Bin, http://www.tynews.com.cn/ty-wbmap/2005-02/23/content_741756.htm).

By reviewing the case, it is easy to find severaltraits in a certain activity. This traits combing to makethe activity more complex that one might imagine.First, such an activity usually takes a long period, an-nually with certain sections divided by a series ofgoals. During this period, there might have lags toprovide timely perceptions concerning performance.However, it is difficult to regulate on which point theperformance was perceived and evaluated. Moreover,if issues in former section were not addressed well,the next section would carry the impact, causing thesystem being undermined. Finally, no matter what theoriginal goal and expected status was, the authorityhas to apply the final result as a criterion in treatingthe agencies.

Second, because of stakeholders from differentbackgrounds, with different interests are involved, it isimpossible to avoid conflicts and compromises due tovarious pursuits. One common method is to negotiateand cooperate. In such behaviors, the interactions oftwo parties might change the initial attention in theevaluation. For instance, the definitions of the ‘office’here was vague indeed because it was directly respon-sible to the municipal CCP committee and the govern-ment. There is very limited jurisdiction such an officehas to alter the mechanism. In summary, due to com-plex inputs such as process schedules and stakeholdersrelationships, the evaluation activity indeed is a long-term social process. Therefore, a framework might behelpful to sorting out stakeholders and their relation-ships represent the process highlighting probable is-sues, formulating the research agenda in the future.

AnAnalytical FrameworkKnowing that C-P evaluation is a complicated process,the current study set up a framework, the componentsof which included: first, who are involved in C-P eval-uation, and what are their individual factors affectingtheir behaviors; second, what are the interrelations inthe evaluation process, and third, how the interrela-tions have determined the evaluation process.

As it is shown in Fig. 1, the process does be-come complicated introducing citizens and a long

cycle. As far as the stakeholders are involved, thefour rectangles with capitalized words in the corerepresent the stakeholders, namely, the authority, theorganizing agency, the evaluator and the object. Theannotations in round shapes at the corners are theindividual factors affecting their behaviors. Thelines connecting the stakeholders are their relation-ships and moreover, four pairs each correspond to akey determinant, which combine to form the evalu-ation process.

For the authority, its decision and behavior inthe evaluation was impacted by several factors. Forexample the extent to which the citizen participationis integrated with the regional governance, how de-sirable are the leaders longing for innovating the for-mer performance evaluation system, and how are theirbasic attitude towards the past C-P status in the area.Concerning the organizing agency, as having repre-sentatives from different leading sources, the compo-sition of staff would affect how the indicators and themechanism are to design. Capability is another factorbecause there are enormous coordinating and mediat-ing work to be done, and how flexible the agency is indealing with these issues is also critical to the smoothoperation to the expected goal.

At present, in most of the evolutions the agencydoes not have any saying on changing the schedule toavoid unnecessary such as ineffective support andrent-seeking actions. So the capability is yet to be en-hanced. Besides, the organizing agency might directlyintroduce the third party such as the academic institu-tions and consulting firms. The cooperation with theseinstitutions demonstrates how the agencies would tryto gain a better transparency.

For the evaluators in the activities, the largertheir scale is, the more noises there might be in gen-erating authentic useful information for the evaluatedpublic agencies. However, when the scale is reducesand composition of evaluators become simpler, theproblems poses might lose strength. Therefore thecomposition issue here is really a double sword. Thedifferent knowledge status functions when a certainindictors and the relevant explanations were presentedto them.

Besides all the other factors, we put the stakesas dominant, because howwilling and how capable theevaluators were in providing the assessment are lim-ited by the relevance with the agency. The trust couldbe regarded a derivation factor from the daily contactsand hearsays about the local government. Among thefour parties, the object is confined by most factors,such as the scale that will make different costs and con-centrations, the jurisdiction of the administrations or


its agencies responsible for service, the resources pos-session that is fundamental in planning the develop-ment goal, the prescribed functions which is to bemeasured with detailed indicators, the managerial levelin meeting the needs of evaluations, and the aspirationsto gain a satisfactory evaluation results. These indi-vidual factors are supposed to influence how the stake-holders act in reacting one another in the evolutionsuch as predominant in the quality of evaluation.

The stakeholders join in pairs and four types ofrelationships are constructed. The authority entrustsand inspires the organizing agency to carry out theevaluation. Comprehending the principles, the organ-izing agency would select the object and evaluatorbody. Evaluator with certain standards would perceiveand measure the performance. Their opinions, throughcalculations would make the final results. These re-sults could be reported to the authority and applied toaward and punish the object. With a more delicateview, we found that the complexity is caused due tothe fact that every pairs of stakeholders have contri-butions to the evaluation process. The one-directionrelationship only explains part of this contribution be-

cause of not taking the interactions into account. Withvarious roles of them, the process could be expressedby focusing on the following determinants.

The Orientation: the initial stage of the eval-uation, defined by the authority and the organizingagency. The two parties should have a clear series ofgoals in order to guide the assessment on how theevaluation is implemented. Orientation could involveboth tactics and strategic, short term and long termalike. The authority is likely to combine the long termand short term but the organizing only has the powerto implement the current issues. Thus an integrationwas significant in that the authority know how toachieve the ultimate goal through the activity, and theorganizing agency bear in mind that the activity doesnot merely point to solving certain problems butshould be related with other actions.

The Indicator: With objects targeted, the or-ganizing agency complies a set of indicators consid-ering what could and should be assessed by theevaluators. There are contents that are important forthe organizing agency but could not be perceived bythe citizens, e.g. the internal affairs concerning se-

Figure 1: An Analytical Framework for the C-P Evaluation


crets. On the other hand, there are some perceptionsthe organizing agency does not value such as the cit-izens’ dissatisfaction over the lower interest rates. Be-sides, the citizens are entitled to consult with theorganizing agencies in what are the indicators refer-ring to during asking the questionnaires or other formsvoicing views. Generally, the indicators could be seenas the visible expression of the orientation that hasbeen already established.

The Instruments: Since the final purpose ofthe indicators is be to generate the results, here liesthe next stage that the indicators to be applied so thatthe information could be collected. The interaction ofevaluator and object in this stage is so crucial. First,the evaluator is offered with certain channels to per-ceive, either formal or informal; and second, the eval-uator is asked to give the perception through severalfixed methods. Thus the instrument consists of twoends, one opening for the citizens to how what hadhappen, and another for the leaders to know the re-sult. In this stage the objects is usually equipped withaccommodations for the evaluators, and are preparedfor the results.

The Result Application: In practice, this finalstage is usually done at the end of the work year. Theauthority mastering the details of the evaluation resultwould decide first whether or not the result is open to thepublic externally, and how they allocate the relevant re-sources in order to stimulate the agencies with variousresults internally. But even these re-allocations could bedone as a management method, public still have ap-proaches to know. In this sense, the result application isby no means unpublished. Criticizers might argue thatthe results should bemore transparent, but what they aredemanding is just based on what they have known.

The four determinants are not only influentialon the post one, but also form an evaluation process.To conclude, we could validate that the process is suchcomplicity, by the fact that there are various stake-holders with factors affecting their behaviors. Besides,stakeholders play an interactive role in forming the de-terminants of the process. Moreover, these determi-nants have cumulative impact on one another. Multipleparities and distinct stages in the process are the tworeasons that the process is often difficult to explore.

AResearch AgendaUntil now, with the framework we have tried how theprocess could be understood from a holistic perspec-tive and found some hints for the next actions. First onsingle factors, knowing that the stakeholders compo-sition and having some basis on some individual fac-tors, such as stake and knowledge (WU Jiannan and

YAN Bo, 2005), issues on how the rest of individualfactors might affect their behaviors and how the stake-holders behaviors might affect the evaluation per-formance need further attentions.

We have found a more definite direction, whichis indeed the performance of the C-P evaluation. First,researches concerning each stakeholder and their in-dividual factors are to be strengthened. For the au-thority, we determine that the motives in carrying outthe citizen-participation evaluation are fundamental;such a group of hypotheses would be tested.

Generally, there is logic that their awareness oncareers plays an important rule in deciding and im-plementing the C-P evaluation. For example, thechances of being promoted and their own ages aresupposed to vary with different motives. The pressurethe authority feel might either expedite or slowdownthe pace of such evaluation. The chief leaders per-ceiving the citizen-participation risky and unneces-sary would be unlikely to try, while the ambitiousleaders would consider an attempt not only to expandtheir management approaches but also attract the at-tention of the higher authority as well as the public. Inthis sense, the citizen participation is authentically aninnovation driven by implicit factors.

As far as the organizing agency is concerned,their capability of addressing contingent issues, un-derstanding the authority’s orientation and transfer-ring them into qualified indicators would be explored.Different from Principal-agent Theory, the organizingagency would lack initiative of taking advantage ofthe authority. Because in fact the organizing agencyfirst does not have flexibility in acting on its own be-half, and second the agency has the identical interestas the authority. Therefore, the gaming status wouldbe less ferocious, and the agency is supposed to exertfull potential in function as directed.

As a bridge connecting, the organizing agencyis considered to have a key position, but staff mightfeel the opposite because the daily work has exhaustedthem. In the future, the research will investigate howthe agency works and how the authority evaluates it.Especially, for the agency that has been responsiblefor evaluations over years, how could they adjustthemselves in accordance with the requirement of theauthority? Besides, if there are different representa-tives in the agency, how could they coordinate withone another to avoid conflict, and does such coordi-nation result in alienation of the orientation by meansof compromised indicators?

As for the evaluator, their composition andknowledge mastering are also expected to make dif-ference against the effect of C-P evaluation.Acknowl-


edging that evaluators have various perceptions tocause the result a complexity, we would focus on thevalidity and reliability. For example, if the evaluatordoes not have sufficient information on the servicequality of the evaluated public sectors, the biased opin-ions would be submitted. Or, if the evaluator has nosources on the improvement of their dissatisfied serv-ice, the feelings might derivate from the latest status.The purpose of researching these topics is to establisha better mechanism in order to identify who are qual-ified in participating the evaluation and besides, to helpthe citizens to be more prepared for the evaluation.

Second, research on the interrelationshipamong stakeholders needs expansion too. The formerstudies proposed have underpinned knowing the ac-tivities. The causality between one variable of onestakeholder and another are going to exhibit throughthis stage. For instance, if the authority integrates thecitizen participation with the area governance, howdoes it corporate with the organizing agency to carryout this orientation? Will the newer orientation affectentrusting and inspiring activities? With the informa-tion of previous C-P evaluation would the organizingagency influence the birth of new orientation?

Moreover, in the relationship between the or-ganizing agency and the evaluator, how the agencywould be more capable of identifying and selectingthe eligible evaluator? On the other hand, how theevaluator would trust the agency to provide morevalid instead of faked information due to unwilling-ness? Does there exist disparity in understanding theindicators by the two parties and if yes, how such adisparity could be eliminated?

Besides those relationships, the author findsthat the relationship between the evaluator and the ob-ject demands intensive studies. A basic rationale isthat the object could become more sophisticated incoping with the evaluation. For example, it couldchange the managerial procedure to make respondentsmore accessible. By setting up a database of who havereceived the services, they could find customer’sneeds more easily, finally provide them with how therelevant complaints were solved.

Other issues the object might neglect in com-municating with the evaluator include how the evalua-tor defines its function, and what the environment is forthe object to provide services. On this topic we wouldraise questions involving how the object would be bet-ter at making citizens know their performance, and tosuggest a group of more valid evaluators. Besides, thenumber of the evaluator versus the number of objectwould be very significant in deciding the object’s atti-tude. That is, if the object knows it is the only one to be

evaluated, it would be more serious in cooperating withthem, and accepting the results. Otherwise, discover-ing it is one of the many objects, with doubt against thecomparability of such evaluation, a casual posturewould overwhelm the process causing a result to be anunpleasant one both objective and subjective.

As for the evaluator, evaluating a large scale ofobject would cause tiredness and low reliability, espe-cially within a short period of time.Aseries of mistakeswould occur subject to the evaluator’s sense of keepingthe result diverse, or balanced. The final concern is howthe authority gaining the results would judge the stim-ulus, and to what extent the result would be opened tothe public in order to enhance the transparency.

Based on the progress, improving the evaluationby enhancing the process determinants would be con-templated, including the introduction of Customers Sat-isfaction measurement techniques to better theinstrument quality, and to gain a better relationship be-tween the object and evaluator. Besides, the result appli-cation would be reinforced by sorting out theserelationships and optimize the functions of other deter-minants. The integration of C-Pevaluation and area gov-ernance might become a possible innovative resolution.

ConclusionsThe researches on C-P evaluation in local governmenthave just started. The current study posed the questionbased on reviewing the citizen participation evaluationimplemented in Mainland China. We find there are agreat volume of activities serving of performance eval-uation, and practical issued being pointed out with con-trast to the research progress, including the citizensexpressing unwillingness to evaluate, public servantsin the evaluated agencies noting the indicators yet to beimproved, officials concerning about the standardiza-tion of the evaluations and other concerns raised on in-formation insufficiency and impartiality.

These views imply that the C-P evaluation ques-tions are interrelated and only by explaining systemat-ically with a holistic approach, these puzzles might bebetter clarified. Then a review on the state of practice isdone, confirming that the problems were caused bycomplex reasons, finding that in practices the evalua-tion was comprised by the steps including intention,setting up offices, targets selected, citizens invited, cit-izens’ action, report and stimulations, publicity.

The author asserted due to the fact that such anactivity usually takes a long period, annually with cer-tain sections divided by a series of goals and becausestakeholders are from different backgrounds with dif-ferent interests are involved, it is impossible to avoidconflicts and compromises due to various pursuits.


Realizing the practice, an analytical framework dis-cerning stakeholders, relationships and process deter-minants was proposed, in which the cause and originsof a series problems are identified.

Finally the current study proposed that the rel-evant studies carried out on exploring the individualfactors and the process determinants such as the ori-entation, the indicator, the instruments and the resultapplication.With these findings the current study sug-gests that the future work would concentrate on ex-ploring the individual factors and the processdeterminant. Their topics are outlined as a result.

NotesSupported by: (1) the MOE project of Key ResearchInstitute of Humanities and Social Sciences in Uni-versities-China Financial Policy Research Center,Renmin University of China; (2) China NFSC Gen-eral Program (70573083); (3) New Century ExcellentTalents Program, China Ministry of Education(NCET-06-0851); (4) National 985” project Phase IIat Xi’an Jiaotong University (07200701).

AuthorsJiannan Wu is Tengfei Professor of Xi’an JiaotongUniversity. His research interests include governmentperformance, innovations, and organization theory.Recently he focuses upon determinants of governmentperformance as well as its evaluation. Now he servesas the associate dean of School of Public Policy andAdministration, the Director of Performance Man-agement Research Center of Xi’an Jiaotong Univer-sity, and the vice President of Chinese GovernmentPerformance ResearchAssociation. He can be reachedat [email protected].

Xiaoping Gao is Vice President and GeneralSecretary of Chinese Public Administration Society.His research interests include organizational theoryand administrative reform, emergency management,and performance evaluation. He has published exten-sively in Chinese in the discipline of public adminis-tration. He also serves as the President of ChineseGovernment Performance Research Association. Hecan be reached at [email protected]

ReferencesDonald Fisk and Harry Hatry.1992. Measuring Pro-

ductivity in the Public Sector. Public Produc-tivity Handbook, PP139–60.

Lyle Wary and Jody Hauner.1997. Performance Meas-urement toAchieveQuality of Life:AddingValuethrough Citizens. Public Management.Aug.

Marc Holzer and Yang Kaifeng. 2004. PerformanceMeasurement and Improvement: An Assess-ment of the State of the Art. International Re-view of Administrative Sciences,V.70 No.1P.15-32, Mar.,

Xi Bin. 2005. The public evaluation result should bepublic http://www.tynews.com.cn/tywbmap/2005-02/23/content_741756.htm

Fu Haihou. 2006. Evaluate “Hang Feng Ping Yi”.h t t p : / / n ews . s i n a . com.cn /o / 2006 -03 -22/07318497853s.shtml

Li Chengrong. 2005. Democratic Evaluation and Con-struction of the Political Civilization. Journalof Fujian Party School, 291(5),17-20

Song Kunyu, Zhang Xihu. 2002. Hang Feng Ping Yishould be fair and open. Super Vision in China(12).

