In Pakistan, we have a top-down public policy framework, which has been designed without any consensus.
SHIKARPUR: Much has been written and spoken on the discourse of good governance in Pakistan and it is obvious that the judiciary, the executive and the legislature constitute the structure of governance, which ensures the survival and dignity of the common people. These institutions administer freedom of thought, speech and equality and help secure the individual from persecution, hunger, injustice, corruption and marginalisation.
Unfortunately, in Pakistan, the practicalities of good governance go in an opposite direction to this discourse. Every day, print, electronic and social media report the violation of the rights of minorities and ethnic groups, millions have to survive poverty, inflation, unemployment, police brutality, while corruption is at an all-time high. Millions of children are out of school, ghost schools are prevalent, people are deprived of medical facilities and the access of common citizens to those governance institutions for their basic services and rights is difficult, time consuming and costly.
Obviously, one can easily understand that all of the above-mentioned menaces are due to lack of transparency, accountability, planning and monitoring on the part of those service providers and policymakers that cause governance deficit and corruption in public departments, where a citizen’s legal right is dealt with mostly illegally. For the last 66 years, people of this country have been suffering disadvantages at the behest of a ruling elite that has monopolised the institutions of governance through an unregulated paradigm of administration.
The World Bank rightly asserts in a 1997 report that, “Governments are more effective when they listen to businesses and citizens and work in partnership with them in deciding and implementing the policies. Where governments lack mechanisms to listen, it means that they are not responsive to people’s interests.” On the contrary, in Pakistan, we have a top-down public policy framework, which has been designed without any consensus or consultation of all stakeholders. The government is clearly not listening to the common man.
To achieve good governance, citizens, educationists, scholars, social workers, political activists, lawyers and media personnel have to come forward and engage themselves with monitoring public institutions and ensuring the delivery of judicious social services. They must engage with policymaking institutions while designing public policies. Experts should study in-depth the contemporary discourse of international development to find out solutions and the way forward to designing and implementing meaningful, progressive and effective local governance mechanisms.
Irshad Soomro
Published in The Express Tribune, January 27th, 2014.
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