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Are you being served? Popular satisfaction with health and education services in Africa
January 2007
Michael Bratton
Afrobarometer
This article explores the determinants of public satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with health and education services in Africa. Among prospective explanations, we consider the users’ poverty, their general perceptions of service accessibility, and their specific experiences with service providers. We find that user-friendliness of services is essential, especially to poorer clients. But daily encounters including with substandard teaching and the costs of clinic fees tend to depress public approval, not only of services, but also of democracy. Finally, corruption has unexpectedly mixed effects: perceptions that officials are corrupt decreases citizen satisfaction; but the act of paying a bribe increases it.
Are you being served? This inquiry always greets the well-heeled customers in the fictional department store in the classic British television comedy series. But it is rarely asked of the ordinary men and women who consume basic public services in Africa. Few systematic details are known about mass opinion regarding public services in Africa’s burgeoning cities or vast rural hinterlands. We have the impression that, in an era of state retrenchment, such services are usually scarce and substandard and are rarely infused with an ethic of customer service. But more analysis is required about the strengths and weaknesses of the public delivery systems for health and education services in Africa, especially as seen through the eyes of users. Do Africans think they are being served?
Keywords: service delivery, Africa
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