Singapore has secured the top spot in the 2024 Blavatnik Index of Public Administration, followed by Norway, while Canada and Denmark share third place and Finland ranks fifth. These countries demonstrate consistent strength across all four domains represented by the Index, including leadership, policy, service delivery, and institutional processes.

At the opposite end, Sudan stands last out of 120 nations with a score of 0.17, joined by Myanmar, Nicaragua, Gabon, and Cambodia in the lowest tier.

Pakistan ranks 90th with an overall score of 0.41, performing relatively better than this in public policy (79th) and national delivery (88th) but lagging significantly in strategy and leadership (104th) and people and processes (96th). The Index is developed by the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford, and its first report has come out in December 2024.

Pakistan, ranking 104th out of 120 countries in strategy and leadership is alarming. In civil services, responsibility for strategy and leadership is shared across political and administrative levels. Political leaders such as prime ministers, ministers, and cabinet members set the national vision, define policy priorities, and provide overarching direction.

Whereas senior civil servants, including federal secretaries, chief secretaries, and heads of agencies, translate this political vision into administrative strategies and lead large departments to ensure implementation of the same. While specialized institutions like planning commissions and other policy units contribute data-driven insights to refine these strategies as well as help improve implementation.

Where do the gaps lie in this case? Is the problem rooted in political leadership failing to provide a strategic vision, or does it stem from the top bureaucracy lacking the capacity to deliver on those strategic visions? In public discourse, we often claim that “the system” itself is dysfunctional and incapable of delivering results, but who ultimately is responsible for that failure?

A fundamental issue recognized by many commissions, studies, and senior expert observations has been our inability to build strong, resilient and sustainable institutions. Among the many contributing factors, the........

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