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Accountable Governance for DevelopmentSetting an Agenda Beyond 2015
Published By: Affiliated Network for Social Accountability- South Asia Region (ANSA-SAR) & Institute of Governance Studies, BRAC University Dhaka, June 2013. ISBN: 978-984-33-6462-3
Copyright 2013
Affiliated Network for Social Accountability -South Asia Region SK Center, GP, Ja- 4, (5th - 7th Floor), TB Gate, Mohakhali, Dhaka 1212 Website: www. ansa-sar.org ANSA-SAR retains copyright for this publication. This material may nonetheless be copied for education and training purposes with reference made to the source.
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Content 05
1. Introduction Theme 1: Multidimensional aspects of Citizenship, Democracy and Governance i.
"Governance in the Technology Era: Implications of Actor Network Theory for Social Empowerment in South Asia”- Akhlaque Haque
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ii.
“Multiple Aspects of Citizenship, Democracy and Governance”- Rokeya Kabir
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iii.
“Social Accountability in Pakistan: Challenges, Gaps, Opportunities and the Way Forward”- Fayaaz Yaseen
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iv.
“Cultures of both Citizenship and Democracy in Bangladesh: A Critical Study”- Supad Kumar Ghose
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Theme 2: Accountable Governance for Inclusive Development and Societal Transformation v.
“Social Accountability and its Conceptual Challenges”- Eelco Jacobs & Claudia Baez Camargo
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vi.
“Multiple Leadership Accountabilities, Discordant Discourses and Clumsy Structures Within Plural Governance”- Donald Curtis
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vii.
“Institution Building, Inclusive Growth and Accountability: A Study of China and India”- Gurumurthy Kalyanaram
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Theme 3: Equity Architecture of Government - Business relations for Growth viii.
ix.
“Governing through Coercion and Consent: The Case of the Ready-Made Garments Industry in Bangladesh”- Kazi Mahmudur Rahman
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“Role of Institutions in ensuring sustainable livelihoods- Case of Waste pickers of Lucknow City”- Vandana Tripathi
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x.
“Determinants Influencing Collaborative Governance Under Public Private Partnerships (PPPs): An Australian Experience”- Quamrul Alam & Humayun Kabir
xi.
“Can Mobile Phone Technology Lead the Way in Bringing Financial Inclusion? Evidence from India”- Sumanjeet and Minakshi Paliwal
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Theme 4: Leadership and Capacity for Efficient Public Service Management xii.
“Collaborative Public Service Delivery in Bangladesh: Does it really boost all- inclusive development?”- Mohammad Mohabbat Khan. and Md. Shahriar Islam
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xiii.
“Measuring And Managing Performance In Government – Critical Appraisal Of India’s Performance Monitoring And Evaluation System (PMES)”- Ashish Vachhani
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xiv.
“Primal Leadership: An Imperative for Effective Public Service Management”- Radha R. Sharma
xv.
“Combating corruption: the role of CAG in India”- Ronojoy Sen
2. Concluding Note: i. Human Security and the Next Generation of Comprehensive Human Development Goals – Des Gasper 3. Additional Papers: i. “Balochistan Local Government Act: A Governance Roadmap by Locals’ Participation” -Sana-Ur-Rahman Sheikh & Saubia Ramzan ii.
“Replicable Strategies of a Grama Panchayat for Finance Management”Aljo C. Cheriyan & Biju S.K.
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436 451
4. Annexure i. Dhaka Declaration
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INTRODUCTION With the advent of the new millennium in 2000, the UN General Assembly adopted the Millennium Declaration in which both developed and developing countries committed to do all they can to eradicate poverty, promote human dignity, equality and achieve peace, democracy and environmental sustainability. Emanating from the Millennium Declaration, the Millennium Developments Goals (MDGs) were spelled out in terms of goals-in terms of quantified and timebound targets on the various dimensions of human development encompassing poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, and environmental sustainability. These goals are set to be achieved by the year 2015 and their importance for the global community has since then has become the driving force for international development agenda, national policy frameworks and an avenue to secure a peaceful world for all.
The key role that good governance plays in accelerating the progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has been repeatedly emphasised, especially given the trend of increased inequality across the globe. Recent UN MDG reports have indicated that progress has been uneven often with modest impact on the poorest and most vulnerable, as policies and interventions have bypassed those segments of the population in many cases. Hence the call for sustained, inclusive, equitable and job-intensive growth that provides opportunities to everyone have increasingly become strong and it also resonates clearly in the emerging discourse on a new development framework beyond 2015. One of the critical factors for such a development path is good governance with broad-based participation of citizens and civil society organizations in development processes. This has been again re-affirmed by the Rio+20 outcome documents, which highlights explicitly the importance of engaging all stakeholders including citizens themselves and excluded groups.
So far the achievements of nations in realising the MDGs have been mixed, with successes in some goals and enormous challenges in case of others. In fact, one of the crucial reasons for lack of attainment of MDG goals has been governance failures in many nations. This has prompted the world leaders participating in the MDG Summit in 2010 to acknowledge the role of good governance for sustainable development and eradication of poverty and hunger. With the 2015 MDG deadline fast approaching, the UN Secretary-General has initiated the UN-led process to 5
determine the post-2015 development agenda; and this evolving discourse has underpinned the critical role of good governance for sustained progress towards MDGs. One may ask, how has South Asia fared with MDGs? Although South Asia is among the fastest growing regions in the world; but it is still home to the largest concentration of people living in abject poverty. While economic growth over the decades has significantly contributed to reduction of poverty, the total number of poor people and gaps between have and have-nots in South Asia has also increased. Even with concerted efforts in pursuing MDGs, more than a billion people still live on less than $2 a day in the region. So poverty is still a daunting challenge in the region, a challenge that may very well undermine the achievements won so far.
