The meaning of good governance

The Burki Institute of Public Policy (BIPP) I chair in Lahore published its 2023 annual report late last year. Anticipating what the newly elected government in Islamabad would face when it takes office, the report focused on the issue of governance. Titled ‘The state of the economy: Threads of Governance Weaving the Past, Present, and Future in Pakistan’, the report focused on various aspects of what we called ‘governance’. But when we worked on the report, we did not expect that the subject would acquire so much importance a couple of months after it was launched. There was an expectation that the elections that were to be held in the spring of 2024 would bring political stability. With stability would come public policies aimed at producing higher rates of economic growth and improve the quality of life for the citizenry. However, economic growth was contingent upon the quality of governance that would — or should — result with the induction of an elected government in Islamabad and the provinces. What is meant by ‘good governance’? How should it be practised? What were the likely outcomes? These are some of the several questions we asked in the 2023 document.

Governance is the relationship between those who rule and over whom they rule. In democratic systems those placed in policymaking and policy-implementing positions are elected by the people. Once the elections are over, the elected are divided into two groups: those who are given the authority to do things they believe people want; and those who keep a watch on those who govern. Then there is the question: what is good governance? Simply put: it is to provide basic services to the people. The most basic of these is to design a system that secures the lives of people. This means prescribing laws and putting in place the means to ensure that they are followed. This is needed for people to trust one another and to trust the people who have been given the responsibility to govern. One good example of this is the way traffic flows. When I visit Pakistan, I am struck by the indifference towards basic traffic laws by those who come out and use the road system. Beyond the recognition that people driving various kinds of vehicles should remain on the left side of the road, there is little attention paid to other rules.

One part of good governance is to believe what policymakers are seeing. They are looking at several things, including an enormous change in the demographic landscape. Pakistan has one of the highest rates of population increase in the world, matching that in several countries in sub-Sharan Africa. The high rates of population increase means that the country has a very young population. The median age in Pakistan is 20.4 years, which means that 120 million people in the population of 240 million are below that age. They want services and jobs the government of the day must work to provide.

To begin with is the expectation that there would be changes in the way the government works but it appears that that is not likely to happen for the reason that the candidates the young people voted for didn’t make it to the list of those elected in the February 8 poll. The youth have decided to agitate against the seeming results of what looks like an engineered election. The young are at the forefront of the agitation that is taking place across the country against the way elections were managed. At this point it might be useful to look at some demographic arithmetic.

It is estimated that more than 22 million voters were added to the electorate in 2024, a much larger number compared to the addition in 2018. In a conversation I had with Imran Khan when he was the prime minister, I explained to him the approach taken by a relatively new sub-discipline which its practitioners had added to Political Science. Called ‘psephology’, the discipline is the study of elections, voting patterns, electoral behaviour, and the forecasting of election results. It became a specialised field of political sociology with the spread of regular opinion polls on voting intentions, major post-election interview surveys, access to population census statistics for small areas and sophisticated data analysis and modeling packages. By practising this discipline, those involved in politics and those who analyse political trends would make informed decisions.

In that conversation, I suggested to Khan that he needed a good and reliable indication of what constituted his electoral base, what the base wanted from him and how he would provide to the people who are his followers. Various global institutions that follow developments around the world place Pakistan very low in the various indices to assess the state of development. The UNDP has developed what it calls the Human Development Index. This measures the situation in all countries around the globe combining indices on education, health and longevity. According to the information provided in the 2023 report, Pakistan does poorly; its performance is the poorest in South Asia, ranking 161 among 192 countries that were evaluated by the institution. It is behind Nepal that ranks 143; India at 132; Bangladesh at 129; Bhutan at 127; and Sri Lanka at 73.

The BIPP report concludes with the following statement: “While the politicians who represent the collective will of the people are primarily responsible for the journey to good governance, the role of other institution especially the Pakistan army is integrally essential in this effort. Notwithstanding the fact how corroded and unresponsive the current setup that often resembles a spoils system is, the solution has to come from within. The pathway, contingent of the prevailing reality and power-structure, needs to rationally and judiciously steward the nation out of the governance mired with consensus across the board among major power-wielding players, contenders and institutions.”

Of high propriety is the restructuring of the government. This was the stated aim of the 18^th amendment to the Constitution which devolved several important powers from the federal government to the provinces. However, the process of devolution stopped there. It is essential to bring political power and with that economic responsibility to the local people. This was the aim of the system of Basic Democracies introduced by President Ayub Khan. The multi-tiered system starting with Union Council and going up to Tehsil, District and Division Councils had elected Union Councilors and local officials as members. It was an ideal setup for bringing economic and social development to the people. Something like the Ayub system may need to be revived.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4^th, 2024.

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