On increasing the successful application of OR/MS in the public sector of developing countries

Public sector problems are inherently unstructured, complex and messy in general. They become even more complicated under the particular circumstances of the socioeconomic, political, technological, and cultural environment of a developing country. In this paper, the general as well as specific difficulties are reviewed; and suggestions are made for increasing the successful application of OR/MS in solving public sector problems, and for encouraging OR/MS people to work on the next generation of contributions to the discipline. OR/MS has reached the level of maturity as a discipline that can make a more significant impact upon the societal and public sector issues confronted by different developing countries.