This article reviews World Bank consultant Willy McCourt’s paper entitled “Models of Public Service Reform: A Problem Solving Approach”, which is widely used as a theoretical framework by other World Bank officials and points out gaps in their perceptions. Accordingly, it shows why attempts at reforming African institutions by non-African experts have had scant success in improving the quality of the services provided to the populations of their respective countries. After enumerating six major institutional problems identified by McCourt, the author concludes that every African nation has specific features and conditions that require holistic local responses and strategies rather than blanket solutions for problems apparently common to the entire continent.