In fact, during the last decade governance in countries of South Asia have been witnessing a transition , where the command-and-control Weberian State mechanisms are being gradually superseded by governance processes that combine the strengths of public organizations, civil society, and the private sector to co-create value in public service for economic and social betterment of citizens. In this context, deepening of democratic principles played a subtle but very important role in emergence of this new governance paradigm that is embedded within the society. In this transition to a more embracing notion of “governance”, countries in the region are grappling with issues with regard to framing new type of relations between State and the society – and increasingly business, owing to import or imposition of the neo-liberal paradigm of less government and more private sector involvement in many sectors economy and public service. Governments in South Asia thus face a unique challenge of ensuring equitable and inclusive development for all – and it demands that governments examine new ways to mitigate the inherent structural injustice of a social order that perpetuates unequal control over both economic and political resources within the society. At the same time these countries face enormous obstacles, not necessarily based on their economic circumstances, but originating in institutional dysfunctions, entrenched elites, and oligopolistic government and business cultures with limited regulatory oversights. While the scale of these governance impediments varies across countries – there are enough common threads to examine these issues with different lenses of societal and civic empowerment perspectives. 6
Efficient and accountable pubic administration and participatory and transparent governance processes are the key prerogatives to correct these structural injustices and build our societies free of poverty and want. This would not only require greater attention by governments to the social agenda, but also the deepening of democracy through entrepreneurial state architecture and innovation of governance processes - for example active engagement with citizens in policy and programmatic deliberation – and enhanced to stakeholders’ oversight through provision of scrutiny/audit of public sector management by citizen and empowered civil society. Consequently there is an urgent need for interconnected government structure without the control of elites (political or administrative) and retooling of public governance and administration to develop new sets of knowledge, skills, cultures and managerial
practices; and effective
institutional mechanisms to significantly enhance citizen-centricity of governance processes and services. It is widely believed that efficient and effective functioning of public governance system is a key to any country’s rapid development. South Asian countries have experimented with a number of public sector initiatives, but each country’s path to introduce governance reforms have been significantly different due to the nature of the contextual factors such as political history, party politics, macro-economic considerations, state tradition, media freedom, role of International Development Agencies (IDAs) and role of civic and engagement.
civil society
Moreover, the political commitment and leadership seem to be the most
influencing factors. The policy prescriptions of IDAs have influenced the development process in a significant manner and as a result some South Asian countries have found managing the transition very complex and politically risky.
In this context- the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability, in collaboration with the Institute of Governance Studies (IGS) of BRAC University, the United Nations Millennium Campaign – Asia and Pacific Region, Public Affairs Centre (PAC), Governance and Public Policy Program of North-South University and Monash University Governance Research Unit (MGRU) organised a two day international conference during 7-9 December 2012 in Dhaka on Governance and Public Service Transformation in South Asia. The conference provided an opportunity to collaboratively explore the governance reform journey in South Asian countries over the past two decades, highlight opportunities and challenges, explore governance deficits
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that hinder the acceleration of MDG achievement and recommend how the governance agenda can be concretely integrated into the Post 2015 development framework. The Conference was organised around four strategic and topical themes:
Multidimensional aspects of Citizenship, Democracy and Governance
Accountable Governance for Inclusive Development and Societal Transformation
Equity Architecture of Government - Business relations for Growth
Leadership and Capacity for Efficient Public Service Management
In the Conference as many as 15 papers of scholars and practitioners from across South Asia, as well as Australia, USA, UK, The Netherlands and Switzerland focused around the above thematic pillars were presented and discussed during the working sessions on 8-9 December. The papers ranged from topics -such as collaborative governance; public private partnerships; practices and challenges of social accountability; institutions and institutional building; leadership; aspects of culture and governance; citizenship, participation, democracy and governance; techno-centric tools for social empowerment and improved governance; public service delivery, corruption and performance management in the public sector.
The key
messages of the different papers of the Conference were: While it remains undisputed that governance or governance reforms lie at the heart of achieving the goals set forth for 2015- the concept of governance can certainly be critiqued and a more pragmatic approach can be put forward which is more attuned to the South Asian countries. Developmental approach focuses on building critical agencies with political and bureaucratic capacities and processes to solve problems like land acquisition and resettlement (M. Khan). Rather than focusing on the near-impossible to implement task of enforcing generalised rules of public conduct, these agencies focus on controlling predatory corruption or corruption that damages vital services. These agencies may be themselves public private partnerships or can involve quasi public agencies in monitoring. Another approach focuses on plurality and polycentricity. Institutions that serve the commons or public goods can themselves be plural, involving a variety of public, private and civil actors that act in collaboration and negotiate with each other in ‘conflict full’ discourses. Rather than a monolithic conception of actors, the emphasis is on many centres of focused power around points of common interest. 8
The governance agenda is set through participation in the democratic process citizens exercise their rights and inform the decision-making process. A democratic deficit arising from voluntary abdication of responsibility, where citizens do not discharge their duties such as voting and a much larger factor is the involuntary alienation of people from the participation process results in a governance deficit. There is a compelling case for leadership in sustainable and inclusive development which does not compromise the rights of future generations. This leadership must be one that is engaging and encourages participation with stakeholders, not just in a formal ritualistic way but with the clear goal of empowering the stakeholders laid out. Central to inclusive development is accountability which is essentially the process through which citizens can claim their rights and entitlements. It is here that social accountability- which distinguishes itself from other mechanisms by proposing that citizen can directly participate in holding the service providers accountable. Social accountability approach is slowly gaining momentum and examples of its application through citizen’s feedback using ICT, proactive disclosure- government/ service providers making information public as a step towards transparency, can be found everywhere including South Asian democracies. However, the challenge in the coming years is that of human security- the next generation of human development goals. The question is not so much of governance-in-itself but governance for what, and for whom, as it has been well-established globally that rapid economic growth can take place leaving huge numbers on the wayside. This largely undermines efforts in ensuring better governance. This International Conference on Governance and Public Service Transformation in South Asia provided a vital and timely multi-stakeholder platform to explore and examine required transformations for government and public sector institutions to meet growing citizen demands for stronger voice and participation in governance and development processes. The discussions culminated in a Dhaka Declaration, announced on December 9 (see Annexure for details) and which was later on presented in the subsequent South Asian Parliamentarians Conclave also arranged in Dhaka. The Declaration recognises the need for learning from the MDG experience, promoting equitable development through accountable and transparent systems and collective 9
augmentation of research efforts to encourage co-creation, assimilation and dissemination of knowledge with regard to design and implementation of development initiatives and interventions of the MDGs. Thus, this volume strives to widely disseminate the knowledge of the Conference as a step towards achieving those desired goals.
