How to Improve Governance

                 This post is a summary of three articles. The first was published with the title above at        http://www.brookings.edu/research/books/2009/howtoimprovegovernance. The second was published at  www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2013/jun/12/fiscal-transparency-better-accountability-development. The third was published in December 2013 at  http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2013/12/16/fiscal-transparency-policy-outcomes

                In recent years, the developing world has seen a burst of efforts to reduce corruption, increase transparency and accountability and improve governance. Needless to say,this is an important and encouraging development. However, the lack of a reliable compass to describe where a country is a given moment, and where it could be heading in the absence or acceptance of proposed reforms, can result in disastrous missteps. The unfortunate absence of such a guide has helped lead to innumerable failed governments or ineffective regimes. This important book aims to fill that void. The book, "How to Improve Governance," emphasizes the need for an overall analytical framework that can be applied to different countries to help analyze their current situation, identify potential areas for improvement, and assess their relative feasibility and the steps needed to promote them. A country-specific analysis needs to be comprehensive, in the sense that it includes the four concepts of transparency, accountability, governance, and anticorruption throughout the cauculus. Without such analytic framework, any reform attempt is likely to flounder for lack of a shared understanding of the underlying problems and of the feasible reforms. The book gives special emphasis to the potential for civil society groups to play a stronger role in holding governments accountable for their use of public resources, and to the importance of developing politically, prioritized country strategies for reform. "Whether one looks at how to increase domestic demand for good governance, how to make government more accountable to the public, or how to build democratic processes that deliver results, the underlying issues are essentially the same....As development actors of various types....seek to help, more and more of them are calling for clearer conceptual framework to guide their efforts." From the introduction.

                The last few years have seen a flurry of international initiatives aimed at promoting transparency in a variety of areas of government action. The Open Government Partnership, launched in 2011, already has more than 50 member governments who have undertaken to promote transparency and openness and to allow for independent reviews of their efforts.Transparency initiatives have existed for longer in the extractive industries and foreign aid sectors, two areas that are both sensitive and very important for international development. In the more specific area of fiscal transparency, the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency has brought together key actors - governmental, non-governmental and inter-governmental - to design and promote improved global norms for transparency and citizen participation in the management of public resources. All of these efforts stem from two inter-related convictions. First, that having access to government information, including budget information is a right of every citizen. Second, that transparency and access to information will allow citizens to engage with policy processes and monitor government action, leading to improved accountability and better development outcomes. Research surrounding these questions shows that four main factors stand out as contributing to improvements in fiscal transparency and participation. These are: 1) Processes of political transition towards more democratic forms of contestation and alternation. 2) Fiscal and economic crises that forces governments to put in place enhanced mechanisms for fiscal discipline and independent scrutiny. 3) Widely publicised cases of corruption that give reformers political space to introduce reforms that improve public access to fiscal information. 4) External influences that promote global norms and empower domestic reformers and civil society actors. This body of research shows that while fiscal transparency can contribute to positive development results, such results and transparency itself can not be taken for granted. Many governments continue to resist calls for more transparency and responsiveness to their citizens. And transparency`s  impact on accountability relations and development outcomes depends on a host of additional factors, from active oversight institutions to a free and engaged media.

               The World Bank is launching a new Open Budgets Portal as part of its efforts to advance fiscal transparency and open data arround the world. High-quality budget data that can be easily accessed, visually compelling and used by a wide variety of stakeholders is essential to inform the decision making processes around public expenditures, and help citizens know how and where governments are spending their money. The Portal showcases a subset of countries that have released their entire public spending datasets and are dissemination them in accessible formats. This information will help evidence-based monitoring, analysis, and advocacy so citizens can hold their governments accountable for more efficient spending and improved services. Access to quality data supports the work of governments, civil society, media and development partners.

