Dr. Md. Shairul Mashreque :
Governance is ‘an interdisciplinary field of study centering on relationships of power between government authorities, civil society and the market, in a context of transformations in the ability of political communities to legitimately govern themselves and act effectively.. It has moved up in the awareness of the public policy community for quite some time now, very much driven by the protracted difficulties of managing the global economy out of its never ending series of crises, beginning with the financial meltdown in 2007/8 all the way to the social crisis of unemployment levels not seen for a very long while. In development economics, institutional weaknesses and lack of good governance are equally identified as the critical bottlenecks for sustainable growth.’
“Social change may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic structure, for instance a shift away from feudalism and towards capitalism..There are many theories of social change. Generally, a theory of change should include elements such as structural aspects of change (like population shifts), processes and mechanisms of social change, and directions of change. The classic Hegelian dialectic model of change is based on the interaction of opposing forces. “
Admittedly good governance presupposes well thought course of action for a desirable social change.
To cite a scholar:
In fact, one can get the impression that good governance is elevated to the all around response, from improving policy performance, achieving better outcomes of development, to more effective sector policies and rebuilding or maintaining trust in government. And its capacities to deliver are expected at all levels of government, including the supra or international level, where the 2013 edition of the Report puts the emphasis with its discussion of sovereignty. Both blame and over extended expectations seem in my view based on the insufficient attention being paid to the empirical analysis of public governance and the fast changing context of public governance globally. The previously often stated path dependency of developments of national governance must also be taken into account in the international debate.
Against this background I would encourage the next editions of the governance report to continue vigorously the development of governance indicators, an area where the OECD’s “Governance at a Glance” is offering a unique set of internationally comparable data on public institutions, instruments, processes and performance in its 34 member countries. The benefits of wide collaboration among the proponents of quantitative and qualitative measurement of public governance would appear obvious.
Equally promising could be for the upcoming Governance Reports to look into three fast changing issues in particular: what role for evidence in decision making in increasingly complex situations? How does the multiple stakeholder context impact on the government’s ability to govern?
To what extent is public governance an instrument to “solve public problems”? Moving to an understanding of public governance as a joint learning process in dynamic and networked economies and societies rather than a mechanism to deliver technically correct results or even outcomes could animate the debate and provide opportunities for urgently needed innovations.
There seems to be no shortage of evidence for the right public policies to deal with the burning challenges, such as climate change, the ageing of the population, poverty reduction or the reform of the financial sector, just to name a few. Really? Why is it then that policy action is not following suit? Are we appreciating fully the complexity of evidence, the degrees of uncertainty, the time horizons involved which could limit its usefulness for policy making? Are governance systems providing capacities and well structured “avenues” for evidence to enter into policy design and decision making? Regulatory impact assessment is a prominent example of an under utilised instrument of evidence based decision making in most countries. Ex ante expenditure assessments are even less common, a fact hard to understand, except if democracy and evidence were considered mutually exclusive. And what about the policy making relevance of ex-post evaluations?
Modern public governance implies multi-stakeholder processes at many levels, welcomed primarily as a means to reversing the decline in public participation in the political system. The tsunami of opportunities of communication and information technology opens a radically different dimension of interaction. Open government is the latest expression of commitments in that respect, but the consequences for public governance quality and performance are hardly understood. While “solving public problems” is a good working definition of public governance, it also risks missing some of the dynamic dimensions. Whether decisions qualify as solutions may be time dependent, and be viewed differently by stakeholders. What constitutes a public problem is changing quite dramatically since the traditional social contract around public services is challenged and private or public approaches are regarded as alternatives. Raising awareness and increasing understanding for these complexities could be major reform requirement for good governance in the future. They will make the key questions of delivery and accountability only more difficult to address.
Public governance with bureaucratic preponderance cannot be termed as good governance for social change. For bureaucracy with conservative predisposition is itself a stumbling block to any agenda of social change. It manipulates all programmatic intervention to its own advantage ruling the roost and dictating terms and conditions while coming in interaction with NGOs and civil societies.