Wang Jin and Han Xiaorong. 2003. How the citizensevaluate the officials. Beijing Youth. http://www.people.com.cn/GB/paper2086/9569/883982.html

Wu Jiannan and Yan Bo. Who is the Best Evaluator:An Analysis of the Stakeholders in Borough-county Level Government Performance Evalu-ation?Management Review, Vol.18 No.4

Wu Jiannan and Zhuang Qiushuang.2004. The Ex-ploration of the bottom up Performance Eval-uation-the Analysis of the Gain and Loss of“Gong Ming Ping Yi Zheng Fu”. Theory andReform (5), p66-71

Xia Geng. 2001. Enhance “Hang Feng Ping Yi”, Im-prove Professional Climate. Super Vision inChina (16).

Xu Lifu. 2002. On “Hang Feng Ping Yi” system.Super Vision in China (23)

Ying Xian. 2004. How the sheep (citizen) evaluate thetiger (government). Study Monthly (11).

Zhang Hongbin. 2005. The Meaning of “Hang FengPing Yi” to enhancing the service. ChinaUrban Finance, 292 (2)

17Lu • Discussion of a Utilization-Driven Approach forPerformance-Informed Budgeting

Performance budgeting is about bringing per-formance information to the same table whereresource allocation decisions are made (Lauth,

2004). Since the idea originated in the first decade ofthe 20th century in the United States (Williams, 2003),it has always been in the spotlight from time to time.For the past century, many budget reforms in devel-oped countries have ebbed and flowed around this im-portant theme of the contemporary public budgeting(Schick, 1990). At the same time, the developingcountries for the past 50 years have witnessed the dif-fusion of performance budgeting into their countries(Dean, 1986; United Nations Capital DevelopmentFund (UNCDF), 2006). Not surprisingly, in the wakeof burgeoning economy and the call for better finan-cial management in the public sector, China has begunthe experiment of performance management andbudgeting slowly and carefully (Hou, Ma, & Wu,2005; Niu, Ho, &Ma, 2007;Wang, Zhu, & Pan, 2005)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the useof performance information using the experience inthe United States, and to explore the desirability of autilization-driven approach to implement performancebudgeting in China. The understanding of the use ofperformance information is an important issue be-cause the effort to generate performance informationis not the end but means to various decision makingsincluding budgeting (Behn, 2003). How to use per-formance information is the focal point where per-formance measures are embodied into performanceinformed action plans.

To achieve this purpose, this paper begins witha review of important research on the use of perform-ance information in budgeting. Then, drawing from

the experience of the State of Georgia in the UnitedStates, this study analyzes the extent to which per-formance information is used by Georgia officials asa case in point, followed by discussion of a utiliza-tion-driven approach to embark performance man-agement and budgeting in China.

Research on the Use of Performance InformationThere is a difference between having performance in-formation and using it in decision-making (Heinrich,2002; Lauth, 1985; Lee & Staffeldt, 1977). There arenumerous research on how performance informationis used.Acareful review of the literature uncovers sev-eral general themes in the findings. First, the conceptand practice of performance budgeting and manage-ment is prevalent, and still expanding. In the UnitedStates, after Planning-Programming-Budgeting (PPB)in 1960s, Management by Objectives (MBO) in early1970s and Zero-based Budgeting (ZBB) in late 1970s,the passage of Government Performance and ResultsAct (GPRA) launched the recent wave of the diffusionof performance management and budgeting in the1990s. The research field documented this rapid dif-fusion. For instance, Robert D. Lee and his co-authorsin a series of studies (Burns & Lee, 2004; Lee, 1991,1997; Lee & Burns, 2000; Lee & Staffeldt, 1977) sur-veyed state budget offices every five years from 1975to 2000, and reported that the general trend at the statelevel, with a temporary backslide from 1990 to 1995,has been the growing provision of program informa-tion in budget requests, increasingly extensive inclu-sion of program information in budgets, frequentconduct of program analysis and intensive use of pro-gram analysis in both executive and legislative deci-

Discussion of a Utilization-DrivenApproach for Performance-Informed

Budgeting in ChinaYi Lu, State University of New York-Binghamton

Abstract: The diffusion of performance budgeting into China asks the question: how may China approach this task?This research examines the experience of performance budgeting in the United States, and explores the desirabilityof a utilization-driven approach to implement performance budgeting in China. This article argues that, given whatwe have known from experiences in other countries, a utilization driven approach, an approach that means to designa performance measurement system that clearly identifies the users of information and the intended uses, holds thepromise in China’s unique historical, political and cultural environment.


sions. By 2004, Melkers andWilloughby reported that33 states (66 percent) had maintained, amended, oradded legislation that prescribes a performance-basedapplication, while 17 states (34 percent) had an ad-ministrative requirement or executive mandate forsuch application. In addition, all levels of governmentsare more or less involved with performance manage-ment and budgeting.At the federal level, Joyce (1993)illustrated three separate efforts that proceeded in theperformance budgeting direction: the application offederal financial management reforms (such as theChief Financial Officers Act), the passage of legisla-tion covering performance measurement (S. 20, signedinto law by President Clinton onAugust 3, 1993), andthe executive effort (embodied primarily in the reportsissued by the National Performance Review). At thecounty level, Wang (2000) reported performancemeasurement used to various extent in all stages of thebudget cycle. Epstein (1984) using case examples con-tributed by 23 local government officials from acrossthe country demonstrated how performance measure-ment is used to improve decision making, performanceand accountability.

The second theme in the literature is that,among the four phases of the budget cycle (executivepreparation, legislative review, budget execution andbudget evaluation), performance information is moreused in executive preparation, much less in legislativereview, and on ad hoc basis in budget execution andevaluation. For example, states reporting that execu-tive decisions were based to some degree or substan-tial degree on program effectiveness increased from38 percent in 1970 to 81 percent in 2000 (Burns &Lee, 2004), while legislators’ budgetary behavior isan area on which, as the literature described, per-formance information has almost muted impact.

The third theme is that in general there arethree types of use of performance information. In a de-scending order of the extent to which performance in-formation is used for each type, they arecommunication, management and budgeting (Melkers&Willoughby, 2004). Specifically, the literature tendsto show that performance budgeting enables public or-ganizations to: identify organizational goals; improvegovernment capacity in organizational efficiency, ef-fectiveness and accountability (Wang, 2000); identifycosts; encourage long-term perspectives; influence theallocation of resources to some degree (Kluvers,2001); promote the shift in the focus of governmentalfunctions from input control to outcome-oriented plan-ning and management (McNab & Melese, 2003); en-hance communication; inform budget decisions; andimprove agency management and operation (Melkers

&Willoughby, 2004). On the other hand, research alsoshows that the impacts of performance integration onsome areas (such as budgeting) are limited. Many gov-ernments use performance measurement for budgetarycommunication purposes, rather than to make resourceallocation decisions (Wang, 2000) or choose amongalternative new programs (Kluvers, 2001). It seems asif the traditional way to budget lasts for all seasons(White, 1994; Wildavsky, 1978). In short, various ex-tents of the use of performance information exist de-pending on purposes.

In conclusion, the literature shows that after acentury of implementing performance managementand budgeting, the use of performance information re-mains important and constantly evolves. Interestingquestions arising from this literature review are that:why do we observe the patterns described above?Andwhat do we learn from these experiences that will behelpful for beginners on a mission to build a per-formance budgeting system?As performance budget-ing gains widespread attention in China, the need tounderstand it is on the horizon.

Challenges vs. a Utilization-Driven Approach?The understanding of the use of performance infor-mation and its barriers begs the question: can a uti-lization-driven approach be a solution? In the contextof performance budgeting, this approach means to de-sign a performance measurement system that clearlyidentifies the users of information and the intendeduses. This paper argues that it could be part of the so-lution. The main benefit of taking a utilization drivenapproach is to move performance measurement be-yond, as some interviewees called, “an exercise.”

To improve the use of performance information,the utilization-driven approach needs to address threemain challenges. In general, both the literature in thisfield and the case of State of Georgia indicates thatthey take on the political, culture and technical forms.

First, political challenge is a reflection of con-flicts of interests. For instance, many intervieweespointed out the legislature’s lack of interest in per-formance budgeting, because whether or not individ-ual legislators are (re)elected has minimal relationshipwith government performance. In some cases, cuttingfunding from the standpoint of efficiency (one di-mension of performance) is not politically popular.Asone fiscal officer described, “I have sat through threebudget cycles. The decision in this agency as to whatshould be funded versus what should not is prettymuch founded on the measures. Are we getting whatwe should get from this program?And then make de-cisions accordingly. Once it gets away from here. The


question becomes: is this something that the governorwants to support and how much heat it is going tobring to the governor. Some politics gets into it there,because each legislator is responsible to the people intheir area, and every cut affects individuals in smallareas where the hurt is felt more than the overallview.” What happens at the legislative side is morepolitical. Many interviewees indicated that they do notuse performance information as much as they couldbecause of the lack of use of performance informationby others.

The culture challenge is about anxiety and re-sistance to changes. The concept and implementationof performance management and budgeting bringchanges into the politically charged, incremental budg-eting world, including but not limited to: the need forthe design of performance measures, the work effortsof tracking program performance, and the uncertaintyin the interpretation of performance information in re-lation to funding and personnel management. At thesame time, the incrementalism in budgeting seems stillto last for all seasons, and has good reasons do con-duct in that way (Lindblom, 1959; 1979) The chal-lenge, as Naomi Caiden (1981) concisely pointed out,lies in that budget reforms “punctured” the “great ex-pectations raised by across-the-board changes in budg-eting methods,” yet at the same time, they left “behinda skeptical moon in the face of an intractable budgetsituation seemingly beyond control.” In short, the anx-iety brought by changes is amplified when what tradi-tional budget practices are changed to is far fromclearly defined, and the implications of performanceinformed budgeting is unknown or in some cases po-litically irrational.

The manifestation of technical barriers isample. For instance, it has never been an easy task toidentify “good” measures. Defining performance is aninherently political process. The decision about whatto measure reflects two key factors – the intended usesand the value priorities of those stakeholders whochoose what to measure (Newcomer, 1997). Validity,clarity and reliability of performance measurement(such as, collection of performance data, and devel-opment of performance measures that accurately re-flect program activities) is still the top three concerns(Grizzle, 2001; Melkers &Willoughby, 2004). Specif-ically, the measurement obstacles facing state andlocal public agencies include: too highly aggregateddata to be meaningful for low-level personnel, too in-frequent data reporting, and the limited availability ofoutcome measures (Hatry, 1997). In the state of Geor-gia, the doubt surrounding the validity and reliabilityof performance measures is far from resolved, which

was ranked #1 as important for the success of per-formance measurement.

So, facing these three main challenges, whatpromises does a utilization-driven approach hold toaddress them?

With regard to political barriers, a utilizationdriven approach is about how to design performanceinformation or measures to inform political debate. Forinstance, legislators constantly face difficult choices ina politically charged environment. Although perform-ance information will not make the choice for them, itcould help make a more informed decision than other-wise. The potential for performance information todemonstrate its value to those who hold “the power ofpurse” is ample.As one fiscal officer in Georgia noted,“to all fairness, for the past several years, we startedhearing at (legislative) committee hearings more ques-tions about performance.”With regard to cultural bar-riers, a utilization approach is about how to incorporateperformance information into daily management. Thisis why tailoring the utility of performance informationfor agency management is important.And with regardto technical barriers, this approach is about bringingattention to the technical challenges and thereafter col-lectively solving them.What is interesting is that somesolutions to the technical challenges are not technicalcompetence alone. Instead, as one fiscal officer vividlypointed out, you are not likely to get a question re-garding the quality of performance measures until youpost the performance information in the coffee room.The point is that the attention brought to technicalcompetence by using performance measures helpssolve technical challenges. The key to using a utiliza-tion driven approach is to carefully analyze how per-formance information could be linked with dailymanagement and budgetary decision making beforehanded. The approach of designing performancemeasures with a purpose of utilization in mind seemsto be more helpful than looking for utilization aftermeasures are developed.

With all these being said, however, a caution-ary note is in order. The use of performance informa-tion is not to take out the politics. Resource allocationis inherently political. There remains inevitable skep-ticism about the extent to which resource allocationsare, or can be, influenced by performance information.For some, resource allocations based upon traditionalshares of budget allocations, or based upon factorsother than actual program performance, may seempreferable. Therefore, the role of performance infor-mation in budgeting is to help shape politics that oftentimes underlie resources allocation. This realistic ex-pectation of the use of performance information does


not undermine the importance of a utilization-drivenapproach to performance budgeting in that for per-formance information to help shape politics it has tobe useful and used in decision making. The evidencesfrom the literature and the experience of Georgia indi-cate that probably the biggest frustration of perform-ance budgeting arises from the imbalance between thesignificant efforts put forth to develop the performancesystem and the rather limited usage of information pro-duced out of the system.Autilization-driven approachhelps reduce this imbalance.

AUtilization-Driven Approach to PerformanceInformed Budgeting in China?If the literature and the experience of the State ofGeorgia in the United States suggest the need and po-tential of a utilization-driven approach to performancebudgeting, do we have reasons to believe that this ap-proach might work in China as well? This paper ar-gues that this approach is particularly useful in asystem that China has for the following four reasons.

First, the timing is right. Among other govern-ment reforms, performance management and budget-ing is on the rise in China. Especially, the provincialand local governments are the front runners in thisprocess. Places, such as, Hebei and GuangdongProvince, are experimenting pilot programs (Ma,2006; Niu, Ho, & Ma, 2007). While the achievementsare notable, the extent to which performance informa-tion informs resource allocation is scarce. As an ob-server of Hubei budget reform, Ma (2006)summarizedthe effect of this reform as not penetrating the arbitrarynature of resource allocation and “no real comparisonand scientific analysis have been carried out amongthe programs.”Among other things, the difficulties in-clude but not limited to: inadequate budgeting system,accounting system, and staff, and the lack of ownsource revenues at provincial and local governmentlevels (Hou, Ma, & Wu, 2005; Shen, 2004). Thesechallenges are not uncommon in developing countriesimplementing performance budgeting (Dean, 1986;Shen, 2004; United Nations Capital DevelopmentFund (UNCDF), 2006; Wang, Zhu, & Pan, 2005). Inshort, the timing is such that on one hand China is inthe midst of the formation of a modern budgeting sys-tem with an interested in performance related budget-ing; while on the other hand, it has already beenexperiencing some degree of distrust and frustration inthe process due to the lack of utilization of perform-ance information. This timing might give the design-ers of the budgeting system incentives to takeutilization into the consideration of system design.

Second, a utilization driven approach enables

those who are interested in reshaping governmentbudgeting to get the dialogue of government per-formance going. The interest in government perform-ance in general and performance budgeting inparticular is on a fast track in China. However, thereis little experience and knowledge about what per-formance information can do for government per-formance. This is where the tremendous need forknowledge, skills and related education lies. A uti-lization approach capitalizes the opportunity of pro-viding for these needs by focusing on the utility ofperformance information for decision makers, espe-cially legislatures.

China has a unique political barrier, that is, thelegislature is detached from the budgeting process, notto mention performance budgeting. Although theChina’s Budget Law requires all levels of govern-ments to submit proposed budgets to People’s Con-gress for review and approval, it is “largely symbolic”(Southern Weekend, 2003). For the delegates to thePeople’s Congress of Guangdong Province in 2003, acursory review of the budget is their first time to knowhow funds are allocated (China Review,ElectronicSource Accessed in 2007).