Naimur Rahman Rizwan Khair Nuzhat Jabin
Dhaka, June 2013
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Theme 1 Multidimensional aspects of Citizenship, Democracy and Governance
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GOVERNANCE IN THE TECHONOLOGY ERA: IMPLICATIONS OF ACTOR NETWORK THEORY FOR SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT IN SOUTH ASIA
Akhlaque Haque
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GOVERNANCE IN THE TECHONOLOGY ERA: IMPLICATIONS OF ACTOR NETWORK THEORY FOR SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT IN SOUTH
ABSTRACT
Information and communication technologies (ICT) have proven advantage in delivering time sensitive and relevant information to targeted communities. Social entrepreneurs have effectively leveraged ICT to reach out to people who are marginalized from public discourse. Despite successes, many ICT initiatives have also failed due underestimating the social requirements of technology and over reliance on information systems than the information that it transports. Information has been the key resource to social development. How information is produced and applied to a social context to create meaning is more important than how it is represented through portable monitors and mobile devices. The paper argues in order to take advantage of the modern day ICT, it is critical that we understand how technology and society mediates within a socio-technical framework. The Village Knowledge Centre (VKC) project in India and the Access to Information (A2I) project in Bangladesh provides sound evidence of how ICT-led development can be meaningful and, how the long run success of ICT-led development will depend on the collaboration of social entrepreneurs and public administrators.
Despite
similarities in the mediation process, the approach taken by social entrepreneurs will ultimately determine the sustainability of ICT-based developments.
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INTRODUCTION The success of social entrepreneurship has regenerated interest in partnerships between government and civil society organization (CSO) to solve the world’s most pressing problems, including democratic rights of individuals, coping with climate change, rights to healthy living and social justice for marginalized communities. With the hopes of mobilizing citizens to become productive partners in economic revival, the international development agencies, including The World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the DFID (Britain), GIZ (Germany) have invested in sustainable social development projects through collaborating with social entrepreneurs. Investment in social entrepreneurship in the developed world is also noteworthy. For example, the Obama administration through its newly created Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation (OSICP), has allocated 1.1 billion dollars and for the first time created the Social Investment Fund (SIF) given out to some of America’s most successful non-profit organizations to expand their work and encourage investment in health care, vocational training and direct assistance to bring people out of poverty.
Social
entrepreneurship is arguably a mobilization tool used by catalytic entrepreneurs who leverage the social capital in helpless communities to develop sustainable partnership as they empower and transform the human condition (Waddock and Post, 1991; Waddock, 1991). Information plays a critical role in motivating citizens by identifying and contextualizing information towards a purposeful goal. Indeed, democracy is strengthened by an informed citizenry as citizens take ownership of their situation to become empowered and take charge of their destiny. Information and communication technologies (ICT) have proven advantage in delivering time sensitive and relevant information to targeted communities. However, evidence suggests there are more failures than successes using ICT for social empowerment because of over reliance on the information systems than the information. As a consequence of employing new technology, how information is produced and applied to a social context to create meaning is more important than how it is represented through portable monitors and mobile devices. The roots of social entrepreneurship can be traced in the works by scholars engaged in civic and community empowerment, social responsibility and social justice (Harmon, 2006; Frederickson, 1980; Cheryl King, 1998); however, the role of information and information systems in the process of achieving the same goals needs further investigation. As opposed to business 14
entrepreneurs who take risk for making new opportunities to profits, the social entrepreneurs are interested in making mission-related social impact (Martin and Osberg, 2007; Yunus and Weber, 2010).Although a growing literature on social entrepreneurship is emerging, the creative process of leveraging resources towards social mobilization is not well understood (Dacin et. al, 2010). This becomes particularly of interest in developing countries where public agencies play a critical role in realizing the social entrepreneurial goals. The purpose of the proposed research agenda is to evaluate the process by which social entrepreneurs as leaders, in conjunction with public administrators, utilize information technology to activate and mobilize citizens to reach a sustainable and socially desirable outcome. The outcome of a technology initiated empowerment depends on a complex social process independent of the technological supremacy. The growing literature on Actor Network and ethno methodology will be applied to discuss the implications of action oriented information for empowerment on two independent civil society led projects in Bangladesh and India. The case studies highlight how new information that becomes available through ICT, can mediate within society to build social relations. Despite similarities in the mediation process, the approach taken by social entrepreneurs will ultimately determine the sustainability of ICT-based developments. This article focuses on three important elements of technology and social mobilization. First, what is the process of social association that can give us insights to social mobilization for solving complex social problems? Second, how can active agents of society, such as social entrepreneurs and public administrators use technology for mobilizing at the grass roots? Finally, what are the implications for society and technology studies for public administration? The paper has been divided into three broad sections. The first part delves into the discussion on the sociology of association and understanding the role of technology in the larger scheme of human and non-human interaction. This section introduces Actor Network Theory (ANT). The second part of the paper connects the theoretical discussion of ANT to the case study on Village Knowledge project in Pondicherry, India and the Access to Information (A2I) project in Bangladesh. In conclusion, we discuss the implication of social entrepreneurship in public administration, social entrepreneurship and ICT. The role of ICT for social empowerment is unclear. The reason can be attributed to the fact that far more ICT dependent projects fail than succeed (Goldfinch, 2007; Heeks and Bhatnagar, 15
1999; Korac-Boisvert and Kouzmin, 1995) and that institutional impediments and failures to mobilize government support for action have often confounded ICT’s role in the process (Heeks, 2005; De and Ratan, 2009). To understand the impact of technology on social empowerment requires a deeper understanding of ICT, beyond institutional receptivity (Fountain, 2005) into understanding social institutions which include cultural norms and standardization of routine work (Northrop, 1990). These can have direct impact on the livelihood of the population in question. Social entrepreneurs are unelected bodies who need to be competent in what they do. Competency provides one of the basis by which policy decisions can be legitimized (Dahl, 1970). Therefore, how to mobilize information and knowledge authoritatively in the society is a fundamental task of the social entrepreneurs.
Whereas elected politicians can make value
judgments about policy decisions, they have a disadvantage of gathering empirically sound and unbiased information to validate their judgments that are acceptable to the public. This is due to elected officials’ question of neutrality of the information but also competency in data gathering and validation (Vibert, 2007, p. 49). When it comes to policy issues, the social entrepreneurs and the independent international development organizations have the upper hand in gathering empirical evidence about what works and what does not.
They can apply the technical
knowledge and leverage resources geared towards mission-specific developmental projects. However, the normative judgments about what is best for the society are reserved by the politicians who have the ultimate say as to what is the public interest. Whereas the technocratic function can be performed by the independent social entrepreneurs (for example, information gathering and resource mobilization), the political value judgments are made by the politicians (liberal or conservative, pro-business vs. pro-liberation etc.).Therefore, the social development formula in a democracy has a technocratic component of developing the technique and the political process provides the basis (or blessings) of why such development is critical in maintaining a stable democracy.
