Professor (Dr.) Saundarjya Borbora
Vice Chancellor, ICFAI University Nagaland
Indigenization does not mean rejection of the concept of good governance; it means developing a strategy and viable action plan for good governance suitable to the institutional context of specific countries. Also, there are several constraints to good governance some of which: Rule of Law; The term refers to the extent rules are abided by and implemented to all citizens of a state on an equal basis. This is a basic condition for good governance. The rule of law requires a fair political system including independent legislatures, a strong executive and a free judiciary that has yet to evolve in many developing countries. A weak system of accountability coupled with political interference has deteriorated meritocracy; and equality of law exists merely in theory while in practice only those with money can buy justice. Poverty; Poverty is a major obstacle to good governance. In developing countries, a large section of the society is poor and living below poverty line although the number is debatable. They have little or no access to adequate food, clean water, sanitation, health, education, and employment. Not only this, disparity between rich and poor is increasing. Poverty creates distrust of people in the governance mechanism and the poor exclude themselves from the political and social processes, which further restricts their participation and representation in governance.
Corruption and Nepotism; Corruption defined as unfair use of public resources for personal gains is viewed as a major hindrance towards good governance. Irrespective of the various forms of corruption, it is pervasive at individual, organizational, and state levels. Nepotism in politics, public organizations, private sector, and civil society organizations is a common occurrence. Family, and sectarian, ethnic, and regional connections are often the bases for appointments while principles of merit and equality of opportunity are being ignored. The devastating effects of entrenched corruption and nepotism can be seen in every fabric of social life in the form of rising poverty, reduced efficiency, setting wrong priorities, social isolation, disorder and distrust between the governing bodies and the general public contributing to the vicious cycle of poor governance. Divided Society; Society is deeply divided on the basis of ethnicity, religion, caste, class and gender. These divisions transcend state, civil society and private sector and pose a serious challenge for good governance. Discrimination in employment on the basis of sect, socio-economic background, gender, and ethnicity is also grounded in these sharp social divisions. Even constitutional democracy and secularism has failed to mediate these divisions. Capacity of state and non-state institutions; The quality of governance in a country depends on the capacity of the state, the private sector and civil society organizations. In developing countries that capacity of state and non-state actors is a constraint to good governance.
The state’s capacity to perform effectively its role in governance includes a capacity for policy formulation and coordination; monitoring and evaluation; performance management and accountability for results; budget and expenditure management; a capability to innovate; and transparency, accountability and possibilities of fighting corruption. Thus, state capacity goes beyond public administration and management and includes all state institutions like parliament, the executive, and the judiciary. In many developing countries, capacity of state institutions and public organizations is constrained by a number of factors that include weak management and a weak control system, corruption and nepotism, and politicization of the bureaucracy and the judiciary. Capacity is also an issue in the case of non-state partners in governance, civil society and the private sector. Civil society in developing countries are small and fragmented, while facing financial constraints. Civil society organizations are also constrained by weak management and control systems. Transparency and accountability which civil society organizations demand from government is rarely practiced by these organizations in many occasions.
Good governance demands new managerial skills from both state and non-state actors to perform effectively as partners in governance. The new tools of governance such as public-private partnership, contracting out, decentralization and devolution assume good management in public, private, and civil society organizations beyond traditional management skills. Networking, contract management, mobilization, negotiations, and regulation are the new management skills required by the civil servants accustomed to command and control. Similarly, the private sector and civil society need to know how the government works and they should fully understand the complexity and sensitivity of public goods besides being responsive. Such skills are not only scarce, but they have not yet been recognized as a capacity issue. Good governance also requires good local knowledge, both explicit and tacit. The capacity to produce local knowledge through research is also a constraint to good governance. One of the major reasons for the concept-reality gap and the implementation deficit highlighted in the development literature is heavy reliance of developing countries on international agencies and international precepts in policy-making and reform initiatives such as good governance.
Analyzing India’s case, it can be pointed out that many programmes and policies failed due to some extent for mis-governance. For example, IRDP in India could not produce the desired results. Similarly, decentralization efforts to reform local government through devolution of power could not produce desired outcomes till now mainly due to lack of political commitment, clienteles’ politics and influence of bureaucratic institutions. Using certain indicator such as ease of doing business in India, it can be noted that India is ranked quite low. As a proxy to governance indicator at the state level, the Assessment of State Implementation of Business Report, October 2016, reported huge disparities amongst the Indian states. The report studies the extent to which states have implemented DIPP’s 340-point Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) for States/UT, covering the period July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. The BRAP includes recommendations for reforms on 58 regulatory processes, policies, practices or procedures spread across 10 reform areas spanning the lifecycle of a typical business. The result shows marginal improvements over 2015 report. Amongst the States, Andhra Pradesh ranks 1 with a score of 98.78 % followed by Telangana (98.78%), whereas northeastern states ranked at the bottom of the table; Tripura ranked 22 (16.67%), Assam 24 (14.29%), Nagaland 26 (1.49%), Manipur 28 (1.19%), Mizoram 29 (0.89%), Sikkim 30 (70.60%), Arunachal Pradesh 31 (0.30%) and Meghalaya 31 (0.30%). In the same way if the outcome of health sector is looked into, north eastern states are falling behind in comparison to other advanced States of the country. Not only that there is existence of rural urban disparity, which is higher compared to India average and some other states even in N E Region. Many of the factors may be governance issues especially at the implementation level.
Today what is the utmost requirement is efficient and effective service delivery. But there seems to be many variables/constraints working against this goal. Some of these are already mentioned which need not be mentioned again. Several studies on operational aspect for improving delivery of services are wherein they pointed out the need to improve on the efficient and effective service delivery by public sector which are mainly administered by Ministries and Departments of the Government.
Delivering efficient and effective welfare services by Government departments etc. should encompass institutional reforms so as break the low level of equilibrium trap by taking simultaneous steps in different fronts like building organizational capabilities, improving quality of services, improving flow of funds to local governments, accountability, transparency, information empowerment, role of civil society organizations, change management and result oriented etc.
There is always a need to innovate considering the special and specific need of a particular programme and it may be location specific also. In all these besides the stated variables, ICT tools are always helpful and usable to bring in transparency as well as Direct benefit transfers. The benefit of using ICT tools need not be elaborated again as it is well known.
Despite the constraints mentioned above and poor quality of governance, there are hopes, aspirations, and possibilities for good governance. State and Society is in quest for good governance and with this aim in view, a number of reform initiatives have been taken after the process of globalization and also the emergence of information and communication technology. In India, several reforms are initiated to improve governance at different levels and appreciable outcome could be seen in citizen centric public service delivery with the use of ICT tools. Besides, there is need to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Also, the policies and programmes should be linked to results and there is need for performance evaluation and monitoring by independent agencies. In order to improve governance, there is also need to bring in the issue of Accountability, Transparency, Information Empowerment and inclusive development.
To conclude, let us hope for changed governance, at least good enough governance so the citizens of the country benefit with changed outlook for development