Ironically, this unique barrier offers a rare op-portunity for performance informed budgeting inchina, that is, establish the budget review process withan eye on program performance rather than add per-formance review onto the existing budget practice.Legislators are not well versed yet in budgetary re-view, therefore, a careful analysis of the informationneeds for their decision making and how performancereview fits in the process is a good starting point fora utilization driven approach to performance budget-ing in China. As discussed above, legislators tend tolag behind the use of performance information in theirdecision making. The hope arising from a utilization-driven approach is to increase legislators’ awarenessof performance and make this awareness part of theirbudgetary behavior from the very beginning forChina. In addition, china’s budgeting process hasnever been a participatory process from various stake-holders (Wang, Zhu, & Pan, 2005). The utilization ofperformance information offers additional opportuni-ties of participation by different stakeholders bybroadening the discussion from budgeting, a processoften deemed to be only relevant to those in power, toperformance, the topic a broader public is interested.The establishment of the Budget Committee as astanding committee in National People’s Congress in2002 indicates that the opportunity for a modernbudgeting system is on the horizon. The politics inbudgeting often times results from competing world


views, and a utilization-driven approach to perform-ance budgeting could help lay a performance-con-scious common foundation among participants.

Third, for a long time, one aspect of the gov-ernmental culture in China that has been criticized isformality – the practice of rules followed merely forthe sake of procedure. Performance budgeting cannotafford to be another formality. An analogy to per-formance budgeting without utilization in mind ishaving a bow (performance information) without atarget (decision making) or the skill of aiming (the re-lationship between performance information and de-cision making). Because the Chinese culture tends tovalue practicality, the infant of the idea of perform-ance budgeting will soon find itself under the pressureto demonstrate that it is not a paper tiger. It is criti-cally important for the participants of performancebudgeting, especially government agencies, to see andrealize that producing performance information ismore than just an exercise. The benefits of stressingthe use of performance information are ample. For in-stance, previous studies show that using performanceinformation promotes culture shift within the organi-zation from focusing on input to output (Niu, Ho, &Ma, 2007). Another benefit of a utilization driven ap-proach is that the discussion of utilization helps layout at the beginning process of performance manage-ment and budgeting the expectations how perform-ance information is to be used in decision making,therefore, reduces unnecessary resistance due to thefalse impression that performance budgeting is allabout taking government employees’ jobs. In short,being practical curbs the risk of formality.

Fourth, a utilization-driven approach puts thequality of performance information onto a reality test.The research assessing the technical capacity of per-formance based systems in china produces mixedfindings. For example, when it comes to the qualityof performance measures, some research demon-strated the lack of quality performance measures (Niu,Ho, & Ma, 2007) while others found that the techni-cal capacities in the case of China Post are well de-veloped (Wang, Zhu, & Pan, 2005). The real issue inthe mixed research results is that the quality of per-formance measures tends to remain unknown until itis applied and used in decision making process.A uti-lization-driven approach helps sort out purposes ofperformance information, and therefore, various spe-cific criteria of high quality measurement for respec-tive purposes. It is widely recognized that havingperformance information and using it in decision-making are two different things. There are many de-tailed issues, such as, the frequency of data reporting,

the level of aggregation of information, and the com-munication channel of information, that would comeinto light during the process of utilization. Again, theimprovement of technical capacity needs efforts andcontinuous attention, and the utilization brings atten-tion and feedback.

The Case of the State of GeorgiaTo provide a concrete example to further understandthe patterns and issues in performance budgeting, thissection reports the experience of the state of Georgiaas a case in point. In particular, this section examinesone important issue: what purposes do governmentsuse performance information for? The purpose is toprovide a concrete example with regards to the spe-cific uses that a utilization-driven approach could betranslated into.

The state of Georgia is chosen for this researchmainly because of its extensive history of budget re-forms. Georgia has come a long way with regard toperformance based budgeting. Georgia was the firststate to install Zero-Base Budgeting (ZBB) in 1973(Lauth, 1978). Since fiscal year 1977, executivebranch agencies in Georgia have been required to in-clude performance evaluation measures as part oftheir annual budget submissions (Lauth & Riech,1979). Georgia then passed the Budget Accountabil-ity and PlanningAct of 1993 that mandates state agen-cies to develop strategic plans, introduced BudgetRedirection in 1997 designed to achieve both mana-gerial and policy objectives within a constricted fiscalenvironment (Douglas, 1999), implemented ResultBased Budgeting (RBB) in FY 1998 that requires de-veloping a purpose, goal and desired result that canbe achieved for each program (Lauth, 2004), andadopted a Prioritized Program Budget (PPB) in FY2005 that requires the definition and quantification ofgoals and performance measures that intends to bringstate spending in alignment with policy and state cul-ture change (Figure 1: Georgia’s Planning and Budgetfor Results Model). As some have argued, the imple-mentation of performance budgeting takes time, andstudying entities with limited experience in perform-ance budgeting may bias the research result (Robinson& Brumby, 2005). Therefore, the extended history ofperformance-driven budget reforms in Georgia pro-vides a rich background to study the use of perform-ance information.

Data used for this analysis include surveys andinterviews that were conducted between July 2004 andMay 2006. Both fiscal/budget offices and agency headsof all 97 government agencies were invited to partici-pate in the survey, for a total of 194 surveys sent. The


response rate was 65%. In addition, interviews wereconducted with 31 out of 35 fiscal/budget officers (89percent) associated with the agencies listed in the Ex-ecutive Branch section of The Governor’s Budget Re-port (Amended FY 2005 & FY 2006). The averageinterview was one hour. To capture the diversity opin-ion among different branches of Georgia state govern-ment, the interviews and surveys were also conductedwith executive budget office directors, executivebudget analysts, and House and Senate budget analysts.

What purposes do government use performanceinformation for?Table 1 reports the purposes which performance in-formation is used for by government agencies, the cen-tral budget office and the legislative budget offices.

First, the general pattern of the findings is thatperformance measures are used on average in some-

where between 25 and 50 percent of the decisions bygovernment agencies and in less than 25 percent of thedecisions by both executive and legislative budget of-fices. To put this finding into perspective, this researchercompares it with the research done by Lauth in 1985.From the perspective of state agencies, there has beenprogress made in Georgia state government during thepast twenty years, especially the use of information inagency preparation of the budget and the legislative re-view of the budget. The finding suggests that the devel-opment of using performance information takes time,yet the progress is firm albeit very moderate.

It leads to the second finding, that is, agencies(average=3.40) are reported to use measures more fre-quently than the central executive budget office (av-erage=2.68) and House and Senate Budget Offices(average = 2.53). This finding suggests that althoughthe performance system is often launched by the cen-

Figure. 1: The State of Georgia’s Planning and Budget for Results Model


tral executive budget office, government agencies area critically important component. This finding alsomatches the general pattern across the United States.It could be a welcoming trend, because the more gov-ernment agencies use performance information, themore likely it is that this information could be incor-porated into daily management. This demonstratesthat performance management and budgeting is a sys-tem-wide effort. It has a chain reaction process inwhich every main stakeholder is involved. The inter-view notes suggested that the lack of use by one stake-holder has ripple impact leading to the lack of use byother stakeholders. In addition, because of the variousdegree of usage, it also suggests that designers of per-formance management and budgeting systems needto hammer out different strategies to meet differentpatterns of usage across participants.

Third, all three groups reported the use of meas-ures more for managerial purposes than budgetary pur-poses. For instance, the uses for determiningperformance, benchmarking data, and improving per-formance (average =3.23, 3.22 and 3.16, respectively)are high on the list, followed by communication (aver-age =3.08), and budget submission (average = 2.92).This seems to conform to the hierarchical uses of per-formance information: from performancemeasurement,performance management to performance budgeting.Just asAllen Schick (2001) cautioned the field:

The great mistake of the performancemeasurement industry is the notion thatan organization can be transformed bymeasuring its performance... This opti-mism is not justified, for organizations-public and private alike- can assimilateor deflect data on performance without

making significant changes in their be-havior. Performance information can af-fect behavior only if it is used and it isused only when there are opportunitiesand incentives to do so.

The evidences and the literature point to thefact that performance management is important in af-fecting behavior. Performance management needs torun parallel to, and probably often time needs to pre-cede, performance budgeting.

In short, the empirical evidence of the use ofperformance information in general matches the pat-terns identified by the literature. The case of Georgiaindicates that the use of performance information is aprocess that takes time to develop, that various par-ticipants have different information needs for decisionmakings and that the hierarchical uses of performanceinformation should be considered in the design of theperformance management and budgeting system.

ConclusionAutilization-driven approach to performance budget-ing is about focusing on what exactly a performancemeasure provides information for decision making.The key is to make the envisioning of “how to use per-formance information” part of elements in designingperformance budgeting system. In this research, boththe literature and the experience of the State of Geor-gia tell us that the use of performance information indecision making tends to evolve slowly, that it takessystematic uses of performance information by allmain stakeholders in the budget process, and that thehierarchical uses of performance information seem toprogress from performance measurement, perform-ance management to performance budgeting. During

Table. 1: The Uses of Performance Measures in the State of Georgia


the evolution process, a utilization-driven approachalleviates the imbalance between the efforts investedin performance system building and the limited use ofperformance information. The discussion of types ofuses by Georgia provides a basis for thinking poten-tial uses when China experiments performance sys-tem. This utilization-driven approach to performancebudgeting is particularly needed in china given its cul-ture that values practicality and cautions about for-mality.As many have observed, the early performanceexperiments in China seem not yet to change budget-ary behaviors. Although these observations are un-derstandable given the short period of timeperformance-based budgeting is instituted for inChina, it does raise the urgency to adopt a utilizationdriven approach to performance budgeting. Perform-ance budgeting in China that is in its infancy necessi-tates a process of “going slow to go fast,” yet thatprocess needs to incorporate the envisioning of “howto use performance information” in its design.

Notes1According to Peter Dean (1986), the Philippines werethe first developing country to install performancebudgeting that took place in 1954.2 Georgia broke the legislative dominance in the budg-etary process and established its first executive budgetsystem in 1931 when the Budget Bureau was created(Lauth, 1991). In 1962, the Budget Act strengthenedgubernatorial power in the budget process by recon-stituting the budget office in the governor’s office, es-tablishing the position of state budget officer andauthorizing professional support staff for the newagency. Since 1972, the central budget office wasknown as the Office of Planning and Budget.3 A series of Chi-Square test of independence and t-tests were performed between respondents and non-respondents on four dimensions (attached agencies/authorities vs. agencies listed in The Governor’sBudget Report; fiscal officers vs. agency heads; totalappropriation and state appropriation). The respon-dents are not statistically different from the non-re-spondents.4 There are total 35 agencies (excluding State of Geor-gia General Obligation Debt Sinking Fund) listed inExecutive Branch section of The Governor’s BudgetReport, Amended FY 2005 & FY 2006. Among the31 agencies interviewed, two agencies have the samefiscal officer.

AuthorYi Lu, Assistant Professor, Department of Public Ad-ministration, College of Community and Public Af-

fairs, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NewYork13902. Her research interests are performance budg-eting and management. She can be reached [email protected].

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27Rubin • Moving Women in China Further Along the Road to Full Equality

Over the past 25 years, the progress towardgender equity has gained momentum in coun-tries throughout the world, and has been gal-

vanized by significant actions taken by theinternational community of nations. The near unani-mous adoption by the UN in 1979 of the Conventionon the Elimination of All Forms of DiscriminationagainstWomen (CEDAW) – sometimes referred to asthe “international bill of rights for women” – definedwhat constitutes gender discrimination. It also set anagenda for international and national action to end it(UNDAW 2004, 1). The United Nations 4th WorldConference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, reaf-firmed CEDAW’s commitment to end discriminationagainst women. This conference was, at the time, thelargest ever held by the United Nations as well as thefirst large-scale international conference ever hostedby the People’s Republic of China. There were 15,000

delegates from 189 countries and regions in atten-dance at the conference as well as 31,000 representa-tives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)from all over the world (ACWF 2005a).

Both CEDAW signatories and Beijing confer-ence participants identified the equal treatment of menand women in budgetary processes as central to theachievement of gender parity. In fact, the Platform forAction adopted at the Beijing conference specificallycalled on governments to “incorporate a gender per-spective into the design, development, adoption andexecution of all budgetary processes as appropriate inorder to promote equitable, effective and appropriateresource allocation and establish adequate budgetaryallocations to support gender equality…” (United Na-tions 1995).

Several terms including “women’s budgets,”“gender budgets,” “gender-sensitive budgets,” and

Gender-Responsive Budgeting:Moving Women in China FurtherAlong the Road to Full Equality

Marilyn Marks Rubin, John Jay College, City University of New York

Abstract: Over the past 25 years, the progress toward gender equity has gained momentum in most parts of theworld, and has been galvanized by significant actions taken by the international community of nations. There has alsobeen a growing worldwide awareness that governments’ budget decisions relating to both revenues and expendi-tures can be critical in promoting gender equity. For example, on the expenditure side of the budget, a government’sreduction of agricultural subsidies could impact heavily on women who generally comprise the bulk of farm work-ers, especially in developing countries. Restoring, or even increasing, the subsidies could increase household in-comes, raise agricultural production and improve the quality of life for all villagers. On the revenue side, an incometax rate reduction would primarily benefit men whose incomes are generally greater than those of women. Chang-ing the structure of the tax reduction to, perhaps, a tax credit could result in a more equitable gender distribution ofthe benefits of lower taxes.

Several terms including “women’s budgets,” “gender budgets,” “gender-sensitive budgets,” and “gender-responsivebudgets” have been used to describe government budgets that incorporate a gender perspective. In my paper, I usethe term “gender-responsive budget” (GRB) to define a government budget that explicitly integrates gender into anyor all parts of the decision-making process regarding expenditures and/or revenues. I use the term “GRB initiative”to include: (1) the actual integration of a gender perspective into any or all aspects of budget decisions; and (2) anorganized movement to influence government to incorporate a gender perspective into its budget decisions.

Thus defined, GRB initiatives have been undertaken in more than 60 countries at the national and/or subnational lev-els of government. The purpose of my paper is to show how the lessons learned in these GRB initiatives can be ap-plied in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) where the equal treatment of women is a goal that has yet to be fullyrealized along most dimensions, including education, health, economic prosperity and political involvement.


“gender-responsive budgets” have been used to de-scribe government budgets that incorporate a genderperspective. Gender budgets are not separate budgetsfor women, or for men. They are, instead, an attemptto break down or disaggregate a government’s main-stream budget according to its impacts on women andmen. Gender budgets are designed to incorporate gen-der-specific analysis in budget decision-makingprocesses regarding the allocation of resource and/orthe generation of revenues.

For example, a gender budget analysis on theexpenditure side of the budget might find that pro-posed cuts in spending on agriculture would fall mostheavily on poor women farmers. Restoring the agri-culture budget could increase household incomes,raise agricultural production and improve the qualityof life for all villagers. On the revenue side, a genderbudget analysis could find that a proposed income taxrate reduction would primarily benefit men.

In my paper, I use the term “gender-responsivebudget” (GRB) to define a government budget thatexplicitly integrates gender into any or all parts of thedecision-making process regarding expendituresand/or revenues. I use the term “GRB initiative” to in-clude: (1) the actual integration of a gender perspec-tive into any or all aspects of budget decisions; and(2) an organized movement to influence governmentto incorporate a gender perspective into its budget de-cisions. Thus defined, GRB initiatives have been un-dertaken in more than 60 countries at the nationaland/or subnational levels of government (Budlenderand Hewitt, 2003).

The purpose of my paper is to demonstrate howthe lessons learned in these GRB initiatives can be ap-plied to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) wherethe equal treatment of men and women – a funda-mental and oft-cited government goal – has yet to befully realized. I begin the paper with a brief discus-sion of the current status of women in the PRC. I thensummarize lessons learned from GRB initiatives thathave been undertaken worldwide and discuss howthese lessons might be applied in China. I concludethe paper with observations on China’s readiness fora gender-responsive budgeting initiative.

It should be noted that, except where specifi-cally discussed, the statistics cited for China are forthe country as a whole and thus do not reflect the sub-stantial differences among its individual provincesand ethnic groups and between its urban and ruralareas. The urban-rural divide in China along most eco-nomic and social dimensions is one of the highest inthe world (UNDP 2005a) and may affect the overallconclusions reached in this paper.

