Good Governance In South Asia
A Challenging Task

By Khilendra Basnyat

THE issue of good governance has emerged as one of the major concerns for policy-makers and administrators throughout the world. This issue demands special attention in South Asia.

In the past, South Asia’s administration remained more accountable to the democratic process. However, today, its quality has been degenerated due to weak governance in this region.

In most of these countries, the parliament, cabinet and civil services are especially responsible for ensuring good governance. However, unfortunately, they have declined in quality over the years in these countries.

Politicised

In fact, South Asia’s parliament does not do what it should and strives to do what it should not. This region’s cabinet has shown a singular inability to tackle the problems faced by citizens. Likewise, the civil services in this region have been highly politicised, thereby misutilising their capabilities.

Police services are more and more becoming a negotiable commodity in most of the South Asian countries, where political intervention and inaction can be bought by the affluent people. The poor thus see the police force as a source of insecurity rather than as an instrument to protect their rights and ensure their security.

As such, it is quite natural that the police are feared as much as the criminals because most of this region’s people can never be sure what to expect from them. Since the police may connive with and protect criminals and be used by the ruling political party and the rich to promote their interests, the forces of law and order are seen to be part of the problem of the criminalisation of society rather than its solution.

It is evident that most of the international reports on transparency have placed South Asian countries among the most corrupt in the world. In these countries, corruption charges against elected officials as well as bureaucrats are extensive. This has not only affected citizens’ legitimate rights but also created a widening credibility gap between the rulers and citizens.

In the present context, unless the executive is made accountable before the law, and the corrupts and criminals can be penalised under the rule of law, the issue of judicial and police reform will remain integral to the quality of South Asia’s governance.

The once transparent mechanisms of recruitment have been undermined. Part of this process lies in the expansion in administration size, the need to accommodate backward areas, castes, tribes, women and other deprived interest groups. This has deteriorated the quality of administration in this region.

Similarly, the bureaucratic growth in the South Asia region has encouraged political interference planned to abuse the recruitment process as an instrument of political patronage and for politicisation of administration. This process encourages political opportunism among the bureaucrats instead of promoting independence of thoughts and actions. What is more, it protects the incompetent and corrupt from being exposed to disciplinary action and finally undermines the integrity and efficiency of administration. In all the countries of this region, the process of politicising administration is accelerating by encouraging corruption and eroding the quality of governance.

No doubt, politics is essential for the overall development of a country. However the degeneration in the caliber and motivation of the leadership and political leaders has caused negative impact on this region’s administration. Actually, a messy political culture cannot hope to extract good governance from its bureaucracy, which assume the colour and behavioural traits of their political leaders.

In many South Asian local government organisations, high levels of absenteeism have been realised, especially among field staff associated with a supply of a variety of civic services. It has also been discovered that doctors, teachers and supporting staff deputed to rural areas of this region have been taking advantage of the absence of supervision from the concerned officials. However, the people of this region have been deprived of basic civic services.

In reality, a misgoverned polity and administration spreads to the private sector as well as civil society. Bad governance brings forth malfeasant entrepreneurship and eventually corrupts civil society.

Contempt for the rule of law and administrative norms are seen as the only source of survival in a degenerated polity. In such case, fundamentalism reinforced by terrorism as an instrument of politics appears to have emerged as a natural by-product of the deterioration in democratic institutions. As groups of citizens alienate from the institutions of governance, they will fall prey to aberrant social and political formations.

In fact, good governance needs proper distribution of powers and functions based on rules, procedures and institutional norms. When such norms are violated by political parties and governments, politics becomes messy and uncertain. Such circumstance has been observed in India and Nepal in the wake of unprincipled equations being made for making and breaking government.

Unluckily, the priorities of the emerging leadership in these countries are different from the real needs of the governance. Actually, these designs have less to do with the problems of governance and more with benefits that leaders can enjoy for individuals or constitutional gain.

Poverty is widespread in South Asian countries. It has been found that the per capita income in most of these countries is below US$ five hundred per year. Behind this low per capita income lies huge income disparity which means that the poor’s actual per capita income is perhaps half the region’s average.

Increasing Poverty

In reality, South Asia is the home to the world’s poor. An estimate based on the per capita income of US$ one per day put the number of poor as high as fifty percent or over six hundred million out of the total South Asian population of about 1.3 billion is 1999. Whether the number of the poor is exact or not, the most serious threat to governance arises from increasing poverty.

One of the main problems of governance afflicting all South Asian countries, except Sri Lanka, is population growth. High population growth in these countries is responsible for slow growth in per capita income, heavy burden on natural resources and so on. What is more, demographic growth in these countries has inherent risks, creating diverse political problems. Hence it is very difficult to ensure good governance in these countries.

World Health Day
Move For Better Health Condition

By Balaram Chaulagain

THE World Health Day is being observed today with great enthusiasm throughout the world, marking the establishment of World Health Organization (WHO) on 7th April 1948. The theme of the World Health Day is chosen each year on the basis of the emerging public health problem in order to draw the attention of all concerned to the health hazards caused by the prevailing diseases. WHO is entrusted with providing the health for all strategies and proper health management. Nepal is a active member of WHO. Nepal was affiliated with WHO on 10th May 1954. Being an international intermediary health organisation WHO has done a lot in this field.