The social entrepreneurs can bring innovative ideas and
technical knowledge to solve specific social goals. Places where development challenges have been an uphill battle due to political and socioeconomic situations, the ICTs has become handy tool for social connectivity and access to information for social mobilization and empowerment.
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ACTOR NETWORK THEORY (ANT) Social problems are complex and require comprehensive understanding of the relationships of the social networks and each actor’s relationship to technology and artefacts that define the socio-technical network. In other words, the society is technologically shaped as we tie ourselves to routines that are built around a network of relations to humans as well as non-human actors. Actor-Network Theory (ANT) describes how actors, as members of social associations, utilize the non-human actors such as technology and other nonhuman artefacts (the “actants”), to create meaningful relationships. The path breaking works of Michael Callon (1991), Bruno Latour (1987, 2005) and John Law (1994) are recognized as foundational pillars of ANT. The subsequent work and related research within Science and Technology Studies (STS) provides further basis for understanding the evolution of ANT as a multidisciplinary study (See for example, Bijker, Hughes and Pinch, 1987; MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999; Feenberg, 1991). The theory asserts that the role of technology in society depends on the interpretation of the actors who use their social lenses to arrive at a mutually recognizable usage of the technology towards a given routine, while at the same time, balancing their social network relationships. Technology therefore is a social construct where technical artefacts in society are given life through meanings within the social setting as it becomes part of the society’s routine. By way of becoming part of a societal routine the technology is stabilized to affect social roles and relations, political arrangements, organizational structures and even cultural beliefs. Figure 1 is an attempt to describe the ANT process. The ANT defines the non-linear negotiation among differing actors as they interpret the role of other actors’ (including non-human actors) which culminates to a shared mode of thinking about the normative role of technology within existing social and organizational relationship.
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Figure 1 Actor Network Society
Ideas
Vision
Inscribe
Translate
Concrete objective purpose
Technology, Institutions, Organizations
Stabilize Others interest becomes own interest
The figure describes, in general, the process of change within a socio-technical framework where an individual initiator of change (the actor) creates his or her own vision of the future based on their understanding of the societal motives, socio-cultural and political biases; and assume that morality, technology, science and economy will evolve in particular ways. A large part of the work of the actors involved in the initial phase of deploying an artefact is that of “inscribing” the vision or prediction about the world in the technical context of the new idea. In other words, the individual vision is combined with the technical world to meet the purpose. Until the individual idea is crystallized into an organized action the negotiation of the “idea” and “reality” continues in translation. Translation is the phase in which existing social settings including agents and institutions are aligned to meet the demands of the new idea. The evolutionary process is embroiled with failures and improvisations at each stage of translation by differing actors in the translation process. The formal world of institutions and technology is used to translate the message (of the change) and standardize the process so that the desired change can take place specific to the people and their context. The negotiation is said to have been resolved or standardized when one form of the initial idea appears to be an acceptable resolution by others given the human and non-human contingencies. Once the idea reaches a standard interpretation it provides the stability and continuity required to replicate and translate it to the masses. What has been eventually “created” is the result of the collective interpretation of the actors which Heideggar (1977) calls “revealing” through “enframing” of the human mind. The essence of 18
technology, therefore, according to Heideggar, is nothing technological -- it is the collective realization of revealing an idea into an art (or technèas defined by Plato, See Heideggar, 1977, p. 34), as if pleasing to see it from different perspectives. Therefore, technology reveals itself my meshing with the given societal norms. The ANT’s emphasis on giving equal weight to non-human actors (technology) and human actors in social development is to differentiate between situated information and objective information. Whereas, objective information is imposed on the existing social setting, situated information is applied and improvised to match the existing social norms. Translation varies with people, time and context, yet once it is stabilized it becomes part of the societal routine. For example, social entrepreneurs can utilize technology as a supporting element to shape the environment that will favour a desired effect on society or community in question; yet the social entrepreneurs do not have full control of the outcome given the inherent limitations associated in the translation phase (i.e., individual understanding of the technologies’ role within their existing routine). The flexibility of translation process is directly associated with how technology may be used. Regardless of the technological sophistication, the moral reasoning must take precedence to technical rationality in the translation process. The greater the reliance on technology, and not the human and cultural beliefs, to standardize the desired result, the more difficult it becomes to translate that to action. Stability rests in the ability to translate others interests to one’s own. For example, the social entrepreneurs and the civil society organizations provide the moral basis of initiating the change.
For successful implementation, however, the moral basis must be
congruent with the social values and the political judgments of the elected officials. In the translation process, the instrumental knowledge required to make the change is critical but secondary to social and political knowledge. This is also described as the micro-macro problem or the local-global problem in the translation process (Misa, 2003). Local and global perception must be synchronized for sustainability of a stabilized network. Whereas technological determinism emphasizes technology as the dominant actor for change, and whereas social constructivism deemphasizes technology with the assumption they are socially constructed out of human or institutional domination, the ANT is on the continuum between technological determinism and social constructivism. ANT has been used to examine 19
human-technology networks in various fields of study with respect to application of technology from health policy to finance. The concept has received wide attention from scholars looking into the interpretive assessments of information systems. Underwood (2008) argues that ANT is particularly appealing to scholars from information system because, unlike business analysis which is the closest discipline to information sciences, ANT provides an avenue to avoid abstraction and gives researchers the liberty to describe the context where technology will be applied. Scholars outside the field of information systems have also employed ANT to explain work practices. Andrade (2010) showed that automatically generated “Out of Office” email messages are essentially technology mediated activity. The black-box of “out-of-office” is a negotiated “product” of society and technology. Burgess et al (2000) used ANT to examine the perception of farmers and scientists with respect to nature and use of agriculture techniques. Timpka et al (2007) applied ANT to identify information infrastructure needs for interorganizational collaboration in health services. Similarly McBride (2003) examined the adoption of mobile communication and the role of inscriptions in aligning actors’ interests and inducing irreversibility into the network. Stanforth (2006) employs ANT for studying the efficacy of Egovernment initiative, particularly the role of management information systems in catalyzing financial reform in Sri Lanka. Rhodes (2009) utilizes ANT to assess the implementation of telecentres for microenterprise development in South Arica. In the present context of studying ICT efforts in developing countries, the theory has the potential to examine systematically the elements which are often boxed as ‘technical incoherence’ or infrastructure issues when assessing the project outcomes, especially failures.
