CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS OF PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY, PUBLIC POLICY, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND GOVERNANCE IN THE GAMBIA

This paper elucidated the concepts of public service delivery, public policy, public administration, and governance. The review confirmed that civil service and public service are normally used interchangeably or synonymously with government. Civil service/public service denotes the group of permanent officials employed to help the political executive in formulating and implementing government policies. Equally, the term includes ministries and departments where specified components of government work are conducted, while public administration refers to the comprehensive and systematic implementation of law, where every specific application of law is an act of administration, and where of? cials that are elected make laws, while public administrators implement them. Public Administration comprises all operations bothering on the fulfilment or enforcement of public policy as declared by competent authority, as well as the ef? cient and effective implementation of public law dictated the early scope of the science of administration. The review indicated that governance is concerned with the methods in which stakeholders interact with one another in order to influence the outcomes of public policies. Governance deals with nurturing relationships of accountability among citizens, public institutions, and private suppliers, which consequently, affects the efficiency and effectiveness in how policies are created and resources are allocated. From the literature, the paper concluded that there are varying definitions of the concepts of public service delivery, policy, public administration and governance and there have not been any agreed definitions of the terms.