On the other hand NGO’s development intervention is now a favorite of intellectual discussion as it very much concerns about institutional governance with the participation of the stakeholders to fulfill its desired objectives. Beneficiaries of public policy look to NGOs for better service for ameliorating their socio-economic conditions. The NGOs with voluntarism are expected to fulfill expectations of various groups of stakeholders through its well and systematic intervention. Its governance-led distributional profile is based on the parameters of participation, empowerment and accountability.
NGOs have long been handling their projects by structured flexibility approach, self-assessment mechanism, regular monitoring and intermittent change of techniques, if situation demands. This is really efficient and apt management of implementation. They are found working in an enabling working environment that they themselves created with participatory component, decentralization and motivation. In health care sector, for illustration, there has emerged some positive changes in health bevaviour. Based on the index of health development there has been astounding improvement in health awareness, especially awareness about STD/HIV/AID, immunization, balanced diet and maternity services.
We may have much to take lessons from NGO’s health management projects. This is of course result-oriented. The paramedics are well trained health workers doing their utmost to the satisfaction of the people.
The resource persons at the apex of project management treat things well in a professional manner. NGOs like BRAC, CRITAS, ASA, Proshika, UNICEP etc have come forward to enlighten our society with a scheme of non-formal education. The happen to address the issues of drop-outs. Thing is that Formal education is not inclusive and participatory. The poor child is left out. He/she cannot benefit from formal schooling finding it hard to cope with a rigid institutional situation and the demands of close system and thus drop out. All the same NGOs non-formal education has proved to be good alternative motivating the poor children. In fact non-formal institutions like open air school, distant education and mobile schooling are most likely to cater to the needs of street children, maverick and vagrant.
The NGOs are complementing the government in the implementation of child development policies. The major areas/sectors or policy goals are ‘basic education’, ‘health and nutrition’, water and environmental sanitation’, ‘children in need of special protection’, ‘social integration, participation and cultural affairs’, and ‘information and communication’. The other goals were gender equity, elimination of child labor and children requiring special protection.
In pursuance of the fundamental principles of the Constitution and the UN CRC, the Government of Bangladesh decided to formulate and implement a National Policy on Children (NPC) in December 1994, to ensure the security, welfare and development of children. The policy highlights the importance of providing adequate services to children, including health, nutrition and education. It also stipulates that a “proper family environment” is one of the main preconditions for the proper development of a child. The NPC identified the need for assistance to children in difficult circumstances, and ensures the protection of the legal rights of children within the national, social and family context. The policy clearly states that the Government has adopted the principle of ‘Best Interest of the Children’ – that is, in all national, social, family or personal situations, the best interest of the child will be held paramour.
Most experts on child rights opine that child related policies concern about children development, their participation and their rights. Obviously we have a cluster of good laws and programmes in connection with child rights and development.
Notwithstanding legislative measures and programmatic intervention the most vulnerable children continue to suffer manifold harassments and negligence.
They are growing up on the margins of society in a state of neglect and deprivation, without educations, affection, care and guidance. Once a child takes to the street there is a strong possibility that the child, both girls and boys may end up sexually abused and exploited. This is because survival becomes the sole priority – in the absence of alternatives, street children are forced to do anything, which keep them alive.
The UN Convention on Rights of the Child (UNCRC) has been universally ratified. The present government is actively considering formulation of a national child labour policy. It is, of course, a good move. We have a child policy. But we do not have child labour policy. We may contend that if there is child labour there must be must be a control mechanism to erase its evils through legislation and public policy.
One may wonder whether all such policy and legislative measures will be mere paper tigers. We have laws to protect child workers from the deluge of exploitation. The problem lies with implementation. If antiquated legal procedures and codes framed during the colonial period come into conflict with a future child labour policy the implementation process will be in the dock. When the community makes plans, it does not take into consideration the poor children’s plight. They tend to be excluded from participating in most of the activities and facilities of other children. This is one reason why they often do not have access to medical, educational, recreational and vocational resources. They face problems such as lack of vaccinations; poor health, illiteracy and they cannot acquire skills needed for finding jobs.Society perceives the vulnerable children as children in difficult circumstances. Their vulnerability is at peak. This is due to the state of gap in existing laws and policies to protect their rights. There is no protection against child labour that may be termed as torture. ILO and Unicef advocate for measures to curb child labour.
(The writer is retired professor, Public Administration, Chittagong University.
