Governance reforms: waiting for messiah

The latest Unescap Survey for Asia and the Pacific, which focuses on the subject of governance this year, brings home the point long known to the economics community: “that the quality of governance affects development outcomes through its impact on the composition and efficiency of public expenditure. At the same time, weak governance partially explains the low levels of tax revenue in several countries in the region.”

However, much to our disappointment, the survey has plainly avoided a discussion on the political dimensions, such as democratic accountability. Instead, governance is framed in terms of how power is exercised than how it is acquired. In other words, the studies “focus is not on political arrangements but rather on the delivery of public services in any given arrangement.”

The survey asserts that “this approach respects the diversity of cultures, historical experiences and levels of development that countries in the Asia-Pacific region share. A more functional definition of governance enables the focus of the survey for 2017 to be on transmission mechanisms – mobilization and allocation of fiscal resources – through which governance affects various aspects of sustainable development.”

For this purpose, the survey uses the standard governance datasets tracked by the Worldwide Governance Indicators database to look at the relationship between governance and various dimensions of sustainable development. There are little eureka moments to be found as well; because politics and political arrangements cannot be divorced from development. Any other analysis is just two plus two equals four.

In contrast, the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) 2017, which focuses on governance and law this year, is little more robust. Launched in January 2017, it started with the position that “when policies and technical solutions fail to achieve intended outcomes, institutional failure takes the blame, and the solution usually proposed is to “improve” institutions. The kind of two plus two four solutions Unescap’s reports proposes.

Unlike Unescap’s Survey 2017, WDR’s discussion starts from the fact that “ultimately, policy effectiveness depends not only on what policies are chosen, but also on how they are chosen and implemented.” On the whole, WDR tries to look at drivers of effectiveness of governance; the levers for change; and the drivers of change which elite bargains, citizen engagement, and international influence.

It would be difficult to summarize all the findings of WDR 2017, but one of the key messages revolves around the role of citizens. For instance, it maintains that “policy effectiveness to achieve equitable development requires cooperation, particularly citizens’ willingness to contribute to public goods and not free-ride on others.”

It highlights that when societies have high levels of inequality, such inequalities are reflected in the unequal capacity of groups to influence the policy-making process, making inequality more persistent. Or, how “clienteles leads to a breakdown of commitment to long-term programmatic objectives, where accountability becomes gradually up for sale.”  Later the WDR proposes a framework for diagnoses and solution to fix the political and social roots of the governance failures, drawing on examples from various corners of the world.

Closer to home, Dr Akbar Zaidi had emphasized on political and social roots of governance reform way back in May 1998. In a journal article titled Crises of Governance, Zaidi concluded on the need to have broad based alliances, between academics, intellectuals, NGOs, and most importantly, the urban middle and lower middle classes have been the “motor of change” in dozens of countries.

“Institutional reform will not take place without the active participation of those who have the most to gain from a new institutional order in the country,” he wrote while referring to the urban middle and lower middle classes who arguably suffer the most at the hands of the bad governance in the country.

Might this column bring two thoughts to the table? First, the importance of media cannot be overstated. Yet in the bigger picture, the media mostly talks about issues of the political and business elite with a token sob story for the proverbial common man. But who can bell the media cat requires a study on its own.

Second, the role of the religious groups which are in fact a part of civil society to the dismay of many liberals, who often paint all religious groups with a single brush of terrorism. While those seeking religious education in this country may be 10 percent or less of the school going children, sooner or later they become one of the most influential people of their neighborhoods.

The seat of Imam, as an institution, enjoys the biggest audience week after week in every nook and corner of this country, an audience that is not enjoyed by national address of the prime minister, or public service messages on various media by social leaders or government bodies, or other civil society groups.  Yet hardly anybody, from the citizenry or from the religious groups, is making a peaceful use of the Friday pulpit. Perhaps everybody is waiting for a messiah.