Elaine Kamarck, director of the Innovations in American Government Program at the Kennedy School, said the conference was the first such international gathering of ministerial-level officials to discuss public management and government reform.

Kamarck, who previously directed the Reinventing Government initiative under Gore, said, "We have found that many governments around the world, from New Zealand to Sweden to South Africa, are in periods of major reform driven by fiscal pressures, public demand for efficiency and responsiveness, and the opportunities presented by information technology. This is happening across very different political cultures and government structures."

Kennedy School Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. outlined a strategy to "make government work better and cost less" at the Global Forum on Reinventing Government held in Washington D.C. Vice President Al Gore chaired the event, which was cosponsored by the Kennedy School of Government.

Kamarck, who also co-directs the Kennedy School's Visions of Governance for the Twenty-First Century Project with Dean Joseph S. Nye, added, "This conference is a first attempt at the 'whats, whys, and hows' of the current wave of reform."

In his keynote, Vice President Gore said, "We begin with a simple shared premise that nations cannot compete and thrive in the global marketplace if they are battling against bureaucracy and apathy on their own shores.

"Nations cannot build the political legitimacy that is the cornerstone of economic prosperity if they do not show that self- government can work effectively for ordinary citizens," he added.

Other featured speakers included New Zealand Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, who explained how her nation turned its economy around by shrinking the government work force from 85,000 employees to 32,000 and by cutting agriculture and industry subsidies.

President Bill Clinton and Nye addressed the conference on the second day. Clinton, taking the theme of cooperation in government, told the audience, "In the world we live in, competition is good, but the failure of our competitors is bad. We want competition to work within a framework in which we all do better."

After the conference, Nye said, "The most promising thing about a conference like this one is its universal appeal. Much of what is being talked about is implementing common sense across political parties and political cultures, both in the U.S. and abroad. And common sense, thank goodness, is a nonpartisan concept."

Nye said he was amused to hear a minister from Thailand joke that he had cut a lot of red tape, but that he had been cutting it sideways. "That got a laugh, even through translation, from everyone in the room," Nye commented, "and it demonstrated the universality of what we are trying to do."