Gender Equality in ChinaFrom its earliest days, official documents of the PRChave stated that men and women should have equalrights and obligations in society – a stark contrast towhat had been the historic image of women in China,with the “binding of feet” perhaps the most renownedsymbol of their subservient status. For example, onthe eve of its founding in 1949, the PRC adopted theCommon Program of the Chinese People's PoliticalConsultative Conference which specifically stated that"…women shall enjoy the same rights and obligationsas men in political, economic, cultural, educationaland social activities…” (Xu 2005).

Moreover, the first constitution of the PRC,adopted in 1954, reiterated that the rights of womenwere to be equal with those of men (Xu 2005).More re-cent laws and regulations show the continued efforts ofthe PRC to promote gender equity. For instance, TheLaw on the Protection of Rights and Interests ofWomenadopted at the Fifth Session of the Seventh NationalPeople's Congress on April 3, 1992, states that “TheState shall guarantee that women enjoy equal rights withmen relating to their persons” (UNESCAP 2005).

The steady progress of women in China has leadto its increasingly higher ranking in the United Nations’Gender-Related Development Index (GRDI) in whichhigher rankings are associated with a more positive en-vironment for women.1 In the year 2003, China wasranked 64th out of 140 countries (UNDP 2005b), com-pared with its 1993 ranking of 79th out of 137 countries(UNDP 1996). In another comparative “gender-gap”ranking, published by the World Economic Forum in2005 (WEF 2005), China was ranked 33rd out of the 58OECD and selected emergingmarket countries includedin the study, the highest ranking of any of the Asiancountries included in the index.2 TheWEF index incor-porates five dimensions: educational attainment, eco-nomic opportunity, economic participation, health andwell-being and political empowerment. The progress ofwomen in China along each of these dimensions isbriefly summarized below.

Educational AttainmentEqual access to education for males and females is theofficial policy of the PRC as defined in China's Edu-cation Law, its Compulsory Education Law and itsVocational Education Law (PRC 2005). However,among the 58 countries in theWorld Economic Forumreport, China ranked 46th in educational attainment,considerably below its number 33 ranking in the over-all index (WEF 2005). Even though the educationalattainment of China’s girls and women has increasedsubstantially over the years, according to ActionAid,


an international non-profit organization fightingagainst poverty on a world-wide basis:

… at the primary level, girls are muchmore likely to drop out of school, or notbe enrolled at all. …at higher levels ofschooling girls constitute 47% of studentsat the secondary level, 40% at the collegelevel and only 32% at the doctoral pro-gramme level (ActionAid 2005).

Within the adult population, the illiteracy rateof females in China is 2.6 times that of males (UNDP2005a). And while disparities among China’s manyregions have narrowed over the past ten years, in itsless developed areas the gender disparity is evengreater than the overall illiteracy rate would indicate(UNDP 2005a). For instance, the male-female differ-ential is close to 19 percentage points in QinghaiProvince inWestern China, the fourth largest provincein China with about five million residents includingHan (the majority ethnic group in China), Tu, Hui,Salar and Mongolian minority ethnic groups. In theTibetanAutonomous Region adjacent to Qinghai, themale-female differential is close to 18 percentagepoints (UNDP 2005a).

Economic Opportunity and ParticipationAs mentioned earlier, from its inception, the PRC hasheld that “...women shall enjoy the same rights and ob-ligations as men in …economic… activities…” (Xu2005). China’s institutional framework is generally inplace to accomplish this goal. However, while Chinesewomen, particularly those living in urban areas, havemade substantial progress in achieving economic equal-ity, there is still a gender gap, especially in the wake ofChina’s economic reforms. Gender differences “…tendto bemuch lower in the state sector than in the non-statesector…” (UNDP 2005a) and, as Jing Lin, a scholarwriting in the HarvardAsia Pacific Review states:

In the economic restructuring, millionsof urban and township workers havebeen laid off. Women have been espe-cially disadvantaged in several ways: 1)more women are laid off than men; 2)women are forced to retire at youngerage than men; 3) women receive less so-cial support after being laid off; and 4)the chances of re-employment are lowerdue to the lack of social connections(Lin 2003).

It should be noted that with regards to earlierretirement for women, this is a continuation of the pol-

icy instituted under Mao Zedong as a benefit forwomen. While earlier retirement may not be lookedupon favorably by all women, for some it may be stillbe viewed as a benefit, especially if their income andbenefits after retirement are not much lower than theywere when employed.3

Health and Well-beingIn China, the differential in the “well-being” of malesand females begins at birth and even before. In 1979,the PRC adopted a “one-child” policy to slow its rap-idly increasing population growth. In August 2005,there were close to 120 male births for every 100 fe-male births in China, compared with the worldwideaverage of 106 male births for every 100 female births(UNDP 2005a). In some of China’s rural provinces,the male-to-female birth ratio is even more skewed.In Guangxi Province, for instance, there are 140 boysborn for every 100 girls and in Hainan Province, 135boys for every 100 girls (ActionAid 2005). WhileChina’s “one child” policy has been somewhat re-laxed so that rural families are now permitted to havetwo children, families that conform to official policywill often go to great lengths to make sure that theyhave male children.

Even though ultrasound scans to deter-mine the sex of the foetus [sp] and sex-based abortions are illegal, in ruralChina many women still find a way todetermine the sex of the foetus [sp] and,if it is female, they abort it... China'sfamily planning policy... does not carryeffective measures to counteract thepreference for sons among the ruralpopulation…caused by both culturalfactors and the lack of a social protec-tion net for farmers (ActionAid 2005).

The Chinese government is trying to improvethe protection of female infants by punishing thosewho abandon or kill them. However, there is no evi-dence that China will discontinue its one-child policyeven though it is becoming increasingly concernedthat there will be 40 million more men of marriage-able age than women by 2020 ( AsiaNews.it 2007).

The Chinese government is also trying to slowthe growth in prostitution. Denounced many decadesago by Mao Zedong as a social evil, prostitution is onthe rise and becoming an increasing threat to thehealth and well-being of women.

Chinese public security sources estimatethat there were... four to six million sex


workers in China in 2000. The majorreasons for prostitution in China areeconomic: women from rural areas seekbetter incomes and migrate to big citieswhere many end up as sex workers... Astudy amongst sex workers in Chinafound that... Very few (2-3%) perceivedthemselves at risk of contracting HIV(Avert 2006).

Looking at the health and well-being of allwomen in China, there is some evidence of gender-based differences in the availability of health careservices and medical insurance.4 However, the urban-rural differential in health care services overwhelmsthe gender differential. In China’s rural areas, whichare home to between 70 and 80 percent of China’spopulation, most health care services are now pro-vided on a fee-for-service basis and are not affordableby the vast majority of residents either female or male.This is in contrast to earlier years when most medicalservices were provided by the state.

Political EmpowermentWomen have been officially represented at all levelsof government since the founding of the PRC, andtheir role is slowly increasing. According to the All-China Women’s Federation, the proportion of womenofficials at all levels grew from 34.4% in 1997 to36.7% in 2001 (ACWF 2005b). However, women’spolitical empowerment is still far below that of men.China's ranking by the World Economic Forum in thecategory of women's political empowerment was num-ber 40 of 58 countries, somewhat below its overallranking of 33, suggesting that the country is not doingas well in the political empowerment of women as it isin the other dimensions in the index taken together. Forwomen in China to gain political equality with menthey must become more involved in the political struc-ture and administration of the country at all levels.

Among the 198 women deputies toChina's NPC, only five are in the deci-sion making position in the legislatureand central government. By the endof 2003, the women's representation invillage committees was less than 20 per-cent while only one percent of the vil-lage heads were women throughoutChina (Rong 2005).

Why a Gender BudgetThe actions of government can have an impact onwomen along all of the dimensions discussed above:

education, health, economic prosperity and politicalempowerment. Yet, few countries consider differen-tial gender impacts at the time that most laws are de-bated and enacted. This is certainly true forbudget-related legislation in which revenues and ex-penditures are generally determined and presented infinancial aggregates with no specific references madeto men or to women. As such, the laws appear to begender neutral. However, if there are unintended dif-ferential gender impacts of revenue and expendituredecisions, the laws are not gender neutral, and to ig-nore the differences constitutes what has been termed“gender blindness” (Elson, 1999).

Implementing a gender responsive budget canhelp to correct gender blindness on both the revenueand expenditure sides of the budget and can “… raiseawareness among stakeholders of gender issues andimpacts embedded in budgets and policies…” (Sharp2003, 9). The increasing awareness of this impact ex-plains the growth of gender budget initiatives over thepast 20 years in most regions of the world.

Gender Responsive Budget InitiativesThe first gender budget initiative was undertaken inAustralia by its federal government in 1984 and fullyexecuted in 1985. In time, all of Australia’s states andterritories would follow the central government’s leadand implement their own gender budget initiatives.TheAustralian experience brought international atten-tion to GRB as a way to address gender inequities, al-though it took a decade before the next initiatives wereundertaken in South Africa and in the Philippines.

The South African initiative undertaken in1995 was spearheaded by the Women’s Budget Ini-tiative (WBI), a partnership of two policy-based re-search NGOs and newly elected members ofParliament (primarily female) along with the Genderand Economic Policy Group of the parliamentaryCommittee on Finance (Budlender 2003, Budlender& Hewitt 2002, Budlender 1998). The GRB initiativein the Philippines also began in 1995 as part of a gen-der and development (GAD) movement. In the wakeof the Australian, South African and Philippine expe-riences, close to 60 countries throughout the worldhave undertaken GRB initiatives (See Table 1). Someinitiatives have originated in government, but mosthave been undertaken by civil society groups, gener-ally NGOs, working to promote gender equity.

In some countries, GRB has actually been in-tegrated into one or more phases of the budget cycleat the national or subnational levels of government.In other countries the initiatives are still in their form-ative stages in which gender analysis of one or sev-


eral government programs has been conducted and/orworkshops have been held for various groups includ-ing government workers, NGOs and other represen-tatives of civil society. International and bilateraldonors have funded a number of these workshops aspart of their overall capacity-building efforts in de-veloping countries and countries in transition.

Although GRB initiatives have differed acrosscountries, their implementation has yielded severalcommonalities, which I call “preliminary lessonslearned,” that can inform future gender budgeting ini-tiative. They relate to:

• the buy-in and commitment from both gov-ernment and civil society stakeholders;

• the level of government at which GRB is un-dertaken;

• the stage of the budget cycle into whichGRB is integrated; and

• the availability of disaggregated data by gen-der, and of technical expertise from outside the coun-try in which the initiative is undertaken.

Preliminary Lessons LearnedLesson 1:AGRB initiative must have the buy-in ofgovernment and of civil society stakeholders. Theintegration of a gender perspective into public budgetsrequires that decision-makers in government ac-knowledge gender inequities in society and see budget

policy as a way to promote equal treatment of men andwomen. GRB initiatives undertaken in Australia, thePhilippines, Rwanda and several countries in the An-dean region in South America illustrate this point.

In Australia, elections in the early 1970sbrought a new government into office that was com-mitted to making government more responsive towomen’s needs (Sawer 2002). Feminists, referred toas “femocrats,” were recruited to work for the newgovernment so that they could implement commit-ments to promoting gender equity made during theelection campaign. The new government acknowl-edged that budget actions were critical to achievinggender equity. The Philippines GRB initiative wasalso part of an overall national and subnational gov-ernment campaign to address acknowledged genderinequities in society and as part of overall efforts todemocratize government (Flor and Lizares-Si 2002).

The commitment of government to use thebudget to achieve gender equity has also been a criti-cal element in the Andean region where several GRBinitiatives are underway (GRBI, Ecuador, 2). And inRwanda, the President and other leaders struggling toput their country back together after years of civil warand genocide are using gender budgeting as one wayto bring about government reform and to address gen-der inequities and poverty (Diop-Tine, 2002).

However, if government’s commitment to gen-

Table 1: Countries in Which a Gender Budget Initiative has been Undertakenat the National or Subnational Levels of Government as of 2003*

* The information presented in this table is based upon what was known in 2003. Whether there are other countries that have undertaken agender-responsive budget initiative is difficult to determine for several reasons including my reliance on publicly available data and the timingof the research.

Source: A Practitioners Guide to Understanding & Implementing Gender-Responsive Budget Initiatives (Budlender & Hewitt (2003, 7).


der equity is crucial for GRB’s success, so too is theneed for stakeholders outside of government to takeownership of the initiative and to advocate for its ac-ceptance. A prime example is Australia where GRBwas initiated by the government, but was never reallyable to coalesce Australia’s feminist NGOs andwomen in civil society (Sawer 2002). This lack ofsupport was one of the main reasons cited for theeventual watering down of GRB, at least at the federallevel (Sawer 2002).

Lesson 2: GRB can be introduced at all lev-els of government. Most gender-responsive budget-ing initiatives have been introduced at the nationallevel of government. However, GRB initiatives havealso been undertaken at subnational levels of govern-ment, beginning with the earliest efforts in Australia,South Africa and the Philippines. Several gender-re-sponsive budgeting initiatives in local governmentsare underway in theAndean Region of SouthAmerica(Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia) as part of overall gov-ernment reform and decentralization (UNIFEM2003). And in Berlin, Germany, the City Parliamentintroduced gender budgeting in 2001 for selected citydistricts and for selected expenditures (GTZ 2004).

Lesson 3: GRB can be implemented at allstages of the budget cycle. Each of the four phases ofthe budget cycle – budget formulation, approval, im-plementation and audit/evaluation – provides the po-tential for integrating gender budgeting into itsdecision-making process. Budget formulation, the firstphase of the budget process, is generally the responsi-bility of the executive branch of government. GRB canenter this phase in a number of ways: in budget prepa-ration guidelines to departments, in agency delibera-tions and in final decision-making by the chiefexecutive. To date, several governments, includingthose in India, Nepal, Mexico, Tanzania, Uganda, andEgypt, have included gender-specific language in theirgeneral budget guidelines (UNIFEM 2003).

Once the budget is prepared, it enters the sec-ond stage of the cycle, which is the approval or leg-islative phase, in which GRB again has the potentialto be integrated in several ways. Specific genderguidelines can be promulgated for expenditure andrevenue legislation in the overall framework for leg-islative action or in language establishing new pro-grams or agencies. During this phase of the budgetcycle, decisions can entail extensive debate over theexecutive plan or be largely pro forma. The latter ismore likely to be the case in parliamentary govern-ments where the same political party controls the ex-ecutive and legislative functions.

While members of legislatures, especially

women, have played important advocacy roles in sev-eral GRB initiatives including those in South Africa,Uganda, and Scotland (Budlender and Hewitt 2002),there is little evidence that GRB has yet taken hold inlegislative decision-making (UNIFEM 2003). Severalefforts are underway to bring GRB into the legislativebudget process. For example, UNIFEM is workingwith India’s national parliament to formulate gender-responsive guidelines to be used in the disbursementof discretionary resources allocated to members ofParliament (UNIFEM 2003). UNIFEM also workedwith the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and theWorld Bank Institute in the publication of a handbookfor parliaments interested in bringing gender into theirdecision-making process (IPU 2004).

After the budget has been approved, it entersinto the third or budget implementation phase whenbudget plans are put into operation. To the extent thatindividual departments are given discretion to allocateresources among their agencies/programs, GRB caninform allocation and other decisions during the exe-cution phase.Also administrative directives within de-partments can influence the allocation of funds. GRBinitiatives have yet to achieve a major success in thisphase of the budget cycle although efforts are under-way in several countries such as Mexico and India tobring gender explicitly into decisions regardingbudget execution (UNIFEM 2003).

Most gender-responsive initiatives have fo-cused on audit and evaluation, the fourth and finalphase of the budget cycle.A gender dimension can beincorporated into financial audits that focus on ex-penditures and compliance and into performance au-dits that focus on results. Katherine Rake of the UKWomen’s Budget Group, writes “…a gender audit ofpolicy and expenditures offers a unique opportunityto evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the Gov-ernment’s social and economic programme” (2000,117). In Victoria,Australia, for example, “community-based gender audits have achieved some success…”(Sawer 2002, 63). And in SouthAfrica, a 1997 evalu-ation of the Community Based Public Work Program(CBPWP) that included a gender focus “… formedthe basis of the Department’s current plans to fine-tune the program and further improve targeting”(Elson 2002b).