The theme of this year is global alert on "Move for Health" with global response. The health of the people depends upon the life style or the way they live, reflecting a whole range of social values, attitudes and activities. It has been continued that regular walking, adequate nutrition, enough sleep and other health activities can promote an individual’s health status. Besides, walking or movement at least 30 minutes a day except the move during household and in the office would be a very helpful to control heart problem and other aliments. Much has been told and written on this topic still there exists several defects to be corrected. To attain this goal the use of information, communication and education programme are the needs of the hour. As such, we should not lag behind to pursue the ways and means set by medical science. Let us think over this year’s slogan of "Move for Health" set by WHO. Obviously, it is clear that prevention of diseases with precaution is better than cure. If we have to escape from the fatal consequenses of luxurious life style we have to continue the habit of walking and do some other physical exercises. Human body can be compared with machine. If a machine is stored without using for long it may be rusted. In the same way if we have to keep ourselves healthy. We should not stop walking. Bi-cycle use is also an alternative for better result.

Walking is it has been reported, enjoyable and cost effective panacea to end the unwanted obesity, cardiovascular diseases, breast cancer etc. As per WHO’s recent projection, around 80% of non communicable diseases like coronary heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure etc can be treated through physical movement. Besides, several studies done so far indicate that regular physical activities significantly reduce the risk of colon cancer by increasing the production of prostaglandin. At a time when a great chunk of women, particularly from the urban middle and upper classes are becoming obese a two have daily walking would be a reliable remedy to be curb the menace. "Any amount of physical activity will make you feel better, the minimum amount of physical activity required for the prevention of disease is at least 30 minutes of moderate activity, every day" says a newly released WHO’s bulletin. The diseases and other health related ailments caused by sedentary lifestyles ultimately harm individual’s health. It is a matter of great concern to all that malnutrition and excess work continue to be a major health issue in poverty stricken part of the world whereas excess food consumption coupled with high living standard and less physical activities are glaringly manifesting the unequal proportion of work load and food supply.

As such, those who are enjoying a luxurious life style must know the benefit of the physical activities.

It goes without saying that physical exercises along which other knowledge, attitude etc are most important for long life and better health. It should be kept in mind that a mere sloganeering on World Health Day does nothing. If we have to raise the health status of the people attention should be on three E’s: education, enforcement of this year’s slogan and empowerment of women coupled with three S’s: slogans on move for better health, statement of fact on physical movement and success of social stigma attached in accordance with social, economic and educational back ground of the target groups. However, it is an irony to note that we are still gripped by communicable diseases of different types. Hence, in should be our prime objective to fight against such maladies in best possible way. Let us hope the World Health Day being observed all over the world would definitely create awareness on physical activities. The media may play a crucial role in disseminating message regarding the benefit of physical activities. In addition to this health ministry along with other line agencies should be used for correct information flow across the length and breadth of the country.

Hopes Never Die

By Ambar Mainali

WE have been seeing this jolly man for the last two decades. He has somehow or the other turned out to be a close family associate. The saying "Time Flies" is indeed a genuine admonition when looking at the changes that have dominated our dear old friend. When he first came to work in the house project some twenty years back, his skin shone like the rare diamonds. He was heavily built despite being of typical Nepali height and he used to wear an evergreen smile in his sparkling face.

Those were the years when his confidence soared higher than Mt. Everest. He was young and energetic. No amount of manual labour could ever wane his zeal from pressing on to impress his masters. He kept on performing steadily in the house construction project of our family. With the approaching of sunset when the day’s work was done, he always widened his grin and asked for extra tips.

There was no avoiding this serious worker who always carried out his assigned duty meticulously. Every now and then daddy used to get carried away by the mystique charm of this worker and gave him tips in the hope that the returns in the future would be doubled.

Everyday the only worry biting into young daddy’s mind was will the uncompromising worker show up for the day ‘s work. On the day he was asked to go somewhere else by the contractor daddy used to grumble.

This was because other’s never worked like our jolly old friend. The next day unable to bear with daddy’s tantrums the contractor would again send this special man to work in our house project.

After the house construction came to an end, our friend used to vanish. Apart from brief unprecedented encounters in the roads, our good old friend never showed up regularly. Whenever I happened to meet him, he immediately used to demand for some tips saying that he had worked harder than other labourers in the house project.

There was no way out other than to make him happy. Twenty years down the line, our good old friend has once again joined us. He does not have that original smile. He has grown old and even pants when trying to impress us. He is in his early sixties but has no options left to keep his family going other than to stick to the same old job of carrying bricks, preparing the cement mixture and sieving sand.

His children have grown big. But still work is worship for him. It occurs to everyone that a man in his sixties would wish to stay away from manual work and rest at home. Alas! our friend cannot do so. This is because he will not be able to meet his household expenses if he abstains from work.

One day he was complaining that the money he gets is hardly enough to meet his living expenses. When the depression really cuts through his inner self, he does not even hesitate to seek comfort through a peg or two of whisky early in the morning. Our good old friend being a sincere worker still gets tips for his clean job.

Looking at the story of this old man, one really has the feeling of remorse creeping into the inner corridors of one’s heart. Even after slugging for years like a donkey, people like our good old friend cannot overcome their hardship. They have no choice other than to work from early morning till late evening. On the day they are unable to make it to work they have no choice other than to go hungry. How long will the tips keep alive the hopes of these waged labourers. Isn’t there anything better in store for them?