ACCOUNTABILITY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY The concept of ANT allows us to specifically focus on the accountability of technology to society. Just as individuals are accountable for their role in society that makes them responsible citizens, technology is also accountable for its role in shaping society. The effect of information technology will depend on what kind of value it passes on to the users of the technology. If the shared information that is gathered and disseminated among members through ICT raise conflicts with cherished values of the society, the given ICT will have harder time situating itself to the social group. Thus, “information has an inalienable ethical dimension,” noted information 20
scientist Joseph Goguen (1997, p. 47).If technologies such as surveillance tools are used to dampen citizen rights, such technologies will be incompatible with democratic values. Whether it is the right kind of information for social advancement will depend how well the ICT is able to integrate itself to the normal and acceptable routine of the social group. If the technology demands significant shift from normal routine, the adaptation will be slower and the failure rate will increase to the point where the user critical mass will not be sufficient to have any significant impact in social behaviour. Again, this is where the local-global conflict destabilizes the negotiated network. The role of humans and that of technology in public affairs is as complex as the problem the technology has been employed to solve. The challenge is not to over emphasize the role of technology or that of humans given the social context where interaction takes place. James Thomson (1967) alludes to the importance of understanding this interaction within the larger environmental context to bring change: “administration is not something done by an administrator except in the simple organization, but instead is a process flowing through the actions of various members” and the “process is related to the interaction of levels and components” (p. 149). According to Thompson the challenge for administration is to lay out the process of interaction so that administrators at the managerial level become “translator[s] securing from the institutional level sufficient commitments to permit technical achievement, yet securing from the technical core sufficient capacity and slack to permit administrative discretion and, if necessary, recommitment of resources” (p. 150). The capacity to manage technology at a broader policy level can only be handled by public managers who act as conduit to meet the technical-managerial requirements of a policy mandate. At this phase technical ruling takes priority for a public manager.
In other words, how
technology will be implemented becomes the focus not why such technology may be used. The question of why a specific type of technology could be of value depends on the early phases of technology deployment. The social value of technology must be addressed by the elected representatives. In the absence of actions from elected representatives, social entrepreneurs can easily fill the void by bringing pertinent ideas of social mobilization using technological means.
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As Waddock (1991) carefully noted:“Social entrepreneurs generates followers’ commitment to the project by framing it in terms of important social values, rather than purely economic terms, which results in a sense of collective purpose [Burns, 1978] among the social entrepreneur and those who join the effort (p. 394)” The social entrepreneurs capitalize on a local network to earn trust as they focus on a target population to address pertinent social concerns and leverage social capital to articulate larger complex social problems within the task environment (concept coined by Thompson [1967]). Aiding the process of translation are intermediaries which are technical resources for mobilizing the actors. The intermediaries aid in the translation by standardizing the message across time and place. Examples of intermediaries can be maps, policy documents, mobile apps and even financial resources which symbolize a social order and power in the network. Inscriptions like “reports, texts and documents refer to the way technical artefacts embody pattern of use” (Rhodes, 2009).Government can play a key role in facilitating development of intermediaries. Modern day internet and ICT in general are powerful intermediaries to give standardized platform for public services such as the e-government services (paying taxes, getting licenses, online procurement etc.). Intermediaries are somewhat passive when it comes to transforming the social order to address larger socioeconomic concerns such as poverty, social equity and social justice issues. Whereas mediators transform the message, intermediaries only transport it without distortion or addition. Modern day internet and ICT in general are powerful intermediaries; however, can be powerful mediators when used as active participants in disseminating situated information for social transformation. Intermediaries are the primary vehicles for creating “black-boxes” or closed systems (Kaghan and Bowker, 2001). When a network or part of the network is successfully black-boxed it can be treated as a simple input output device that is expected to perform a routine operation with precision and without creating any disturbances within the larger system. It becomes a critical actor within the larger network. Since black boxes work with almost certainty, they can be transferred from one black box to another set or subset of black boxes. They can be effectively used as mobillizers to address larger socioeconomic concerns such as poverty, social equity and social justice issues. The social media, for example (targeted apps, twitter, Facebook etc), can become powerful mediators rather mere intermediaries during natural disaster and political uprising.
The following two case
studies have been used to highlight how information technology can become active “social tool” 22
in improving the human condition, as local actors utilize the tools in their daily social routine to make them extended local partners. With the help of global actors, such as social entrepreneurs and governmental agencies, who provide the technical, political and moral support, technology can be an effective mobilization tool for social empowerment. Evidence suggests the social media interfaces such as twitter and Facebook has the potential to be powerful mediators (from being mere intermediaries) during natural disasters or political uprising (the “Arab Spring,” for example). Impact of technology in society ANT helps us understand the process of human-technology interaction; it does not take a position as to its desired effect. Unlike positivist assumptions in social theories that idealize the path of change (and also outcome), given certain assumptions about human behaviour and the role of tangible inputs, ANT shows the 360 degree view of where things fit to explain the process of human-technology evolution. This helps us to understand why certain technologies fail to have a desired result. This is perhaps the major contribution of ANT.
The purpose of bringing a new technology could be very different than the impact it might have on society. It is not always apparent or even understood until the dominant purpose is revealed as technology stabilizes and expresses itself within the society. How technology expresses itself also depends on the scale of the deployment of the particular technology. In case of information technology for example, it can have a wide range impact on social infrastructure (governmentcitizen relationship; family-individual relationship) or specific to economic performance. Whereas, technology’s impact on economic performance can be measured, its impact on society may not be as clear. The scale of the technology deployment will also determine the type of social and economic impact it will have on society.