Lesson 4: Both gender-disaggregated dataand knowledgeable technical expertise are neededto implement a GRB initiative.Countries do not gen-erally collect revenue or expenditure data disaggre-gated by gender, a basic requirement if GRB is to beincorporated into the budget process. For example, ifwomen have a greater dependency on public trans-


portation than do men, decreased spending on govern-ment supported buses or trains will have an unintendeddifferential gender impact. In developing countries, thelack of relevant data, particularly gender-disaggregateddata, has been identified as a serious impediment toimplementing GRB (Balmori 2003).

Not only is the lack of disaggregated data achallenge, but so too is the lack of budget expertise bygovernment workers and members of civil society. Inmany cases, experts have been brought in from the out-side to lead a GRB initiative. However, these expertsmay not be familiar with the internal culture and poli-tics of a country or region. For example, in Sri Lanka,participants in an externally funded gender budgetingworkshop (some of whom were already familiar withgender-responsive budgeting) felt that the informationpresented by the outside consultants was not specifi-cally tailored to their needs (Budlender 2003).

GRB Lessons Learned: Applications to ChinaOver the past decade the PRC has made great stridesin increasing the role of the budget in its resource al-location decisions. Previously, all such decisions inthe planned economy were made in the plan with thebudget serving essentially as a secondary accountingdevice (OECD 2005). And while China still has sev-eral budget issues that must be resolved, Lou Jiwei,the PRC First Vice Minister of the Ministry of Financewrites: “…relative to the traditional Chinese budgetmanagement system, the current…reform amounts to“revolution” (Lou 2002, 51). Because the budget isevolving in these “revolutionary terms,” and giventhat gender equity is one of the fundamental tenets ofthe PRC, it would seem that the stage is set in Chinafor a GRB initiative. Such an initiative can be in-formed by the lessons learned from the GRB experi-ences in countries throughout the world.

Lesson 1: Buy-in of Government and CivilSociety Stakeholders. In 2005, the PRC amended itsground-breaking 1992 Law on the Protection ofWomen's Rights and Interests. The amendmentstrengthened several government policies related towomen’s political, social and economic equity, andcommitted China’s government to taking “…propermeasures to iron out all forms of discriminationagainst women... in accordance with the Conventionon the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminationagainst Women made by the United Nations in 1979,which China ratified in 1980” (Rong 2005).

PRC’s willingness to amend the 1992 law isevidence that the government continues to work to-ward eliminating gender inequities in society. How-ever, what is also necessary if a GRB initiative is to be

successfully implemented in China is to have the gov-ernment understand and acknowledge that its budgetdecisions have an impact on gender equity. Further-more the government must be willing to use revenueand expenditure policies to reduce gender disparities.

The implementation of a GRB initiative inChina also needs the active support of civil society, es-pecially its women’s groups. In China, this wouldmean not only the cooperation but also the leadershipof the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), thelargest NGO in the country working on behalf of theempowerment of women. Established in 1949, at thevery beginning of the People’s Republic of China, theACWF was a member of China's Organizing Com-mittee for the previously mentioned 4th United Na-tions World Conference on Women held in Beijing in1995. The ACWF was represented on the PRC dele-gation to the Conference and was involved in draftingand negotiating the Beijing Declaration and the Plat-form for Action adopted by the Conference. It was inthis document that governments were called upon toinclude a gender perspective in their budget processes.

Lesson 2: Level of government.With its largepopulation and land area, China has historically beendivided into several political subdivisions. Today, thePRC has five levels of government below the nationalgovernment level: provinces, prefectures, counties,townships and villages (See Figure 1).5At the first sub-national level, there are 31 governmental divisions, in-cluding 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, fourcentrally administrative municipalities with the samepolitical economic and jurisdictional rights as aprovince, and two special administrative regions(SARs): Hong Kong and Macao. At the second sub-national level, there are 333 prefectures that generallycomprise an urban core (a city in the strict sense) andits surrounding less-urbanized areas usually manytimes the size of the central, built-up core. At the thirdsub-national level, there are close to 3,000 counties, atthe fourth, more than 44,000 townships and, at thefifth, more than a million villages (Luard 2005).

China is one of the world’s most fiscally de-centralized countries. Its sub-national levels of gov-ernment account for 70% of total governmentexpenditures (See Table 2). It is “… virtually uniqueamong countries in the world in assigning responsi-bilities for providing vital social services such as so-cial security, basic education, health care and publicsafety to local governments…” (OECD 2005, 14).Since it is at the local level of government where thelargest proportion of China’s expenditures are made,if a gender responsive budget initiative is to be intro-duced, its greatest potential could be at this level of


government.. Although China’s central governmentmakes major policy decisions impacting all levels ofgovernment – and the introduction of GRB would cer-tainly fall into this category – local government offi-cials will still have to understand that their decisionson the expenditure and revenue sides of their budgetcan have differential gender impacts.

However, China’s local governments, that arehaving to do “more with less,” need to enhance theircapacity to manage limited resources, especially ifthey are going to consider gender equity in their allo-cation decisions. China’s national government isworking to improve the administrative capacity oflocal government leaders through training projects of-fered in many parts of the country. Building local ca-pacity is also an important objective of internationaldonor agencies and bilateral donor institutions. Sev-eral of them, such as Canada’s Development ResearchCentre (IDRC), the United Kingdom’s Department forInternational Development (DFID) and the FordFoundation, are supporting budget reform activitiesin China. These and other institutions, which also fund

projects to improve local government capacity and toencourage gender equity, could provide resources tosupport GRB initiatives at the local government levelin China.

Lesson 3: Stages of the budget cycle.As statedearlier in this paper, during the past decade China’s cen-tral government has made significant advances in re-forming its budget infrastructure. A centerpiece of thisreform has been the introduction of departmental budg-ets in the budget preparation process (Phase 1 of thebudget cycle).According to China’s ViceMinister Lou:

…in the past the organizational structurein the Ministry of Finance was designedto match the management of a plannedeconomy. Each operating department ofthe ministry was in charge of severalcategories of expenditures by function,making it necessary for the various cen-tral government departments to estab-lish contacts with virtually all of them.…since a department’s revenues and ex-penditures are all reflected in one

Figure 1: Structure of Government in China (2003)

Source:Modified from figure presented in Wong 2005


budget book, central government de-partments for the first time have a com-plete budget book (Lou 2002 51-52).

The new departmental budgets provide a con-text within which a gender perspective could be in-troduced, perhaps in a pilot format similar to what wasdone with the introduction of departmental budgetsthemselves. In the 2000 budget cycle, departmentalbudgets were introduced into four central ministries:education, science and technology, labor and socialsecurity. In 2001, there were 29 more ministries added(Wong 2005). A gender perspective could also be in-troduced into the other phases of China’s evolvingbudget process starting with the budget approval/leg-islative phase (Phase II of the budget process).

In China, the National People’s Congress(NPC) is the country’s parliament, with its close to3,000 delegates meeting in plenary session everyMarch. According to the Congressional-ExecutiveCommission created by the U.S. Congress in 2000.6

… the NPC traditionally has been sub-servient to the leadership's wishes, andin most respects has operated as a "rub-ber stamp" legislature. Beginning in theearly 1990s, this role has gradually beenchanging, and the NPC has begun to ex-ercise more control over the legislativeand policy agenda in accordance with itsconstitutional mandate” (CECC 2005).

Because of its infrequent meetings, the NPCfunctions through a permanent body, the StandingCommittee. Constitutionally, the NPC is the supremesource of law in China. One of the areas in which

NPC’s role is expanding is the budget. An indicationof this change is the creation by the NPC of a BudgetCommission of the Standing Committee.7 The Com-mission, that became operational in 1999, has threeprimary functions: (1) to assist in the review and ap-proval of the government’s budget proposal; (2) tomonitor the implementation of the budget and to un-dertake any related special studies; and (3) to draftlaws relating to the formulation and implementationof the budget.

The government presents its budget proposalto the NPC at the beginning of the plenary session.The parliamentary budget process, however, startsabout six to eight weeks prior to the introduction ofthe budget proposal to the NPC. During this “pre-liminary stage,” the Ministry of Finance and theBudget Commission of the NPC hold formal discus-sions on the content of the budget proposal to be in-troduced. Since any power that NPC has to influencethe direction of budget policy occurs only during thispreliminary stage, here is where a gender perspec-tive would have to be brought into Phase II of thebudget cycle. Once the budget is introduced, theNPC can only approve or reject the entire document;it cannot amend it.

In the budget implementation phase (Phase IIIof the budget cycle), to the extent that departments aregiven discretion to allocate resources among pro-grams, gender-responsive budgeting could inform al-location and other decisions as department budgetsare established. As mentioned earlier, this has beenvery slow to happen worldwide.

In the audit and evaluation phase (Phase IV ofthe budget cycle), as the role of audits in improvingpublic sector management increases, they could be

Table 2: Proportion of Country Expenditures by Sub-national Governments

Source: Based on table in Wong 2005, Annex A.


used to assess the differential impact of expenditureson males and females. And, if the government beginsto recognize and accept the fact that the budget can beused to address gender inequities, the informationfrom the audits could re-enter the budget cycle inPhase I to inform budget formulation.

Lesson 4: Data Availability and TechnicalExpertise. China, like most countries, collects andpublishes its budget related information in financialaggregates with no specific references to gender ex-cept where it is obvious in the intent of the program,e.g., expenditures for maternal and child welfare andre-employment projects specially for 40-50 year oldfemales who have been laid-off from their jobs.. Ifgender-responsive budgeting is to happen in China,data collection and compilation related to both rev-enues and expenditures by gender would have to beinitiated. This could be one way in which China couldbegin its road to gender budgeting.

Most countries that have undertaken a GRB ini-tiative have used outside experts to provide technicalsupport. Several international organizations, such asthe International Budget Project (IBP), working withthe Ford Foundation, have already begun to “…assessthe potential for strengthening applied budget work inChina (IBP 2005).” IBP has done some introductorytraining, which included a briefing on gender budget-ing, to a network meeting of women’s organizations.IBP will be working with ActionAid InternationalChina in efforts to increase citizen participation in thebudget process. A gender budget initiative is one ideaunder consideration (Polska 2005).

ConclusionsThe road to gender budgeting in China may not be aneasy one. In general, budget reform has lagged behindeconomic reforms in China, and budget reforms thathave occurred, such as the formulation of departmentbudgets, are just emerging at the country’s centrallevel and in some of its wealthier provinces (OECD2005). It will take time before other local governmentsdevelop the capacity to implement their own reforms.A key challenge is to get all levels of government toconsider gender impacts of budgets when makingthese reforms. China has several essential conditionsin place that provide an environment in which thischallenge can be met.

First, from its inception, the PRC has stressedthe equality of women andmen as one of its basic goalsand has included language in its constitution and inmany other official documents that explicitly addressgender equity. Second, the government recognizes thatalthough significant progress has been made toward

achieving gender equity, there is still more that must bedone. The 2005 amendments to China’s 1992 Law onthe Protection of Women's Rights and Interests movedwomen further along the road to full equality.

Third, there are women in China’s civil soci-ety with the capability to provide the leadership nec-essary to move a GRB initiative forward. TheAll-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) already hasa well-established record in which it has identifiedchallenges related to women's rights and interests andhas made suggestions for changes in government poli-cies that have differential gender impacts. TheACWFhas also participated in the drafting and revisions oflaws, regulations and policies which have helpedstrengthen the protection of women's rights.

And, finally, the PRC is undertaking extensivereforms of its budget process. As the budget infra-structure and process are evolving at the central leveland at local levels, there can be a place for gender-re-sponsive budget initiatives, especially in emerging de-partmental budgets. The incorporation of genderequity into the central budget as well as local govern-ment budgets could help to move China closer tomeeting its goal of full equality for men and women.

Endnotes1 The GRDI is a composite index developed by theUnited Nations Development Program (UNDP) tomeasure average achievement in the three basic di-mensions included in the UNDP human developmentindex (HDI) – a long and healthy life, knowledge, anda decent standard of living – adjusted to account forinequalities between men and women.2 The World Economic Forum is an independent in-ternational organization committed to improving thestate of the world by engaging leaders in partnershipsto shape global, regional and industry agendas.3 Information obtained in a telephone interview inAu-gust 2006 with Dr. Jinbo Wang, an Associate Profes-sor at Sanda University in Shanghai.4 Information obtained in spring 2006 in a confiden-tial telephone interview with a woman who workedfor several years for a foundation that has funded anumber of health care and other projects in China.5 Other characterizations of the levels of governmentdiffer somewhat from the five levels presented here.For example, Chen, Chen and Zhang write that thereis a “…four-layer structure in the system of local gov-ernment in China: province, large city, county andtown” (Chen et. al. 2002).6 The Congressional-Executive Commission on Chinawas created by the U.S. Congress in October 2000with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights


and the development of the rule of law in China, andto submit an annual report to the President of the U.S.and to the U.S. Congress.7 Information on the role of the NPC in the budgetprocess was obtained by the author in several tele-phone interviews with OECD staff in April 2006.

AuthorMarilyn Marks Rubin, Professor of Public Adminis-tration and Economics, John Jay College, City Uni-versity of NewYork, 445West 59th Street, NewYorkNY 10019, [email protected], Voice: (212) 237-8091, Fax: (973) 839-4232.

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41Jing • Improving Public Service Delivery in Qingdao Municipality of Shandong Province

The transition from a centrally planned economyto a market economy in China has broughtabout the emphasis on government functions

in the public service sector. In a centrally plannedeconomy, the State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) pro-vided their employees with all kinds of benefits suchas child care, medical care, pensions, housing and se-curity. After the transition to a market economic sys-tem, the SOEs would unavoidably reduce some ofthese benefits such as medical and child care due tothe urgent need to cut budgets to enhance their com-petitiveness in the market. On the other hand, in amarket economy, the SOEs might also be bankrupt,which is “a phenomenon inconceivable in a centrallyplanned economy, but quite possible in a market econ-omy” (Asian Development Bank [ADB], 2003, p. 56).Therefore, employees may face more risks than eversuch as being retrenched and the loss of pension orother welfare benefits. This situation had producedmuch pressure for the municipal governments to carryout the administrative reform for strengthening theservice delivery functions. Therefore, local govern-ment reform in the Qingdao municipality since 1999sought to improve government functions in humanservice delivery (Shandong Provincial Government,2000, p. 2).

Moreover, the transition from a planned econ-omy to a market economy in China also required thelocal government to improve its regulatory services.The market economic reform allowed the local gov-ernment to be freed from the functions of micro-man-

agement as well as enterprise management and to con-centrate on indirect macroeconomic regulation. How-ever, the increasing influence of the private sector inthe market required the local government to rely moreheavily on implementing the regulations given theseverity of the problems in the market place in China,such as unfair competition, lack of protection of in-tellectual properties and fraud which had disrupted themarket order and dampened consumers’ interests. Inthis case, the regulatory activities of local governmentbecame rapidly expansive (ADB, 2003, pp. 57-58).This expansion of regulation created a situation whereenterprises and citizens must go through many differ-ent government departments to obtain approvals fortheir private business. These cumbersome adminis-trative procedures were blamed for wasting too muchtime for foreign investors and clients; at the sametime, these procedures weakened the efficiency oflocal government.