Culture Matters

             This post is a summary of an article with the title above, written by Former President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias and published in February 2011 at  http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67202/oscar-arias/culture-matters  

            Nearly two centuries after the countries of Latin America gained their independence from Spain and Portugal, not one of them is developed. Where have they gone wrong? Why have countries in other regions, once far behind, managed to achieve relatively quickly results that Latin America countries have aspired to for so long? Many in the region respond to such questions with conspiracy theories or self-pitying excuse. They blame the Spanish empire, or the American empire. They say that financial institutions have schemed to hold the region back, that globalization was designed to keep it in the shadows. In short, they place the blame for underdevelopment anywhere but on Latin America itself. The truth is that so much time has passed since independence that Latin Americans have lost the right to use others as the excuse for their own failures. Various outside powers have indeed affected the region`s fate. But that is true for every region of the world. Latin America nations began with conditions equal to, or even better than, those prevailing elsewhere. We are ones who fell behind. When Harvard University opened its doors in 1636, there were already well-established universities in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru. In 1820, the GDP of Latin America as a whole was 12.5% greater than that of the U.S. Today, with a population of about 560 million, some 250 million more than U.S. the region has a GDP that is only 29% of its northern neighbor. Tired of empty words and meaningless promises, people in the region are disillusioned with politics in general. Recognizing their own share of responsibility for the situation, however, could be the start of rewriting history. The key is accepting that four regional cultural traits are obstacles that need to be overcome for development to succeed: resistance to change, absence of confidence, fragile democratic norms, and a soft spot for militarism. Latin Americans glorify their past and instead of a culture of improvement, they have promoted a culture of preservation of the status quo. Constant, patient reform, compatible with democratic stability is unsatisfying. Latin Americans preferring a certain present to an uncertain future. Some of this is only natural, entirely human. But the fear is paralyzing, it generates not only anxiety but also paralysis. To make matters worse, the region`s political leaders rarely have the patience or the skill to walk their people through the processes of reform. In a democracy, a leader must be the teacher, someone eager to respond to doubts and questions and explain the need for and the benefits of a new course. But too often in Latin America, leaders justify themselves with a simple "because I say so." Latin America has more controllers than entrepreneurs. The region lacks effective mechanisms to support innovative projects. Someone seeking to start a new business must begin by wading through waves of bureaucracy and arbitrary requirements. Entrepreneurs get minimal praise or cultural reinforcement, little legal protection, and scarce academic support. The region`s universities, meanwhile, are turning out the kinds of professionals that development demands. Latin America graduates six professionals in the social sciences for every two in engineering and every one in the exact sciences. Visiting a Latin American university is like traveling to the past, to an era in which Russia and China had yet to embrace capitalism. Instead of giving students practical tools, such as technological and language skills, to help them succeed in a globalized world, many schools devote themselves to teaching authors no one reads and repeating doctrines in which no one believes. For development to occur, this has to change. Latin America countries must begin to reward innovators and creators. Their universities must reform their academic offerings and invest in science and technology. They must attract investment and promote the tranfer of knowledge. The second obstacle is the absence of confidence. No development project can prosper in a place where suspicion reigns, the success of others is viewed with misgiving, and creativity and drive are met with wariness. Latin americans doubt the true intentions of all those cross their paths. We believe that everyone has a secret agenda and that it is better not to get too involved in collective efforts.  We are captives to a prisoner`s dilemma in which each person contributes as little as possible to the common interest. It has been said that legal security is the protection of trust. They must be able to antecipate the legal consequences of their actions. The third obstacle blocking development is the fragility of the commitment to democracy. To be sure, with the exception of Cuba, the region is entirely democratic today. But the truth is that the victory is incomplete. Despite carefully crafted constitutions, Latin America still has a soft spot for authoritarianism. If Latin American democracies do not live up to their political and economic promise, if their citizens` hopes remain deferred, then authoritarianism will rise again. The way to prevent that is show the public that democracy works, that it truly can build more prosperous societies. Moving beyond political sclerosis, becoming more responsive to citizens`demands and generating fiscal resources. Increasing public income is no sufficient, those funds must also be spent wisely, to promote human development. Each year, the region spends $60 billion on arms and soldiers, double what it spent just five years ago. Why? Who is going to attack whom? The enemies of the people in the region are hunger, ignorance, disease and crime. They are internal, and they can be defeated only through smart public policy. Latin Americans must look in the mirror and confront the reality that many of our problems lie in ourselves. We must lose our fear of change. We must embrace entrepreneuship. We must learn to trust. we must strengthen our commitment to democracy. Only then will the region attain the development it has so long sought.

