Forum (Spotlight Weekly)

Good Governance For Strong And Equitable Development

By Dr. NIRANJAN PRASAD UPADHYAY

Donor agencies and the general people are placing great stress on "good governance" these days. The term, however, cannot be explained in one or two words. Basically, good governance is related with effective delivery services to the people. Principally, these services are delivered through concerned authorities. In the course of imparting effective services, bureaucrats' behavior must be fair. He or she should encompass such basic characteristics as trust, consistency, integrity, equitable treatment, sense of ownership, mutual respect and fair decision making.

The Nepalese Journal of Government Auditing stresses that poor functioning of public-sector institutions and weak governance emanating from lack of transparency and accountability have become major impediments to growth in many developing countries.

In the budget estimates for fiscal year 2002/03, His Majesty's Government has initiated important steps toward promoting good governance and controlling corruption. The government is committed, among other things, to prepare and implement a comprehensive anti-corruption strategy by mid-October.

The major barriers to good governance are the bloated size of the career bureaucracy, low productivity, poor accountability, and lack of transparency and integrity. It is said that governance is the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage the country's affairs at all levels. Governance is a continuum, and not necessarily unidirectional: it does not automatically improve over time. It is a plant that needs constant tending.

Good governance emerged as a new paradigm dictated by international agencies. Initially this concept was highlighted in the World Bank document on Sub-Saharan Africa in 1989. Democratic governance remains a particularly difficult variable to operate. Mainly, good governance is defined in terms of a checklist of criteria, i.e., transparency, accountability and public-sector management. The World Bank document "Governance and Development" (1992) defines governance as the manner in which power is exercised in the course of harnessing a country's economic and social resources for development. From its lending experience in many developing countries, the Bank came to realize that good governance is central to creating and sustaining an environment that fosters strong and equitable development and is an essential component of sound economic policies.

Governance is the process whereby public institutions conduct public affairs, manage public resources and guarantee human rights. Good governance accomplishes this in a manner essentially free of abuse and corruption, and with due regard for the rule of law.

Last year, the Enabling State Program brought out a book "Pro-poor Governance Assessment Nepal." In the book, ESP manager Michael E. Lowe has stressed that a wide range of Nepalese stakeholders, politicians, academics, and donors have frequently voiced concerns about the state of governance in Nepal. Many of them hoped that the advent of democracy in 1990 would usher in an era of improved governance. These expectations have not been met and the widely accepted view now is that there is a crisis of governance in Nepal. The main victims of this crisis have been the majority of Nepal's citizens who are poor and marginalized. As a result, Nepal today remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with nearly half of its population living below the poverty line.

The concept of governance is as old as human civilization. Essentially, governance has three legs: economic, political and administrative. Bad governance is regarded as one of the root causes of all evil within societies. Psychologically, any improvement in the people's quality of life has to begin and be maintained "at home".

The National Planning Commission stresses that political stability and governance have remained weak in the country. Since the mid-term election of November 1994 to the general election of May-June 1999, there have been six coalition governments with an average tenure of nine months.

Political instability and a weak public bureaucracy have thus constrained better management of the economy and led to a lack of accountability. The institutional capacity of the administrative system has weakened.

In order to improve governance, the government has introduced programs to reform the civil service, to promote decentralization, to increase the role of non-government organizations in service delivery and to step up the involvement of the private sector. The focus of civil service reform is on improving the efficiency, accountability and effectiveness of the civil service.

The Asian Development Bank states that a major difficulty in achieving development effectiveness in Nepal is the lack of efficiency, predictability, transparency, and accountability in key government institutions. Capacity building for improved governance is a critical factor for achieving the government's goal of sustainable poverty reduction. Governance reform is a key element of the government's broader economic and structural reform program, which seeks to sustain accelerated growth and economic stability.

The Ninth Plan document (1997) remarks that Nepal's government administration has remained inefficient and has a poor record of service delivery. The objective of the Ninth Plan is to make public management clean, lean, transparent, economical, competitive, job-oriented, capable, productive, service oriented, and accountable.

The United Nations Development Program has identified diversified characteristics of good governance like participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, effectiveness and efficiency, accountability, strategic vision, legitimacy, resource prudence, ecological soundness, empowering and enabling and partnership.

Essentially, good governance is concerned with competent and efficient administration in a democratic environment. Nepalese researchers highlight that good governance is recognized as a sociable, general people caring, and responsive.

It is not easy to practice good governance in Third World countries. It needs political commitment, administrative culture, and favorable atmosphere. In reality, good governance is possible only through downsizing the government, optimizing the use of resources, emphasizing balanced development, securing mass participation, uplifting moral character, using new technology, providing quality services and guaranteeing service.