The local government often utilized its regula-tory power to “protect or expand departmental or localinterests rather than to further develop the market. Asa result rent-seeking opportunities abound” (ADB,2003, p. 62). At the same time, the phenomenon of“sanluan (Three Unrulies)”: unruly levies (luan-shoufei), forced donations (luantanpai), and fines (lu-anfakuan) had also breached the trust of the public forthe local government. Some government agencies didnot standardize the administrative and institutionalcosts (xingzheng shiyexing shoufei) on drugs, water,power supplies and medical care, which were essen-

Improving Public Service Deliveryin Qingdao Municipalityof Shandong Province

Cui Jing, Central University of Finance and Economics, China

Abstract: This paper will assess the effectiveness of the reform of improving public service delivery and identifythe factors responsible for the improvements in public service delivery in Qingdao municipality of Shandong provincein the People’s Republic of China. This paper begins with a description of the policy context and discusses how thepolicy context affects the improvement of public service delivery in Qingdao municipality. It then discusses the ef-forts of improving the delivery of public service through enhancing human service delivery, reforming the adminis-trative approval system and increasing government transparency and public participation in Qingdao municipality.Finally, this paper will identify the factors affecting the improvement of public service delivery in Qingdao munic-ipality in terms of the decentralization of economic management, tax profit sharing with the local government, po-litical control, the delegation of law-making and the local leadership.


tial to people’s everyday lives.1 Therefore, administra-tive approval reform was carried out in the municipalgovernments to minimise the items of administrativeexamination and approval, to rationalize the adminis-trative procedure for the purpose of improvingregulatory services of government and to enhance gov-ernment efficiency (Qingdao Municipal Government,2001, p. 2).

In addition, another way of improving publicservices was to disclose government information tothe public and to encourage citizens’ participation inmonitoring local government affairs. However, beforethe economic reform in 1978, much government in-formation was listed as confidential according to thedocument of “Provisional Regulation on GuardingState Secrets” circulated in 1951. In 1988 “The Lawof the People’s Republic of China on Guarding StateSecrets” was enforced, which narrowed the scope ofnational secrets down to seven aspects including na-tional defence, diplomatic activities, national eco-nomic and social development.2 However, the scopeof confidential government information was broadand the released government information was rela-tively limited.

In this case, citizens could only get limitedgovernment information such as government newsfrom newspapers or on television. Consequently, thepublic could not monitor the decision-making processeffectively due to a lack of information and trans-parency which had hindered “attempts to hold gov-ernment accountable for the delivery of publicservices” (ADB, 2003, p. 62). Therefore, the admin-istrative reform in Qingdao city was designed to im-prove the accessibility of public information byimproving its government website (Qingdao LocalChronicles Compilation Office, 2002, p. 345).

Moreover, the lack of external scrutiny and ob-servation by the public participation in the local gov-ernment had also impeded the possible improvementof public service delivery. For a long time, contactingcitizens was only an institutionalized form of publicparticipation in China to solicit and deal with publiccomplaints (Luehrmann, 2003, p. 847). This kind ofpolitical participation, to some extent, provided thegovernments with the “chance to systematicallygather information about popular preferences and of-ficials’ behaviour” (Luehrmann, 2003, p. 848). How-ever, even contacting citizens could not fully performthe functions of scrutiny and supervision because thegovernment has manipulated this channel. Therefore,local government reform in the Qingdao municipal-ity was aimed to strengthen the level of public partic-ipation through inventing more channels of public

participation in order to improve services (Xia, 2003,pp. 15-16).

Qingdao municipality is the economic centreof Shandong province. It is a centrally-planned city(jihua danlie shi) approved by the State Council. Withrapid economic development, administrative reforminitiated by the Qingdao government has gonethrough many interesting experiences worthy of studyamong other municipalities in Shandong province.

According to the ADB (2003), public servicesin China may be classified into three major categories:“infrastructure construction and operation, includingpublic utilities; human services; and services of a reg-ulatory nature, such as registration and licensing” (p.55). Rather than discussing reform in the delivery ofinfrastructure construction, this paper will focus onthe improvement of the delivery of human servicesand services of a regulatory nature since these two as-pects constitute the core of local government reformin Qingdao city.

This paper will assess the effectiveness of thereform of improving public service delivery and iden-tify the factors responsible for the improvements inpublic service delivery in Qingdao municipality. It be-gins with a description of the policy context and dis-cusses how the policy context affects theimprovement of public service delivery in Qingdaomunicipality. It then discusses the efforts of improv-ing the delivery of public service through enhancinghuman service delivery, reforming the administrativeapproval system and increasing government trans-parency and public participation in Qingdao munici-pality. Finally, this paper will identify the factorsaffecting the improvement of public service deliveryin Qingdao municipality in terms of the decentraliza-tion of economic management, tax profit sharing withthe local government, political control, the delegationof law-making and the local leadership.

Policy ContextQingdao city is located in Shandong province, whichis situated in the eastern part of China on the lowerreaches of the Yellow River. Shandong province bor-ders the Bohai sea andYellow sea on the eastern side,and overlooks South Korea and Japan across a vaststretch of sea. Because of this geographical advantage,Shandong province is an important coastal and eco-nomic province in China. It has a land area of 156,000square kilometres and a population of 90 million(Shandong Yearbook Editorial Department, 2005).Shandong province is divided into 17 municipalities,49 districts, 31 county-level cities and 60 counties.The 17 municipalities include Jinan (capital), Qing-


dao, Yantai, Weihai, Zibo, Weifang, Tai’an, Dongy-ing, Jining, Rizhao, Liaocheng, Linyi, Laiwu, Heze,Zaozhuang, Dezhou and Binzhou (Shandong Statisti-cal Bureau, 2004, p. 3).

Qingdao city is located at the southern tip of theShandong Peninsula facing the Yellow Sea. It coversan area of 10,654 square km and has a population of7.31 million in 2006 (Qingdao Statistical Bureau,2005). It is currently divided into seven urban districts,namely, Shinan, Shibei, Sifang, Licang, Laoshan,Chengyang, Huangdao, and five county-level cities,namely, Jimo, Jiaozhou, Jiaonian, Pingdu, and Laixi(Qingdao Local Chronicles Compilation Office, 2003).

Compared to other municipalities in Shandongprovince, Qingdao city is a relatively young city witha history of 114 years. It became a German colony in1897 after the OpiumWar and was occupied by Japanin 1914 during the First WorldWar. Its short but com-plicated history of being colonized by foreign coun-tries had prepared the Qingdao people in terms ofinteracting with other cultures. This interactive rela-tionship with other cultures was accelerated afterDeng Xiaoping’s 1978 reform which exposed Chinato the outside world. Thus, Qingdao’s characteristicof being open-minded has made its government offi-cials more open to accepting new ideas of economicmanagement and government administration thanother municipalities.

Qingdao city is also the business centre ofShandong province. Its coastal location enables Qing-dao city to undertake foreign trade more conveniently.Consequently, it is one of the five major ports for for-eign trade in China. According to the survey of eco-nomic competitiveness of 17 cities in Shandongprovince, Qingdao city was ranked first in terms ofthe economic development level in 2001.3 In 2005,Qingdao’s economic performance was still rankednumber one in Shandong province. Its GDPwas RMB269.54 billion and overseas investment was USD 3.66billion (Qingdao Local Chronicles Compilation Of-fice, 2006, pp. 25-26).

Qingdao’s strong economic power has facili-tated the implementation of economic and adminis-trative reforms. Obviously, a city with strongeconomic power will have more revenue to improvecity infrastructure and social security.4 With regard tocity infrastructure, Qingdao government investedRMB 1985.02 million in 2002 for capital construction(Qingdao Statistical Bureau, 2003, p. 93). As for so-cial relief, the minimal living security standard forurban residents in Qingdao city was RMB 230 permonth in 2005, which ranked first among 17 cities inShandong province.5

Improving PublicService Delivery

Improving Public Service DeliveryAccording to the ADB, improving human service de-livery resulted from the fact that with the transitionfrom a planned economy to a market economy, workunits6 would no longer provide human services for thecitizens in terms of education, health and social secu-rity (ADB, 2003, p. 56). Moreover, the local govern-ment could hardly provide sufficient human servicesdue to the lack of funding (Li, 2004, p. 258). Drawingfrom international experience, the local governmentsin China mainly implemented privatization, whichwas primarily aimed to attract more resources fromsociety to supplement the public school and the uni-versity system, and to share the responsibility of im-proving the quality of human service and relievingtheir own financial stress.

With regard to privatization in education, theQingdao government was dedicated to attracting moreresources from the society to supplement the publicschool and the university system, an approach called“shehui liliang banxue.” In primary and secondary ed-ucation, the government encouraged investors to setup private schools by providing them with preferentialpolicies. These policies have made it possible for theinvestors to gain profits by investing in privateschools while having the status of an authorized edu-cational institution approved by the government(Qingdao Local Chronicles Compilation Office, 2003,p. 231). By the end of 2002, the total number of stu-dents in private schools of Qingdao city reached126,600, contributing to 0.17 per cent in the totalnumber of students in public primary and secondaryschools (Qingdao Local Chronicles Compilation Of-fice, 2003, p. 231).

In the field of higher education, private col-leges and universities had emerged in Qingdao cityincreasingly. This measure allowed more students,who could not meet the admission criteria of morewell-established public universities, to enroll in pri-vate colleges or universities to receive higher educa-tion. In 1999, the number of enrolment in universitiesper 10,000 persons in Qingdao city was 48 studentsand in 2003 it had increased to 234 students (QingdaoStatistical Bureau, 2000, 2003) (See Table 1).

The privatization of education has forced citi-zens to bear more financial responsibilities on theirown in receiving education, which relieved the gov-ernment from financial stress to a certain extent. Since1998, the Ministry of Education has allowed that


Qingdao Ocean University to charge higher tuitionfees. From then on, all public universities in Qingdaocity started to charge or raise tuition fees which werefree previously.

Similarly, in regard to social security andhealth care, the Qingdao government introduced a re-sponsibility sharing system, where the government,employers, and employees all made their contributionto the employees’welfare package. Pension insurance,medical insurance and unemployment insurance arethe three basic types of insurance that are covered bythis system (Qingdao Local Chronicles CompilationOffice, 2003, pp. 268-269). However, the distributionmodel has yet to be established to determine to whatextent employers, employees and the governmentshould pay for the insurance premium until the pres-ent time. The current situation is that the municipalgovernments in Shandong province have differentpolicies for distributing the insurance premium amongthe local government, employers and employees.

The only confirmed matter in this reform wasthat employees would pay for the major part of the in-surance premium, although in rich areas the local gov-ernment or profitable enterprises would cover a largerproportion of the insurance premium for their em-ployees. This led to different coverage rates of insur-ance among different cities. Among 17 cities inShandong province, the coverage rates of pension in-surance of urban employees in Qingdao city was thehighest, 86.30% in 2004 (Shandong Statistical Bu-reau, 2005).

For instance, in the villages of Laoshan districtin Qingdao city, the village and Laoshan district payup to 30 per cent of pension and medical insurancepremium for farmers who would only need to pay forthe remaining 70 per cent. If farmers in these villagesare 60 years old for a man or 55 years old for awoman, they could receive RMB 352 per month astheir pension and RMB 1,000 as an additional sub-sidy, which would be paid in full by the district gov-ernment and the village.7 In contrast, in some villages

in Linyi city, Heze city and Liaocheng city, the poorerareas in Shandong, farmers would have to pay thetotal insurance premium since the county and villagewould not have sufficient funds for paying the insur-ance premium. Not surprisingly, in these poorer areas,it was very difficult to persuade farmers to pay for theinsurance premium since most of them, living inpoverty or just above the poverty line, would not wantto pay additional money for the insurance premium,which was often considered unnecessary.

Apart from the process of privatization, whathas attracted wide attention has been the establish-ment by the Qingdao government in 2004 of a newurban and rural social security system, called the“Sunshine Aid Project” (yangguang jiuzhugongcheng) to ensure transparency, openness, fair-ness, and kindness (wennuan) in this system (Qing-dao Civil Affairs Bureau, 2004). The aim of thisproject was to provide more assistance of social se-curity for the poor rather than only focusing on deliv-ering the poor from starvation, and to openly andfairly distribute the limited funds of social security inthe districts and villages of Qingdao city.8

The “Sunshine Aid Project” has devised fivemechanisms for improving social security: (1) the“four category administrative mechanism” which con-sists of city, district (county), street (township/town),and neighbourhood (village) committees; (2) the“household eligibility evaluation mechanism” whichinvestigates pensioners’ income and living conditions;(3) the “procedure standardization mechanism” whichregulates every step of the social security processfrom application to approval; (4) the “classificationmechanism” which provides different services ac-cording to pensioners’ individual and family condi-tions; and (5) the “supervision mechanism” whichincorporates citizens, social security inspectors andthe media (Qingdao Civil Affairs Bureau, 2004).

The project has also proposed multiple meth-ods for providing social security. Apart from meetingthe basic living needs of the poor people, the Qing-

Table 1: Student Enrolment in Tertiary Education in Qingdao Municipality, 1999-2003

Source: Qingdao Statistical Bureau (2000-2004), Qingdao tongji nianjian 2000-2004 [Qingdao Statistical Yearbook 2000-2004], Beijing:Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2000-2003, p. 17 (2000), p. 15 (2001), p. 15 (2002), p. 35 (2003), p. 16 (2004).


dao Civil Affairs Bureau has explored several meth-ods for enhancing the connections between the urbanand the rural social security system in terms of grant-ing temporary aid, housing, health, and education aid,and private mutual aid.

By the end of November 2004, the Qingdaomunicipal government had spent RMB 60.55 millionto provide social security for over 15,870 householdsand 37,110 persons in urban areas of Qingdao city,which accounted for 1.5 percent of its total popula-tion (Qingdao Civil Affairs Bureau, 2004). In thissense, the establishment of the “Sunshine Aid Proj-ect” safeguarded basic living conditions for the poorpeople in urban and rural areas and guaranteed familyand social stability to some extent. More important, itis a good example to show how the Qingdao govern-ment is trying to take care of its citizens’ interests andthe vulnerable communities in the society.

Reforming Administrative Examinationand Approval SystemAdministrative approval reform was carried out forthe purpose of solving the problem of the expansion ofregulation, which had not only wasted too much timefor foreign investors and clients but also had weak-ened the efficiency of local government. Moreover, itwas an imperative task for the local government tochange the administrative examination and approvalsystem. This was because numerous approval and li-censing requirements had empowered the governmentagencies to make decisions for private firms and forthe market, which had generated many rent-seekingopportunities for the agencies accordingly (Yang,2004, p. 152).

Therefore, in 1999, the Qingdao governmentrequested the government agencies to reduce the itemsof administrative examination and approval and tosimplify and standardize the procedures of examina-tion and approval (Qingdao Municipal Government,2001, p. 2). This reform focused on two aspects: re-ducing government intervention and rationalizing ad-ministrative procedure.

Reducing government intervention has takenthe form of narrowing down the scope of examinationand approval and limiting the agencies’ power. TheQingdao, government eliminated the administrativeapproval items which were in conflict with the rules ofWTO such as the approval of financial registration forforeign invested enterprises, the check on the ac-counting of revenue and expenditure for foreign in-vested enterprises9 and the examination on directimport and export for the industrial enterprises. TheQingdao government also eliminated the items which

could not be adapted to the separation of local gov-ernment from the enterprises, such as the approval ofthe merger and bankruptcy of enterprises under the ju-risdiction of the municipal government and the ex-amination of a changing equity structure ofshare-holding enterprises approved by the municipalgovernment (Qingdao Municipal Government, 2001,p. 2). As a result, through the reform, the administra-tive approval items in the Qingdao government werereduced by 70.63%, which indicated that the Qingdaogovernment had reduced the most administrative ap-proval items among the 17 municipalities in Shan-dong province (Qingdao Local ChroniclesCompilation Office, 2002, p. 243).

This is not surprising as the Qingdao govern-ment had faced more pressure than other municipalgovernments in Shandong province in terms of re-ducing government intervention so as to attract moreforeign investment. After China’s entry into WTO,more and more foreign investors came to Shandongprovince to establish factories and Qingdao city wasalways the most favoured city with its status as theeconomic centre of Shandong.