120th Birthday of Aldous Huxley

             A little more than four months ago, precisely on July 26th, the British writer Aldous Huxley would complete 120 years-old, so this post is a tribute to him. His writing contributed to reinforce the importance of education, an effective and inclusive democracy and human rights. This post is a summary of three articles. The first published at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley. The second was published at http://answerparty.com/question/answer/what-is-a-brave-new-world-by-aldous-huxley-about. The third was published at http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/bravenew/themes.html. The quotes were published at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/aldous_huxley.html

      Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He is best known for his dystopian novel "Brave New World" and the book, "The doors of Perception", which recalls experiences when taking a psychedelic drug. He also published a lot of essays, short stories, poetry, travel books and scripts. He spent the later part of his life in Los Angeles, from 1937 until his death. Huxley married Maria Nys, a Belgian in 1919. They had one child, Matthew, who had a career as an author and prominent epidemiologist. In 1956, he married Laura Archera, an author who wrote his biography. In 1960, Huxley was diagnosed with cancer and, in the years that followed, with his health deteriorating, he wrote the utopian novel "Island"  and gave lectures on Human Potentialities, which were fundamental to the forming of the human potential movement. Despite his interest in spirituality and mysticism, he called himself an agnostic. Huxley was a humanist and pacifist. He became deeply concerned that human rights become subjugated through the sophisticsted use of the mass media or mood-altering drugs or misapplication of sophisticated technology. In 1937 he pubished "Ends and Means" where he examines the fact that although most people in modern civilisation agree that they want a world of "liberty, peace, justice, and brotherly love", they have not been able to agree on how to achieve it. During 1939, Huxley started to earn a substantial income as a Hollywood screenwriter, and he used much of it to bring over Jewish, left-wing writer and artist refugees from Hitler`s Germany to the U.S. In 1949, Huxley wrote to George Orwell, author of "1984" congratulating him on "how fine and how profoundly important the book is." Huxley had deeply felt apprehensions about the future the world might make for itself. From these, he made some warnings in his writings and talks. Huxley outlined several major concerns: the dangers of world overpopulation; the tendency toward distinctly hierarchical social organisation; the importance of evaluating the use of technology in mass societies susceptible to wily persuasion.                                                                                            The book "Brave New World" is about the use of technology to control society and the dangers of an all-powerful state. It is published at 1932 and set in London in the year of 2540. The novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and operant conditioning that combine to profoundly change society. In literature, especially in science fiction, genetic engineering has been used as a theme or a plot device in many stories. In 1999, the Modern Library, an American publishing company that polled its editorial board to find the best 100 novels of the 20th century. They ranked "Brave New World",  fifth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the last century. "Ulysses" by James Joyce topped the list.

       The main themes of this dystopian novels are: the use of technology to control society. The book warns of the dangers of giving the state absolute control over new and powerful technologies. Including medical, biological and psychological tech. At the same time, however censor and limits some technologies that could be used as threatening to the state`s control. The consumer society, in which individual happiness is defined as the ability to satisfy needs. The incompatibility of happiness and truth. The novel is full of characters who do everything they can to avoid facing the truth about their own situation. The state prioritizes happiness at the expense of truth by design: people think that they are better with happiness than with truth. What are these two abstract entities that the state in this novel juxtaposes? It seems clear enough that happiness refers to the immediate gratification of citizens desire for food, sex, drugs, and other consumer items. It is less clear what the state means by truth. Truth and individuality thus become entwined in the novel`s thematic structure.The main theme is All-powerful State. Like George Orwell`s 1984, this novel depicts a dystopia in which an all-powerful state controls the behaviors and actions of its people in order to preserve its own stability and power. But a major difference between the two is that , whereas in 1984 control is maintained by constant surveillance, secret police and torture, power in Brave New World is maintained through technological interventions that start before birth and last until death.  Below there are some quotes from Huxley.

  "Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself,

to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting."

            

                   "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."

        "It is with bad sentiments that one makes good novels."