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Facebook, Twitter, Google maps and media, centralized online social media
Federal/Central Information Systems (Enterprise Architecture; Federal portals)
Economic value
Social value Information sharing among members/social groups, individual blogs, information outlets
Small scale
Application of Technology Scale
Large scale
Figure 2 Impact of Technology in Society
Organization Systems, Email, transaction-based e-government applications, e-portals in governmental agencies
Moral value of information technology
Figure 2 shows the dominant moral value of ICT expressed in a continuum from social value to pure economic value (X-axis). The scale of technology deployment is shown on the Y-axis. When we are using ICT at a smaller scale (bottom quadrants) we can see its impact, on improved service delivery (e-government applications) and efficient management of information resources (email, database management, e-citizen portals). On the social side at the organizational level we see the impact of ICT on culture and social group norms as information is shared among peers through the internet, information hubs, blogs and general information media. At the larger scale (upper quadrants) the impact is expressed in centralized government portals including enterprise architecture systems, central databases and surveillance/monitoring systems. The 24
economic rationale is clearly the dominant expression of such large scale ICT investments. On the other hand, Facebook, Google and Twitter are ICT deployed in mass scale, having significant social and cultural impact in the society.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY: CASE STUDIES
Village Knowledge Centre Project (VKC), India
The Village Knowledge Centre project started as a pilot initiative in 1998 in Pondicherry India, a rural region, once a French colony in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The project was initiated by the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), a rural development non-profit organization founded by Professor M.S. Swaminathan in 1988. Among many different projects undertaken by MSSRF, the village centre project is of particular interest to this study because it systematically blends technology with social context for social development. The materials for the case study is gathered from the work of Ramdorai (2011), Swindell (2006, 2007), and published reports by the MSSRF (Nanda and Arunachalam, 2009) and official website http://www.mssrf.org. The vision of the MSSRF projects is to increase the capacity of the marginalized communities in the rural areas through community-demand driven technology. At the initial phase of the VKC project a need assessment survey was conducted in the target area of Pondicherry to find what the local people already knew about the resources available to them and what they needed to know to improve their livelihood.
Rather than creating a new technology-driven system,
technology was brought in to improve upon the existing socio-technical design. There was clear methodology has to how VKCs should be created which were refined over more than 10 years. Large group of volunteers have been trained as to how maintain operate the VKCs. A detailed handbook titled Toolkit for setting up Rural Knowledge Centres (RKC) is widely circulated to standardize the process. Once VKCs were established they worked as the information hub for a large community. For example, the farmers had incomplete or, in some cases, no information about market prices for their crops; fishermen had no scientific way of forecasting the weather or 25
knowing about their fish prospects for the next day. Technology facilitated the provision of such information through very high frequency radio wave over a 12 km radius. Technology also enabled voice data transfer that was converted text and to fax output which then allowed information to be displayed on a computer screen. The village centres were housed in private residences with limited access to all farmers, particularly those belonging to the lower caste poor communities. Inability to ensure equitable access to all the farmers was seen a major obstacle for mobilizing the local network. Having realized the initial drawback in the design of the project, MSSRF had to revisit its strategy. They closed the village information centres after a few months. The project was reintroduced, however, with a revised action plan adding VKCs to 12 other villages. Participation in VKCs was contingent on an expressed request of the village community. Additionally, the village community was required to provide premises in a public building, and ensure that it was accessible to everyone in the village. In most cases these centres were located in public places like temples, government offices, noon meal program centres and panchayat (village assembly) office. The village community was responsible for the upkeep of the rooms and utility bills. Finally, every village was also required to provide local volunteers who were trained by the foundation staff and placed in the centres to function as information facilitators, computer maintenance experts and local information gatherers. In order to establish and stabilize the new information gathering method, mass volunteers, especially women were trained to in basic PC operations, use of data cum voice networks, maintenance of user log register, management of queries and handling data requests. By involving the village community from the beginning and encouraging them to take ownership of the VKC was critical to the longevity of the project so that it had the necessary social impact geared towards empowerment through information and knowledge sharing. When examined from a power perspective, the global network represented by MSSRF was scaling back its control when it allowed the villages to control the location, and provide the volunteers who will be working for the project. By providing autonomy to the local network, MSSRF was able to build them as stakeholders in the implementation of the project. Transferring ownership was critical for building trust among global and local networks. VKCs clearly focused on situational information as opposed to objective information which helped in adopting technology into citizen’s daily routine. The new 26
technology was able to earn trust which helped faster deployment to larger groups. The special value of this project is the manner in which local knowledge was given importance. In particular, for example, all information including databases was translated into the local Tamil language. A variety of visual multimedia resources were also used to standardize the message. The VKCs vision and commitment to learning and engaging the poor attracted the support of the Indian Government in the form of a monetary grant of 100 core rupees and technical support from Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in terms of launching a separate satellite for the program. Under the NVA program women empowerment groups are being trained in organic farming, herbal healing. Self-help groups also hold regular video conferences with rural communities and experts, manufacturers, government officials and experts. Fishermen are being offered training in the use of GPS and fish finding equipment. NVA launched a program called ‘Knowledge on wheels” in 2007, in partnership with Sankara Nethralaya Medical Research Foundation. The purpose of the project is to provide eye care information and eye care facilities to rural poor. In collaboration with Hindustan Petroleum (HP) and ISRO, NVA has plans to use a mobile soil testing van that will help to detect the chemical composition of soil, including its pH and availability of various nutrients. With the help of information through this mobile equipment knowledge about crop cultivation, livestock management and harvesting technologies would be made available to locations which are not yet connected. NVA also plans to help educate villagers on methods of agro packaging. In collaboration with Bosch, a machine is made available to NVA which is expected to be used for demonstration across the villages to spread knowledge about hygienic packaging. In 2004, MSSRF created a multi stakeholder ICT partnership labelled as "Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre". The target for this partnership was to connect 600 thousand villages via internet and radio communication by the year 2007. In 2007, global partners of MSSRF –Microsoft and Telecenter.org (a joint effort of Microsoft, IDRC, Canada and Swiss Development Agency) – constituted a rural innovation fund (RIF). The sole purpose of this fund is to provide resources for development of technologies which are customized to fit the needs of rural population and their development needs. In particular, the mission of the fund is to encourage technology entrepreneurs. The fund is administered by MSSRF led Grammen Gyan Abhiyan translated as rural knowledge mission which is the organization formed by renaming 27
Mission 2007. The response to RIF was encouraging and of the 1400 applications received 9 software programs have been developed by the project. The software applications range from ecommerce web portal, animal husbandry to account maintenance for self-help groups. As of 2009, MSSRF had VKCs in 5 states of India-Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa, Maharashtra and Pondicherry –about 101 village knowledge centres and 15 village resource hubs. Access to Information (A2I) Project – Bangladesh A2I is the one of the largest technology-driven initiative undertaken by UNDP to expand eServices capacity for the Government of Bangladesh (GoB). The A2I initiative used a grass-roots approach to training and educating a critical mass of government officials, individual entrepreneurs and volunteers in ICT to create ICT-driven services (e-Services) at the door steps of citizens. Initially launched in 2009, the overall goal of the project is to create an e-Service environment to provide access to information and services that can reach the most vulnerable population in society. Unlike the VKC’s discussed earlier, the A2I partnered with the GoB from the initial phase of the project. This approach not only mobilized resources quickly but also made the large governmental apparatus at the disposal of the A2I initiative.
