Thinking globally, acting locally

With a disputed history of origin, the phrase “thinking globally, acting locally” comes with a diverse range of understandings depending on what it refers to. Hinted by Patrick Geddes, a Scottish town planner, in his book, Cities in Evolution, the phrase took the stage in late 1900s when writers like Rene Dubos and David Browner used it while writing on environmental strategies. It is now widely used in policymaking as well. As understood by policymakers, it urges to consider a global context while formulating policy and to act in relevance to the local context.

In the wake of Covid-19, Asad Umar rightly highlighted the approach of “think globally, act locally”, in dealing with the pandemic. This nevertheless hints that top government policymakers are aware about the right vocabulary that policymakers should use. But the question is whether the government is actually thinking globally and acting locally.

Being aware is the first step for conducive policy formations. The current government, in case of Covid-19, proved it acted locally while thinking globally. The smart lockdown system was appreciated by international organisations as well.

In the past however, this approach has not been prevalent in policymaking. For e.g. the case of digitisation of land records in Punjab by the PML-N government. While in association with the World Bank, the then government spent billions of rupees to digitise land records to reduce corruption and enhance the speed of land registration and mutation, its results are still to be seen. Other examples include education and health policies which didn’t work leading to the current deteriorating services in the country.

It’s possible that Pakistan lagged behind on attaining the Millennium Development Goals because of a lack of such an approach. Now, much work needs to be done on the Sustainable Development Goals. The only way to achieve these is by “thinking globally, acting locally” i.e. government policies should be informed by the global and local contexts.

But with a centralised policymaking system, it’s hard to develop locally appropriate policies. Although with the devolution of education, health and policing, policymaking has been decentralised through the 18^th Amendment, the large size of the provinces hinders localisation. Even at the provincial level, centres are far away from the peripheries.

One way to inform central policies about grassroots realities is through multi-tiered elected bodies, which are currently absent or not functional. Another way is to engage with the civil society through NGOs and community-based organisations that are working with communities locally.

This will help the government to come up with policies which are locally informed and globally relevant. While the current federal government took this approach to deal with Covid-19, it can replicate the idea onto other policies to improve public services. The same is direly needed by provincial governments to correct the course of policymaking. It’s also necessary because policymaking determines the success of any policy.

By engaging with civil society actors, including local NGOs and community based-organisations, the government can inform itself about the local realities and needs. A policy can then be made based on this information and will bear the potential to succeed and truly be a “public” policy. This is needed to attain the SDGs and improving people’s quality of life, especially those living in the country’s peripheries. This approach will help governments not only avoid past mistakes but also to fix past policies to attain the desired outcomes.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2020.

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