The paradigms of Quality and Excellence are not something strictly new in public management. Nevertheless, the experience of the last years shows the problems that are confronting diverse initiatives approached for their implantation and development in the Ibero-American public administrations.

The opinion of Ibero-American civil servants, expressed in different forums, has indicated that implantation of quality or excellence management in this scope must consider three main peculiarities of public sector in relation to the private one, namely: public leadership, the complex nature of the clients, and the regime of civil servants.

The actions that correlatively would have to be undertaken would affect aspects as the impulse of governmental authorities, trust and delegation in public executives, development of directive professional careers, development of the mission and vision in the organizations, participation of different actors in the evaluation of public policies and implantation of organizational management systems.

Likewise, public managers have identified as main key factors in this concern, those related to organizational culture, leadership, methodology and people development. Finally, managers have recently thought that excellence models are very useful and necessary to improve management, but turn out to be certainly complex and requires a great effort, reason why it would be necessary to have simpler, adapted and escalables models and count, at any event, with the political leaders involvement.

From this diagnosis, we pretend to debate and release successful experiences in this matter, tackling topics such as quality in the organizations, models of excellence and specific models for the public administration, links between the quality of services and public policies, governance, institutional quality and quality of government, the cooperation and mutual learning, and the Latin American Letter of Quality in Public Management.

As relevant as understanding the logic that characterizes the processes of State and public administration modernization, it is to avoid to confuse its nature. They are not technical but political-governmental processes. There is a political decision for its beginning and that support its implementation. This recognition does so much to that a reform strengths its probabilities of intertemporary sustainability, as for not losing the sense of a greater efficiency and effectiveness of the public management is in the forge of the most legitimate and effective public policies, finally of good government in democracy.

In this context the objective of the thematic area is to advance in the elaboration of systemic visions of the govern-state structures and its capacities, building thoughts with understanding of the political-governmental dynamics in which the processes of state modernization or administrative reform are registered. The challenge is not only theoretical-methodological but substantive. The comparative analyses show that today, after decades of reforms, governments do not have slightest but greater functions.

On the other hand, these analyses also show that the nature of the problems that governments face and their ways of intervention have significantly changed, as well as that, paradoxically, the governmental intervention is, on one hand more demanded to answer the necessities of society and, on the other, dimmed by the resulting distrust of crises of political representation that has weakened the relation between governed and governors.

The structures for which one governs and produces the public order in a democratic society act, in first place, organizing interests and selecting representatives/decision makers (associate-supporter and electoral organization instance). In second place, taking decisions of public policies (the government powers / authorities) and, third, implementing them (operation of state apparatus). For this reason, all strategy of political-institutional reform tending to improve the efficiency, efficacy and legitimacy of public policies, must consider its impact on its own problems of organization and representation of interests, the powers of government and those of State, fields that, definitively, constitute the keys of thematic area.

The Ibero-American Charter of Civil Service (CLAD, 2003) has marked an important benchmark in the configuration of a stage adapted to revitalize the regulations and best practices for the best straddle of thousand of civil servants in the Region. Such stage has not been considered as an isolated area in the governmental management but as contributor and necessary condition for the promotion of the integral development in a frame of greater institutional quality of the republican and democratic foundation of our societies.

Indeed, this Charter in its Preamble recognizes that "From the point of view of governability, the economic progress and reduction of the social inequality, the State rol in the contemporary societies, and particularly in the Ibero-American area, it is fundamental for the achievement of increasing levels of collective well-being... For the attainment of a better State, indispensable instrument for the development of the countries, the profesionalización of civil service is a necessary condition."

It does not escape either the operative trends in some countries of the region, towards the negotiated management of civil servants labor conditions as democratic modality in the organizational culture but as also concrete practice, called to being exemplary, of the wide social dialogue necessary for the definition, legitimation and putting in practice better State policies and a suitable civic culture.

This area is called to include reflections, researches and experiences related to the best design and management of Civil Service regimes in the Region and the world, as well as public employment in general, to the service of a more effective capacity of democratic governance and integral development.

Particular interest will be to focus on aspects concerning to the high executives and intermediate leadership of our Public Administrations, of regulations, technologies and learnings that make to the materialization of the principles derived from a meritocratic approach of civil service as well as of the best designs or contributions than the good performance of civil services do for the best integral development of our societies.

In conclusion, it is tried to increase the contributions to explain and foment that "... positive relation between the existence of systems of civil service empowered with such attributes and the citizens' trust levels in the public administration, the governmental effectiveness and the control of the corruption, and the capacity of sustainable economic growth of the countries. On the other hand, a professional Administration that incorporates such systems contributes to the institutional strengthening of the countries and to the solidity of the democratic system."

Territorial imbalances in Latin America are a complex reality and a barrier to development. They not only constitute a form of social, productive and political inequality, but also they are severe obstacles to social integration and harmonic development of the territories.

Public policies facing this reality, suppose systematic and coordinated actions in social, road services and energetics infrastructure; they require a strengthening of technical and financial assistance, as well as labour training in order to improve the left behind territories, and must establish modalities of coordination renewed between public agencies and associative forms of management with the private agents.

Most of public policies acquire the sense of "territorial compensation", searching for favoring differently to territories, populations and activities with relative lower development. In this sense, financial instruments of the type of Territorial Compensation Funds are defined as well as complete set of instruments favoring the regional and local development.

The practice of these public policies shows severe insufficiencies in terms of public management and association with the private ones. It is possible, nevertheless, to release positive experiences, in relation to better territorial balances. The keys seem to be in the modernization of procedures, new forms of institutional collaboration, contestant funds with appropriate controls, and innovation and entrepreneurship supports. An active participation of population and its organizations, and long term guidelines as "State politics", complement important keys in these efforts.

• High political-institutional volatileness in the region and reforms.
• Weak or little coordination between medium and long term programming and the annual budget.
• Lack or little coordination among public policies.
• Budget of expenses and resources with incomplete cover and not oriented budgetary allocations under results criteria.
• Necessity of civil servants training in MfDR and systems of incentives. Acquisition and audit systems with limited capacities.
• Programs and projects that operate without systems of performance measurement.
• Precarious or non-existent systems of monitoring and evaluation, and poor or null integration among management systems of information.
• Poor or non-existent rendering of accounts to the legislatures and congresses.
• Little claim from the private sector, NGO and citizens, of a MfDR culture in the public sector.