The primary
information about A2I is gathered from published reports by UNDP (2012) and published reports from the official A2I website by the Government of Bangladesh. (http://a2i.pmo.gov.bd/index.php). The overall goal of the project was to utilize situated information to build capacity for local actors and give ownership for sustainable e-Services throughout the country. The GoB took the A2I as one of their own projects as it was synonymously identified with the Digital Bangladesh under the national development goal agenda declared by the current government. The project was able to attract a large critical mass through its Quick Win (QW) e-Services projects. The idea behind QW is that the project could be quickly developed to facilitate citizen government interaction at the grassroots level to work at the provincial district, Upazila (regional) and village levels and create accessibility infrastructure. In the first two years of the project, 53 Quick Win e-service projects that encompasses 9,000 independent entrepreneurs who were trained to run and manage over 4,500 Union Information and Service Centres (UISC), covering the whole country. Currently, there are 700 QW projects in the pipeline. 28
A notable outcome of the project has been the development of multimedia classrooms in some 500 schools. This is expected to be scaled up to 15,000 secondary schools of the country within two years. The following table highlights some of the signature QW projects that are of significance due to their social impact on ordinary citizens of the country. Table 1 Impact of Popular A2I-Quick Win Initiatives
Initiative
Impact
UISC (Union Information Service Center)
Three million users have access to growing e-service portfolio; saves citizens time & money through reduction in travel 3M grassroots people/month generating $150K/month
DESC (District E-service Center)
Significant reductions in delay (time for certified document reduced by half); 50% more requests processed per day; more transparent 5,000 applicants/month
Multimedia Classroom E-Purjee (Digital Cane Procurement System)
Students interest in lessons increased 50%
Over 200,000 sugar cane farmers benefitting from more transparent system where they are informed of when to deliver sugar (in the past they sometimes never received the paper “chalan”, or had to pay rent seekers a fee or travelled to the mill in vain) and when they will be paid; mills are benefitting from more efficient delivery Source: UNDP, 2011
Over 200,000 sugar cane farmers benefitting from more transparent system where they are informed of when to deliver sugar (in the past they sometimes never received the paper “chalan”, or had to pay rent seekers a fee or travelled to the mill in vain) and when they will be paid; mills are benefitting from more efficient delivery. 29
One of the unique features of the project was to enroll the top level bureaucrats, senior government officials (at the ministerial/federal level), public representatives and grass root entrepreneurs by making them aware and feel less threatening about the new way of governingfrom-a-distance (e-Services). Awareness was followed by ownership which was fundamental in the translation phase to mobilize citizens towards using particular e-Service activity.
For
example, all Ministries had to come up with their own Quick Win projects that were tied to existing infrastructure of ongoing A2I projects. Although ministries varied in terms of their competency for such projects (and also commitment), there was a sense of pride among fellow bureaucrats when a particular e-Service was launched and citizens embraced those services. The A2I project has attracted many business and international donor organizations including the World Bank, Intel, International Rice Research Institute, the D.Net, Asian Development Bank, UNESCO and the UNICEF.
Policy Implications of VKC and A2I We can glean very important insights from these two projects.
First, the application of
technology must directly address the fundamental question about how to improve the quality of life of the local actors even if the ‘new activity’ appears to be trivial or mundane in the eyes of the global actors (i.e., social entrepreneurs or the government). The technology adaptation can be smoother when the normal routine within the social association remains undisturbed. This is critical because during the translation phase when the new technology is introduced the actors can easily negotiate common definitions and meanings of the new way of doing things. Second, rather than introducing a big change through a big project, piecemeal incremental approach can have a wider and meaningful impact in the society. This is because by keeping things simple, the standard definition can easily be replicated to larger masses and more quickly. For example, the Quick Win projects in A2I Bangladesh project farmers were not learning anything new but getting the required information quickly with insignificant cost so they could focus more on increasing production and diversify their savings to other productive uses (such as children education or managing small handicraft business). The VKC project started in small scale pilot investment in private homes. Within few months of operation the problems were revealed within the existing infrastructure as lower caste population could not get access to VKCs. 30
The
technology has to be adjusted and in some case improvised in order to meet the demands of the existing socio-cultural circumstances. Whereas technical adjustment can be easier (especially when undertaken in smaller scale), value adjustments take time and may be difficult without political support. When technocratic functions are carried out without the context (both political and socio-cultural), the failure rate is inevitable, at least when measured in terms of usage and mobilization. Whether the global actors are NGOs or Governments, the local actors’ values must take precedence to the values or demands of the global actors. As argued earlier, the greater the influence of technology, and not the values, to standardize the desired result, the more difficult it becomes to translate that to action. Technology cannot address the question of values and therefore, the idea of democracy, freedom and justice must be addressed through avenues that deal with empowerment and awareness of the citizens’ limitations. Information technology has proven that it can mobilize and empowered citizenry.
CONCLUSION Information technology plays a critical role in balancing our life and work in society today. They are instrumental in shaping our values as we develop a deeper understanding of its role in all aspects of our lives. The modern era has seen a sudden shift towards ICT-based policy developments that is having wide ranging impacts in our social and economic life. Being in the middle of the transition, the millennia generation may take for granted the changes without questioning how our social and economic values have shifted due to ICTs role in society. We can glean very important insights from the two case studies. First, the application of technology must directly address the fundamental question about how to improve the quality of life of the local actors even if the ‘new activity’ appears to be trivial or mundane in the eyes of the global actors (i.e., social entrepreneurs or the government). The technology adaptation can be smoother when the normal routine within the social association remains undisturbed. This is critical because during the translation phase when the new technology is introduced the actors can negotiate a common definition and meaning of the new way of doing things. Second, rather than introducing a big change through a sizable project, piecemeal incremental approach can have a wider and meaningful impact in the society. This is because by keeping things simple, the standard definition can easily be replicated to larger masses more quickly. For example, the
31
Quick Win projects in A2I Bangladesh project farmers were not learning anything new but getting the required information quickly with insignificant cost so they could focus more on increasing production and diversify their savings to other productive uses (such as children education or managing small handicraft business). The deep rooted caste system that pervades rural India provided the basis for the global actors (i.e., social entrepreneurs) to intervene and to break the societal bias via information technology tools (Figure 2, lower left quadrant). By developing the VKCs they were effectively able address social bias and let technology play the role of a mediator (less of an intermediary), to empower the masses. Similarly, in Bangladesh where political turmoil and corruption impedes social development, social entrepreneurs intervened and played a dominant role in transforming the way the central government and its local counterparts ran its business. By partnering with international NGOs the social entrepreneurs were able to break the political barriers to reach out to citizens via Quick WIN projects (Figure 2, upper right quadrant). The apps are more often intermediaries than mediators. Whereas in India technology was able to mediate deep into the social prejudices and the culture; Bangladesh was able to get the job done for the masses very quickly. The extent of the cultural shift which was very apparent in Pondicherry may not be as apparent in Bangladesh, at least in the short run.
