What can the Afrobarometer tell us about service delivery in Africa?

While the delivery of services of such as security, education, water and sanitation and telecommunication are seen in most places around the world as essential responsibilities of the state, the typical African – especially in rural areas – is unlikely to enjoy many of these amenities. Moreover, given the expense of regular, large scale household surveys, the typical policymaker looking for evidence with which to guide the extension or provision of these services may be equally hard pressed.

Afrobarometer surveys offer a range of useful data for understanding both the parameters of service delivery, as well as sor examining what people need and want, and whether they are satisfied with what they get.

This paper reviews the findings from previous Afrobarometer survey on servive delivery and access to potential services. It finds that:

• Around two thirds of Africans live close to market stalls where they can buy groceries or clothes, or a health clinic, and live in areas with cell phone service. Around half live in areas with electricity and piped water systems. But only about one-third live close to a paved road or police station.
• A large majority of Africans paid for a government service such as schooling or a visit to a healtth clinic in the previous year, and just under one half paid for a public utility like water, electricity or a landline telephone.
• It is either 'difficult' or 'very difficult' to obtain a household service from a government office, get help from the police, or get an identity document. However, there was a more favorable balance of positive reports of getting medical treatment or placement in school for a child.
• The most frequently encountered problem was a long queue, followed by a lack of medicine or supplies, lack of courtesy and absent doctors. Africans give higher, and in many cases much higher ratings to government performance in various areas of service delivery, than they do to macro-economic management.
  

Important findings include:

• People are more critical of local government performance than national government.
• Service infrastructure, particularly development infrastructure (Electricity Grid, Piped Water System, Sewerage System, Cell Phone Service) makes an important contribution to people’s lives across all countries.
• The availability of service infrastructure makes people more positive about current government performance in the area of service delivery.
• However, there are few implications of better service delivery for political satisfaction. For  example, people in well serviced areas are no less (or more) likely to perceive higher levels of government corruption. They are no more (or less) likely to express trust in government or law enforcement institutions, see the state as legitimate, or say they are satisfied with the way democracy works in their country.