The Qingdao government had also set up sev-eral effective service models such as the one-stopshops (yizhanshi fuwu) and the government affairshall (zhengwu dating), “physically concentrating re-lated units so that customers can go through all for-malities in a single designated place” (ADB, 2003, p.58). One-stop shops were established for the purposeof reducing costs and enhancing efficiency as well ascustomer service. Citizens and enterprises, especiallyforeign invested enterprises in Qingdao city could getthe examination and approval from government agen-cies more easily and quickly than before. These agen-cies including the Local Taxation Bureau, theAdministration for Industry and Commerce, the En-vironmental Protection Bureau and the Health Bureau,opened representative offices in the government af-fairs hall (Qingdao Local Chronicles Compilation Of-fice, 2003, p. 86). Such one-stop shops (yizhanshifuwu) and the government affairs hall (zhengwu dat-ing) provided a model for other cities in Shandongprovince, such as Linyi, Laiwu and Zibo.

Government Transparencyand Public ParticipationA lack of transparency would hinder citizens frommonitoring the decision-making process carried outby the government (ADB, 2003, p. 62). Therefore, theQingdao municipal government aims to improve thelevel of local government transparency and publicparticipation. Zhang Huilai, the Secretary of the Qing-


dao municipal Committee of the CCP, had requiredgovernments at all levels to double their efforts to-wards the goal of making government affairs trans-parent to the public in order to ensure that this systemcould be institutionalized and become a regular prac-tice (Qingdao Local Chronicles Compilation Office,2002, p. 345). The establishment of the governmentinformation website is an important step forward forimproving public information in Qingdao city.

According to the “Results of the Effectivenessof Municipal Government Websites” issued by theState Council Informatization Office of China in2005, the Qingdao government’s website is rankedfirst in China (State Council Informatization Office ofChina, 2005). This is because its government websiteprovides the most comprehensive, detailed andprompt government information to the public, whichhas established its reputation for being transparent, ef-ficient and close to its people (State Council In-formatization Office of China, 2005). Thisgovernment website not only provides general infor-mation such as government documents, regulations,statistical data, department information and govern-ment news, but also such important information aspersonnel appointment and removal, government pro-curement, and financial revenue and expenditure. Fur-thermore, the Qingdao government website updatesthe content of government information frequently sothat the public can receive government informationon a regular basis (State Council Informatization Of-fice of China, 2005). More specifically, the level ofopenness of government information on the Qingdaogovernment website is the highest among 333 Chi-nese municipal governments. For example, regardinggovernment bidding, the Qingdao government’s web-site provides very detailed information including bidproposals, the name of enterprise which has won a bidand the date when the bid was won.

A transparent government also means trans-parency in the civil service system. With the promul-gation of the “Provisional Regulations on NationalCivil Servants” (guojia gongwuyuan zanxing tiaoli)in 1993, the Qingdao government has implementedthe open recruitment examination system by requir-ing all newly recruited civil servants to pass an ex-amination and announcing their names on the localgovernment websites. The Qingdao government hasalso carried out the cadre selection process with anopen and fair competition (gongkai xuanba lingdaoganbu) since 1999. The system of pre-appointmentannouncement (renqian gongshi zhidu) is also popu-lar in cadre appointment in recent years. However,guanxi (personal connections) and houmen (back door

practices) practices have hindered the implementationof these systems and the sale and purchase of officialpositions has further eroded the principle of cadre se-lection through an open and fair competition in Qing-dao city.10 Therefore, achieving governmenttransparency is a long-term goal of local governmentreform in China.

In addition to improving government trans-parency, the lack of public scrutiny in local govern-ment affairs also impeded the improvement of publicservice delivery. In this case, the Qingdao govern-ment opened numerous channels for broader publicparticipation in order to improve government serv-ices in 1999.

One channel was to solicit and deal with pub-lic complaints through letters and telephone calls,which was a continuation of the “correspondence andvisit system” (xinfang zhidu) established in the 1950s.The contents of public complaints often varied fromcommunity relations, public service, economic liveli-hood, to political affairs and appeals (Luehrmann,2003, pp. 861-865). Since the mid-1990s, in additionto writing complaint letters to the relevant bureau andmaking personal visits to the bureau, people could usemore channels to express complaints, such as sendingletters to the media or call various “hotlines”(Luehrmann, 2003, p. 846). After 1999, the Qingdaomunicipality established the Mayor public telephoneand Mayor email box to handle complaints, protestsand consultation. By the end of 2001, the Mayor pub-lic telephone and e-mail box of Qingdao city had re-ceived 119,398 letters and calls from variousinstitutions and citizens, and 90% of these letters andcalls were answered by the mayor and the leaders ofrelated government departments (Qingdao LocalChronicles Compilation Office, 2003, p. 57).

However, the communication of a complaintbetween the government official and citizens does notnecessarily lead to the resolution of the problem.Sometimes, the complaints made by people “are oftenmishandled by leaders, being ignored at best and ma-nipulated at worst” (Luehrmann, 2003, p. 866).Luehrmann (2003) argued that “leaders attempt tolimit input from the masses, by specifying formal re-strictions on group complaints and by making it po-litically difficult to pursue sensitive grievances” (p.846). Nonetheless, the voices of citizens had indeedprovided important information to “help local leadersunderstand the sources of popular discontent, and pos-sibly even discern avenues for heading off problemsor even full-blown crises” (Luehrmann, 2003, p. 865).

In this case, local government in China mustnot only widen the methods of receiving public com-


plaints but also take the problems raised by citizensseriously. Fortunately, since the 1999 reform, theQingdao municipality started to resolve the problemsraised by citizens. For instance, the Qingdao govern-ment and the broadcasting stations in Qingdao cityhad jointly set up hot lines for public complaints.Since this kind of communication was in the form ofa live one-on-one conversation, the local leaders whowere responsible for answering particular questionsneeded to respond to the audience’s enquiries imme-diately. This kind of communication has proven to bemore effective than other communication channels(letters, visits and email) in settling public com-plaints.11

Secondly, Qingdao city is the first city in Chinato conduct public hearings on the pricing system(Qingdao Local Chronicles Compilation Office, 2003,pp. 101-102, 197-200, 212-213 & 227). The publichearing on the pricing system established a newmech-anism which involved the local government, man-agers of monopoly trade and customers. It had alsoprovided a way for citizens to participate in the deci-sion-making process. In 2000, the citizens invited tothe public hearing meetings on collecting fees in pri-mary and secondary schools in Qingdao city had suc-cessfully persuaded the schools to reduce some of theunauthorized fees (Zhang, 2005, pp. 3-12). This caseshowed that this kind of public hearing meeting hadcontributed to the enhancement of citizens’ participa-tion. Yet, it was still a preliminary step because thesepublic hearings only focused on the issues of publicutilities such as adjusting water prices and taxi sur-charges. More important subjects such as governmentdecisions, administrative law enforcement and procu-ratorate affairs were yet to be discussed.

Moreover, in other cities, those citizens whowere invited to attend public hearing meetings did notrepresent a consensus among all citizens. For instance,in 2002, the public hearing meeting on increasing busfare was held by the Jinan12 Price Control Bureau.Twenty eight representatives were selected to partic-ipate in this meeting. Among these representatives,nine representatives were senior government officialsfrom different bureaus. Among the other 19 customerrepresentatives, there was only one grass-root cus-tomer and the other 18 were company managers,scholars, senior engineers, representatives of the Peo-ple’s Congress, and members of the Municipal Com-mittee of the Chinese People’s Political ConsultativeConference, who enjoyed higher social status and hadrarely used any public transportation (Song, 2002). Inthis case, it was understandable that the result of thepublic hearing was an increase in the bus fare. There-

fore, many public hearing meetings that intended toevaluate the price had ironically become the meansfor “increasing price” after these public hearings.

Finally, Qingdao municipality is the only cityin Shandong province to encourage more citizens tobe involved in the process of policy-making. Thisform of public participation was first carried out in theQingdao Civil Affairs Bureau. To prevent opaque ad-ministration (anxiang caozuo), the “Sunshine AidProject” in the civil affairs bureau established a socialsecurity evaluation committee to discuss whether theapplicants for social security met the standards forpensioners. This committee included applicants forsocial security, accredited deputies of the NationalPeople’s Congress in the community, members of thePolitical Consultation Congress in the community, thesupervisor of social security from the civil affairs bu-reau of district government, officials of social secu-rity from the neighbourhood residents’ committee andthe street affairs agency, as well as representatives ofresidents including the neighbours of the applicantsand the administrator of the applicants’ residence(Qingdao Civil Affairs Bureau, 2004, pp. 2-4). Thisprompted a self-governing function of the neighbour-hood committee and reduced problems caused byopaque administration.

Factors Affecting the Improvementof Public Service Delivery

Decentralization of Economic ManagementThe central government gradually extended its eco-nomic management authority over the municipal gov-ernment for the purpose of establishing themanagement system of a national economy centredon the city. In 1983, the State Council approved 14cities13 as centrally-planned cities (jihua danlie shi)because of their important economic status. A prefec-ture of China must meet the following four criteria tobecome a centrally-planned city: (1) an urban centrewith a non-rural population over 1,000,000; (2) anAn-nual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of over 15 bil-lion RMB; (3) a well-established foundation forindustry and business reinforced by strong technologypower; and (4) playing a significant role in economicdevelopment and reform in China (“Definition ofCentrally-planned City,” 2006). The 14 cities had botheconomic management and fiscal management au-tonomy at the provincial level (Xie et al., 1998, p. 71;Fu, Yuan & Rui, 2004, p. 223). Qingdao city is theonly city approved as a centrally-planned city in Shan-dong province. In this case, Qingdao city enjoys both


the economic and fiscal management autonomy at theprovincial level.

The Qingdao government has economic man-agement authority at the provincial level in areas suchas granting approval in investment and collectingtaxes. According to the Income Tax Law of the Peo-ple’s Republic of China for Enterprises with ForeignInvestment and Foreign Enterprises (1991),

The income tax on enterprises with for-eign investment and the income taxwhich shall be paid by foreign enter-prises on the income of their establish-ments or places set up in China toengage in production or business opera-tions shall be computed on the taxableincome at the rate of thirty percent, andlocal income tax shall be computed onthe taxable income at the rate of threepercent (article 5).

However, for the income tax on enterpriseswith foreign investment of a production nature estab-lished in the coastal economic open zones, where theSpecial Economic Zones (SEZs) or the Economic andTechnological Development Zones (ETDZs) are lo-cated, shall be levied at a reduced rate of 24%.15Thus,foreign enterprises in the SEZs or ETDZs of Qingdaocity is eligible for privileged tax policies. Since othercities in Shandong province do not have the samelevel of authority over economic management, for-eign enterprises cannot enjoy these preferential poli-cies. Consequently, most of these enterprises havecongregated in the coastal and open cities, such asQingdao city, instead of inland cities, such as Dezhouand Linyi cities in Shandong province. In addition, thelimit in examining and granting approval to foreigninvestment has been increased to US$100 million inQingdao city after they are promoted as sub-provin-cial cities whereas the other municipal governmentsexcept the Jinan government in Shandong provincestill have to struggle within these limitations (Shan-dong Provincial Government, 2005). Thus, Qingdaocity has experienced faster development than otherregular cities in Shandong province. Its strong eco-nomic foundation has contributed to the improvementof public service delivery in the education, health, andsocial security sectors.

Taxation Sharing with the Local GovernmentThe central government has carried out chuizhi guanli(hierarchical control through vertical administration)in the taxation system from the central to county levelafter 1998. Before implementing this measure, the tax-

ation law has stated that the local governments at var-ious levels should strengthen their leadership in the ad-ministration of tax collection within their jurisdictionsand support the tax authorities in carrying out their du-ties in tax collection.16 Chuizhi guanli means that theTaxation Bureau at every level should be under the ju-risdiction of a higher level Taxation Bureau in all theaspects of the organizational structuring, staff recruit-ment, appointment of leaders, and budgeting.

According to the chuizhi guanli system, theQingdao State Taxation Bureau is directly under the ju-risdiction of the StateAdministration of Taxation ratherthan the Provincial State Taxation Bureau since Qing-dao city as a centrally-planned city has fiscal manage-ment authority at the provincial level. The QingdaoLocal Taxation Bureau is directly under the jurisdictionof the municipal government instead of the provincialgovernment. Therefore, the Qingdao government en-joys muchmore autonomy in the management of fiscalrevenue and expenditure than other municipal govern-ments in Shandong province. Consequently, more fi-nancial revenue has been transferred to the municipalcoffers in Qingdao city whereas in other cities of Shan-dong province, most of the local financial revenue istransferred to the provincial and central coffers.

Political ControlApart from economic decentralization, the centralgovernment has also strengthened its political controlover the local government through the nomenklaturasystem. The term nomenklatura comes from the for-mer USSR, a notion that consists of “lists of leadingpositions over which party units exercise the powerof appointment and dismissal, lists of reserve candi-dates for those positions, and rules governing the ac-tual processes of appointments and dismissals”(Lieberthal, 2004, p. 234).

The 1990 nomenklatura had given the centralauthority control over sub-provincial level chiefs,“adding the positions of prefectural bureau chief anddeputy chief to the central Organization Department’sscope of management” (Burns, 1994, pp. 468-469).The Organization Department has strengthened its su-pervision of appointment and removal of heads anddeputy heads of prefectures and prefecture-level cities(Burns, 1994, p. 469). More specifically, the nomen-klatura has extended the CCP’s personnel authorityto China’s five centrally planned cities includingQingdao and 15 sub-provincial level cities. Accord-ing to Burns:

This move can be seen as a further lim-ited re-centralization of nomenklatura


authority. The change may have beenprompted by appeals from city officialswho sought to reduce the influence ofprovincial leaders in municipal affairs.As a result of the change, city officialshad direct access to Beijing (Burns,1994, p. 469).

The mayor of a centrally-planned city or a sub-provincial city such as Qingdao city is equal in polit-ical status to a vice-governor of a province, who isappointed by the central authority directly. In contrast,the mayor of a prefecture-level city such as Zibo cityin Shandong province is equal in status to a bureauchief in a province or a vice-mayor in a sub-provinciallevel city, who is appointed by the provincial author-ity. In this case, leaders in the Qingdao governmentare more acquainted with the central government thanthe ones in the prefecture-level government since theyare directly appointed by the central government.

Burns (1994) has observed that in the relation-ship between the provincial and central governments,“top Party leaders select provincial (and military) of-ficials, [and] they in turn, through their membership ofthe CCPCentral Committee, select the top Party lead-ers. Central and provincial leaders are thereforecaught in a relationship of interdependence” (p. 470).Burns (1994) has also pointed out that “Deng Xiaop-ing’s early 1980s strategy of ‘playing to the provinces’to build a coalition of support for reform and create apolitical counterweight to the central bureaucracystrengthened the hand of [the] provincial leaders vis-à-vis the Centre” (p. 470). The relationship between asub-provincial city and the central government is quitesimilar to the relationship between a provincial gov-ernment and the central government. Through the po-litical control over the sub-provincial cities and withincreased trust between the central and sub-provincialgovernments, the central government has given moresupport to the Qingdao government for their adminis-trative reforms. With the central government’s sup-port, the Qingdao government has been encouragedto implement innovative reform measures like the“Sunshine Aid Project.”

Delegation of Law-makingAccording to the Organic Law of the Local People’sCongresses and Local People’s Governments of thePeople’s Republic of China, local governments at thelevels of province, autonomous region and centrallyadministered municipalities (zhixiashi) can establishregulations based on various laws such as the admin-istrative laws and the local laws. The municipalities,

which are the bases of the provincial and autonomousregion governments, and larger municipalities (jiaodade shi) approved by the State Council such as the sub-provincial level city, can establish regulations ac-cording to the administrative laws and local laws.17Local governments at the township level, however, donot have the authority to establish these regulations.

The legislative system in China has four tiers.The first tier is the National People’s Congress (NPC)and the second tier is the State Council and its subor-dinate units. The third tier is the People’s Congressand government at the provincial level and the fourthtier is the People’s Congress and government of thesub-provincial city (Xie et al., 1998, p.88).

According to these four categories of the leg-islative system, the People’s Congress and governmentat the Qingdao municipality have the authority to es-tablish local laws and regulations based on their localcontexts. In contrast, the People’s Congress and gov-ernment at the prefecture-level city have little authorityto formulate local laws and regulations. Indeed, the ab-sence of specific local laws to meet the needs of localeconomic and administrative management in prefec-ture-level cities has caused much confusion on someissues in local government reform and has delayed theprocess of solving problems, which has in return hin-dered the development of their local economy.

