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09. The Provision of Public Services by Non-state Actors Watch Video Connection Speed: High Speed Low Speed    Event Title : ABCDE 2007 Slovenia Date : 5/18/2007 Duration : 72 minutes Language  : English Country/Region : World Keyword :  Financial Sector  Private Sector Development  Governance and Public Sector Reform Presenter : | Related Material | Recommendations |Related B-SPAN Videos |  DESCRIPTION  The Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) brings together academics, policy makers, representatives of multilateral and bilateral agencies, research institutes, civil society organizations, students, and journalists, and thus provides an excellent opportunity to foster exchange of knowledge and understanding of development issues. ABCDE 2007 took place in Bled, Slovenia, and was co-organized by the World Bank and the Ministry of Finance of Slovenia. It gathered together over 400 participants over two days to discuss the theme of Development and the Private Sector. Maitreesh Ghatak, from the London School of Economics, stated that it is now widely acknowledged that market alone cannot provide services such as healthcare and basic education, because the two are seen as public goods. The speaker proceeded to discussing why the government often fails to provide those services: corruption, the problem of accountability of the public sector and representation (whether governments act by the interests of the poor). Ghatak discussed the strengths and weaknesses of non-state, non-market actors as well as of hybrids of the government and non-profit sector. The ‘third sector’ is most decentralized and provides extra motivation to employees by its non-profit orientation. Jean-Paul Azam, of the University of Toulouse I, raised the issue of interaction of the government and the non-profit sector (NGOs complementing and stimulating the state to provide better services vs. free riding, wherein the state shrinks resources as NGOs deliver services). He pointed out that NGOs often complement the state by exerting political pressure on the government to act, but also named a variety of NGOs that actually deliver public services: Grameen Bank, Hamas or Hezbollah. Alan Gelb, Director of Development Policy for the World Bank, commented that the paper conveys two significant characteristics of public services: they have social benefits that cannot be captured by the market and their quality is hard to measure. The speaker proposed renaming NGOs as Motivation Based Organizations (MBOs). Gabor Peteri, Director of Development for Hungary’s Local Government Initiative Development Ltd. (LGID), remarked that NGOs, according to some estimates, equal the seventh largest economy of the world and are very diverse in their activities and modes of functioning. He pointed to the distinction between the service provider, the financing body and the customer and the often problematic contractual relationship between them.  RELATED MATERIALS   Related World Bank and Other Links: World Bank: ABCDE 2007 Slovenia Related B-SPAN Events: ABCDE 2006 Tokyo ABCDE 2006 St. Petersburg RELATED B-SPAN EVENTS Financial Sector (90) Private Sector Development (70) Governance and Public Sector Reform (80)