Font Size:     

In contemporary societies, delivering and maintaining public goods and services involves increased costs. As a result, questions about the performance and effectiveness of the public sector are discussed more and more often. Today, public sectors in African countries are facing challenges of improving performance and efficiency service delivery. Nigerian public sector seems not to be exempted from these maladies because the performance of Nigerian public sector has fallen short of expectations regarding the provision of services and has with inefficiency in delivering essential services. As a result, the need for public service to improve performance and efficiency in the public sector is becoming ever greater. The article discusses the usefulness of After Action Review (AAR) as a veritable tool in improving performance and effectiveness in the public sector. This article relies on secondary sources of data collection gathered through a broad review of relevant literature on the subject through books, journals, internet materials, newspaper articles, official archives and so on. The article argues that improving the performance of the public sector must take into account the efficiency, effectiveness, financial performance, and quality of service. Since it has been difficult to build a single model that would measure the performance of public organisations, the article advocates for the implementation of After Action Review as a mechanism for enhancing public service performance and efficiency in service delivery in Nigeria. It notes that AAR is a method that uses a review of experience to avoid recurrent mistakes and reproduce success. It can be used to improve responses, improve policy and procedures, and most importantly prevent the same errors from being repeated time and time again. The article believes that AAR is a powerful tool because it produces quick results in a short period and can be applied to a broad range of activities. It reveals that notwithstanding the misgivings, AAR is considered a good idea as it gives the state actors/public servants opportunity to review the mission of the organisation, what went well? What could have gone better? What might have done differently? Moreover, who needs to know more to improve performance?. The article, therefore, concludes that After Action Review is a useful mechanism for assessing performance in public sector organisation, its application in Nigerian public service, therefore, will improve performance and efficient service delivery. It recommends some measures for the successful implementation of AAR to achieve adequate performance and efficiency in public-sector management and the provision of services in the Nigerian public service in particular and Africa as a whole. been identified