For instance, social insurance is a relativelynew matter for farmers in the process of local gov-ernment reform. Until now, there are only generalrules rather than specific laws on this matter in China.This lack of detailed regulations has caused manyproblems, such as the evaluation on the amount of in-surance premium to be collected by the local govern-ment in the process of providing social insurance forfarmers. In this case, it is urgent for local governmentsto issue relevant laws by themselves. The Qingdaogovernment has issued the “Provisional Regulationson Basic Pension for Farmers” in 2005 and manyfarmers have benefited from this regulation. For in-stance, in the villages of the Laoshan district in Qing-dao city, almost 90% of the farmers have boughtpension insurance by paying 70% of the premiumthemselves with the remaining 30% being paid by thevillages and Laoshan district. When these farmersreach 60 years of age for men or 55 for women, theywill receive RMB 352 each per month as pension andRMB 1,000 as an additional subsidy.

Therefore, the authority in formulating locallaws in Qingdao city has facilitated its administrativereform since its government can formulate new locallaws to satisfy the need for local economic and ad-ministrative management.


Local LeadershipWith regard to the local leadership in the 17 cities ofShandong province, the leaders in Qingdao city arethe most famous for their creative and dynamic re-form measures. One of the famous leaders is YuZhengsheng. Even now, Qingdao people have praisedthe work of Yu, the former mayor and former secre-tary of the Qingdao municipal committee of the CCP18 and attributed the achievements in economic andadministrative reform to him.19

From 1989 to 1994, Yu was the mayor of Qing-dao city and from 1992 to 1997, he was the secretaryof the Qingdao municipal committee of the CCP. Dur-ing his term of office, he claimed that Qingdao gov-ernment officials should liberate their minds andchange their attitudes to embrace a market economicsystem (Yu, 1996, pp. 1-6). In the “1993 Qingdao Gov-ernment Work Report,” Yu (1993) indicated that theQingdao government at all levels should concentrateon performing overall planning, coordinating, provid-ing services, and supervising functions so as to pro-vide better services for the enterprises and the public.

Because of Yu’s work, Qingdao city has devel-oped quickly since 1998. His successor, ZhangHuilai,20 was appointed as the first party secretary ofthe Qingdao municipality in 1997.Wang Jiarui,21 wasappointed to be the mayor of Qingdao municipality in1998. Since then, administrative reform in Qingdaomunicipality has been further accelerated.

Wang received his Ph.D. in economics fromFudan University and he is called the “doctor mayor.”As a researcher himself, Wang understands that themain problem in establishing a modern enterprise sys-tem in China is the lack of a clear boundary betweenthe functions of government and enterprises (zhengqibufen). Therefore, he has made efforts in reformingthe SOEs in Qingdao city and indicated that the gov-ernment functions should catch up with the SOE re-form (Wang, 2000, pp. 11-12). More specifically,Wang has stressed the importance of education beinga scholar himself. During his administrative period,Wang has claimed that a modern and international cityshould not only include a good city infrastructure anda developed economy, but also the morality of its cit-izens, which represents the real core of a city. For thispurpose, he has requested the Qingdao Education Bu-reau to initiate the programme of moral education inelementary schools, middle schools and universities(Wang, 2000, p. 12).

Zhang is another effective secretary of Qing-dao city after Yu. Like Yu, before taking the positionas the mayor of Qingdao city, Zhang was the secre-tary of the Dezhou municipal committee of the CCP in

Shandong province from December 1992 to August1995 and he was the secretary of Shandong Provin-cial Political and LegislativeAffairs Committee of theCCP from August 1995 to January 1996. In October1997, Zhang was appointed as the secretary of theQingdao municipal committee (Qingdao LocalChronicles Compilation Office, 2000, p. 309).

In 2002, Jiang Zemin stepped down from hisposition and Hu Jintao was appointed as the GeneralSecretary of the CCP. Hu (2004) suggested the newidea of “Putting People First” (yi min wei ben) for thegovernment administration. Following Hu’s idea,Zhang is the first municipal leader in Shandongprovince to introduce the idea of “service-orientedgovernment” for administrative reform (QingdaoLocal Chronicles Compilation Office, 2002, p. 345).During Zhang’s term of office, the Qingdao govern-ment has carried out “five projects” (wuxianggongcheng) in the government management systemto change the government officials’ attitudes to publicservice and enhance the overall effectiveness of thegovernment departments. The Qingdao governmentleaders have responded faster in accepting and apply-ing new administrative concepts than other cities inShandong province, and this explains why the Qing-dao government has excelled in public service deliv-ery sector.

FromWang to Zhang, the Qingdao governmenthas actively promoted the level of government trans-parency. Wang is the first mayor in China to establishthe Mayor email box to handle complaints and con-sultations, which has helped citizens out of difficul-ties and strengthened the connection between them.Zhang has also encouraged citizens to be involved inthe decision-making process in important public af-fairs. Therefore, during Wang and Zhang’s adminis-trative periods, the number of cases in public hearingsis increased as well as the level of transparency withinthe government.

ConclusionCompared with other municipalities in Shandongprovince, the status of being a business centre and itsopen-minded characteristic has helped the Qingdaogovernment in implementing administrative reform.

Borrowing from international experiences, theQingdao government adopted the measure of privati-zation in improving the education services. Moreover,in the social security and health care sectors, a uni-form social security system needed to be establishedin Shandong province for the purpose of providingpension, medical and unemployment insurances. Yet,due to a regional disparity in development, the Qing-


dao government was able to accomplish more in im-proving the service delivery sector in the social secu-rity system through the “SunshineAid Project,” whilethe other municipal governments in Shandongprovince lagged behind.

Administrative approval reform improved theadministrative examination system in Qingdao mu-nicipality. The Qingdao government minimised theadministrative approval items by 70 per cent, thehighest rate among 17 municipalities in Shandongprovince. This reform had also simplified the proce-dures of granting administrative approval througheliminating duplication and setting time limits.

Since 1999, the Qingdao government increasedthe level of government transparency and public par-ticipation. Compared with the websites of other mu-nicipal governments in Shandong province, theQingdao government website played an important rolein providing comprehensive and timely information tothe public. Nevertheless, the objective of achievinggovernment transparency was not institutionalized.

With regard to public participation, the Qing-dao government adopted numerous forms of publicparticipation to improve their services. These forms in-cluded soliciting and dealing with public complaints,organizing public hearings and encouraging citizens tobe involved in the process of policy-making. TheQingdao government had started to organize morepublic hearing meetings in government decision-mak-ing and administrative law enforcement. However, thelocal government should have invited more grass-rootscitizens to participate in these public hearing meetingsand should have valued their opinions more seriously.Among the 17 municipalities in Shandong province,only the Qingdao government enhanced the level ofpublic participation by inviting the public to be in-volved in the process of policy-making.

Why has the Qingdao government achieved somuch in terms of improvement of public service de-livery? The decentralization of economic management,tax profit sharing with the local government, politicalcontrol, the delegation of law-making and the localleadership have played important roles in influencingthe improvement of public service delivery in Qing-dao municipality. Qingdao city is approved as a cen-trally-planned city, and enjoys both provincial fiscaland economic management autonomy. The preferentialpolicies and special authority for the centrally-plannedcity have encouraged Qingdao city to promote admin-istrative reform. In addition, the top leaders in Qingdaocity are more open-minded in accepting and applyingnew administrative concepts and initiating more inno-vative reform measures than the other municipal gov-

ernments in Shandong province, and enable the Qing-dao government to be the most effective municipalityin providing service for enterprises and the society.

Notes1 Interview with an official of Government Set-up De-partment of Qingdao Personnel Bureau, 23 June 2005.2Article 8, The Law of the People’s Republic of Chinaon Guarding State Secrets, adopted at the Third Meet-ing of the Standing Committee of the Seventh Na-tional People’s Congress of the People’s Republic ofChina on 5 September 1988.3 This survey utilized 29 indicators in seven fields tocomprehensively evaluate the urbanization level oftotal 17 Shandong cities and set up the rank of com-petitiveness of 17 cities. For more details, see Shan-dong Statistical Bureau (2002, September 4), 17chengshi jingzhengli diaocha yu paihang [The Reportof Survey of Competitiveness of 17 Cities in ShandongProvince], Dazhong ribao [Dazhong Daily], p. A1.4 Interview with the dean of General Office of Qing-dao Urban Administrative Bureau, 22 June 2005.5 Interview with the director of Social Relief Depart-ment of Qingdao Civil Affairs Bureau, 20 June 2005.6 The work units in China include government agen-cies, state-owned enterprises and public institutions.7 Interview with an official of Qingdao Labour andSocial Security Bureau, 22 June 2005.8 Interview with the Director and Section Chiefs ofSocial Relief Department of Qingdao Civil AffairsBureau, 20 June 2005.9 The two items of the approval of financial registra-tion for foreign invested enterprises and the check onthe accounting of revenue and expenditure for foreigninvested enterprises were transferred from the ap-proval and examination item to the item of putting onfile by municipal government.10 Interview with an official of Government Set-upDepartment of Qingdao Personnel Bureau, 23 June2005.11 Interview with an official of Government Set-upDepartment of Qingdao Personnel Bureau, 23 June2005.12 Jinan city is the capital of Shandong province.13 These 14 centrally-planned cities are Chongqing,Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shenyang, Nanjing, Wuhan,Ha’erbin, Xi’an, Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen, Ningbo,Chengdu, and Changchun.14 The management autonomy includes industry andagriculture production, transportation, post andtelecommunications, investment in fixed assets, sales,purchases and the distribution of main commodities,the distribution of energy and raw materials, import


and export in foreign trade, labour salary, technolog-ical development planning, foreign exchange alloca-tion and financial credit.15 Article 7 of “Income Tax Law of the People’s Re-public of China for Enterprises with Foreign Invest-ment and Foreign Enterprises, ” adopted at the FourthSession of the Seventh National People’s Congress on9 April 1991.16 Article 5 of “The Law of the People’s Republic ofChina Concerning the Administration of Tax Collec-tion,” implemented on 1 January 1993.17 Article 60 of The Organic Law of the Local Peo-ple’s Congresses and Local People’s Governments ofthe People’s Republic of China, amended in 2004 andapproved by the 12th Session of the Standing Com-mittee of the 10th National People’s Congress.18 In October 1997, Yu Zhengsheng was promoted tobecome the Vice Minister, Vice Party Secretary ofMinistry of Construction of China. In March 1998, hewas promoted to be the Minister and Party Secretaryof Ministry of Construction of China. In November2001, Yu Zhengsheng was appointed as the Secretaryof Hubei Provincial Committee of the CCP and in No-vember 2002, he was promoted to become a memberof the Political Bureau of the CCPCentral Committee.19 Interview with the Director of Social Relief Depart-ment of Qingdao Civil Affairs Bureau, 20 June 2005;the Dean of General Office of Qingdao Urban PublicUtility Administrative Bureau, 21 June 2005; An offi-cial of Qingdao Labour and Social Security Bureau,22 June 2005; An official of Government Set-up De-partment of Qingdao Personnel Bureau, 23 June 2005.20 Zhang Huilai was the Secretary of the Qingdao Mu-nicipal Committee of the CCP from October 1997 toJanuary 2003.21 Wang Jiarui was promoted as the Vice Head of In-ternational Department of Central Committee CCP in2001 and was appointed as the Head of InternationalDepartment of Central Committee CCP in 2003.

AuthorCui Jing, Ph.D., is Lecturer of Public Administrationat the School of Government Administration in Cen-tral University of Finance and Economics, Beijing,China. She earned her Ph.D. degree in the Depart-ment of Political Science at the National Universityof Singapore in 2007. She obtained her M.A. degreein Public Administration from Renmin University ofChina in 2003. Her research and teaching interestsfocus on civil service reform, local government, localinnovation, local governance and public policy in ed-ucation, health and social security in China. She canbe reached at [email protected]. Mailing address:

School of Government Administration, Central Uni-versity of Finance and Economics, 39 Xueyuan SouthRoad, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, P.R. China(崔晶，中央财经大学政府管理学院，北京市海淀区学院南路39号，邮编：100081)

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Chinese Public Administration ReviewMarc Holzer, Editor-in-ChiefNational Center for Public Performance


Mengzhong Zhang, Managing EditorSchool of Public Policy

University of Maryland at College Park

Ginger Swiston, Production EditorSchool of Public Affairs and Administration

Rutgers University, Newark Campus

International Editorial BoardP.R. China (Mainland)Jing Bao, Chinese Public Administration SocietyQingyun Chen, Peking UniversityRuilian Chen, Zhongshan UniversityZhenming Chen, Xiamen UniversityKeyong Dong, Renmin University of ChinaXiaoping Gao, Chinese Public Administration SocietyXiangming Hu, Wuhan UniversityWeiping Huang, Shengzhen UniversityJianghao Jin, Chinese Public Administration SocietyTaijun Jin, Suzhou UniversityLefu Wang, Zhongshan UniversityJiannan Wu, Xian Jiaotong UniversityShuzhang Xia, Zhongshan UniversityJinmin Xiao, Shandong UniversityLan Xue, Tsinghua UniversityXiaoling Xu, Huazhong University of Science and TechnologyChengfu Zhang, Renmin University of ChinaDexin Zhang, National School of AdministrationGuanghui Zhou, Jilin UniversityQianwei Zhu, Fudan University

MacaoYufan Hao, Macao University

Hong KongHon Chan, City University of Hong KongAnthony Cheung, City University of Hong KongIan Holliday, City University of Hing KongKing K. Tsao, Chinese Univeristy of Hong KongShaoguang Wang, Chinese University of Hong Kong

TaiwanChung-yuang Jan, Taiwan National Chengzhi UniversityChyung-En Wu, Taiwan National Chengzhi UniversityDinp Ricky Wu, Taiwan National Chengzhi University

South KoreaYun-Won Hwang, The Korea Institute of Public AdministrationCahn-Gon Kim, Vice Mayor Guro District, SeoulM. Jae Moon, Yonsei UniversityPan S. Kim, Yonsei University

JapanMao Guirong, Meijigakuin University

IndiaVinay Sharma, University of Petroleum and Energy StudiesVinod Singh, Gurukul Kangri University

NetherlandsPeter B. Boorsma, University of Twente

ArmeniaVatche Gabrielian, Yerevan State University

United Staes of AmericaDaniel Ahern, American Society for Public AdministrationMichael Brintnall, American Political Science AssociationJeanne Marie Col, John Jay College, CUNYGlen Cope, American Society for Public AdministrationGregory Chow, Princeton UniversityArie Halachmi, Tennessee State UniversityMary Hamilton, University of Nebraska, OmahaEdward Jennings, University of KentuckyDonald Klingner, University of ColoradoZhiyong Lan, Arizona State UniversityRobert Lavery, University of Central FloridaEmily Michaud, NASA-Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)Allan Rosenbaum, Florida International UniversityRoger Stough, George Mason UniversityZixiang (Alex) Tan, Syracuse UniversityJohn Abbott Worthley, Seton Hall UniversityHua Xu, Auburn University at Montgomery

CanadaKenneth W. Foster, University of British Columbia, Canada

SingaporeJak Jabes, National University of SingaporeYunhua Liu, Nanyang Technological UniversityWenxuan Yu, Nanyang Technological University

United NationsHaiyan Qian, United Nations

The Chinese Public Administration Review (CPAR) seeks papers from scholars. Thefirst international academic journal specifically addressing the issues of Chinese publicadministration, the Chinese Public Administration Review covers a number of topics,such as Chinese administrative reform, Chinese public policy, Chinese administrativelaw, public productivity improvement and performance measurement, Chinese civilservice, Chinese social security, Chinese public finance, Chinese e-government,the intellectual history of public administration in China, comparative publicadministration, and so forth. CPAR functions as a peer-reviewed journal emphasizingscholarly contributions to the burgeoning field of Chinese public administration.

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