Many of the gains made by the global actors (social entrepreneurs and NGOs) can be easily undermined without the support of vigilant and active public administrators who act on behalf of the local citizens. Indeed, the public administrators play a very critical role in carrying out the long run goals of the innovative projects that have direct social and economic implications for their societies. What may become successful in Bangladesh may not be successful in India or elsewhere. The primary reasons for some of the successes with ICT will depend on how well they are used in addressing the deeper social and economic values that impede societal progress. For example, in case of Bangladesh formal citizen-driven rules may be necessary to protect the large-scale ICT projects from ruling political parties who can misuse them for their own political gain. . In contrast, in India, the elite class may find it to their advantage to maintain social 32
discrimination thereby making VKCs ineffective for empowering the lower class farmers. The sustainability of VKCs will depend on how effectively the local citizenry can take ownership of the situation. If the social values of the local actors are at odds with the ICT-driven agenda, they can pull back their support only to see the demise of such projects. In addition if the local actors find limited scope of their involvement in the projects as the projects get high jacked from local community to national or even international level. Anecdotal evidence suggests that both the projects are becoming vulnerable due to the weakness highlighted earlier. Information technology enthusiasts have long argued that ICT is an empowerment tool and liberator for the marginalized. They argue, by introducing ICT into the governing process (such as automation of service delivery through E-Government) government can be at the door steps of citizens. Indeed today government is much closer to citizens through electronic means (and probably more transparent as far as service delivery is concerned), however whether the citizens are empowered in the sense of taking control of their own livelihood is debatable. Societal empowerment demands sustainable social and economic development for all people including the most vulnerable population. Technology can be the mediator for connecting citizens but it cannot be the translator for action. Action requires the support of global network visionaries who help to mobilize the local citizenry network. In the information age, the implication of this study for public managers cannot be underestimated. Public administrators, as non-elected representatives, are at the crossroads of being asked by citizens to deliver, yet they are bounded by procedures that are antithetical to empowerment of the citizenry. Given their limitations to reach out to citizens, they can play a very important role in utilizing ICT as the mediator to bring the information resource at the doorsteps of citizens who will make use of them. Unlike food, that will be consumed when provided to the hungry, information requires strategic direction of where and how to use it to have the impact on ordinary citizenry. When the “fundamental purpose of social entrepreneurship is creating social value for the public good,” (Christie and Honig, 2006, p.3) it is only befitting for public administrators to align with such a cause. As our study alludes, social entrepreneurs provide the vision for information resource to be utilized for individual advantage. In the absence of visionaries within the local electorate, public administrators can partner with social entrepreneurs and civil society organizations. 33
In the U.S., organizations such as Imagine
Chicago (http://www.imaginechicago.org) and Everyday Democracy (http://www.everydaydemocracy.org) has provided exemplary social entrepreneurial leadership within their communities. Today civic participation is an integral part of democracy.
Understanding whether such
participation might be skewed toward civic activity matters because, as Zukin et al. (2006) points out, “citizens need to be able to engage in the institutions and process of government and of civil society, since both are authoritative determiners of how goods, services, and values are allocated in a society” (p. 207). Indeed, what is needed is an intention and desire to change the nature of the relationships amongst and between citizens and government; some initial relationships may have to come from active citizens who will mobilize the resources towards a sustainable impact in our communities.
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DETAILS OF AUTHOR
Akhlaque Haque, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Director Department of Government University of Alabama at Birmingham 1401 University Blvd Room HHB 412 Birmingham, AL 35294-1152 Voice: 205-934-4653 ; Fax: 205-975-5712
[email protected]
Akhlaque Haque, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Government and Director of Graduate Studies in Public Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). His research interests are in the areas of administrative theory and behaviour; information management in government; and, public health and the urban population. He has been published very widely, some of which appear in the leading scholarly journals in public administration. He has served or serving in editorial boards of national and international journals and past commission member of national accreditation arm of public administration programs in the US. He is a Fulbright Scholar. Currently, he is working on a book titled Public Administration in the Information Age (under contract with an academic press).
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MULTIPLE ASPECTS OF CITIZENSHIP, DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE
Rokeya Kabir
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MULTIPLE ASPECTS OF CITIZENSHIP, DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE
ABSTRACT
The deprivation of a huge number of poor and marginalized people of their citizen rights and entitlement to basic services, the reduction of democracy to a mere electoral game, the crisis of the state manifested in governance failures and a propensity for bureaucratic centralization in the developing countries have entailed a need to constantly re-evaluate the concept of citizenship, democracy and governance. It is now urgent to find ways to restore the whole range of rights and entitlements associated with citizenship reinvigorate democracy and restructure governance in the light of felt needs and experience. This need is paramount in the South Asia region where the structural roots of poverty, inequity, gender discrimination and bureaucratic centralization run deep and the colonial legacy still persists strongly. The multidimensional aspects of these concepts need to be explored in their complex inter-relationship and translated into reality.
Citizenship needs to be active and participatory which demands that people of all classes and denominations meaningfully participate in the decision-making process in an inclusive framework. Their rights should be constitutionally guaranteed and implemented through a truly democratic structure of governance. In this context, it is worth exploring if all the South Asian countries have democratic constitutions articulating people’s rights and entitlements and if the laws of these lands are compatible with those constitutional guarantees.
Deepening citizen engagement in decision-making, now being talked about as a means of deepening democracy, can go a long way towards making governance pro-poor and efficient. But this can be fully achieved only by a socio-economic transformation because in South Asia the problems of poverty, discrimination and underdevelopment are systematic. Therefore, only a deep systematic change with citizen participation at all levels of governance can serve to realize the full meaning of the concepts of citizenship, democracy and good governance.
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INTRODUCTION The concepts of citizenship, democracy and governance are not new in human society, but they are being constantly defined and re-defined in the light of experience. While the concepts of citizenship and democracy date back to antiquity and the origin of governance can be traced to the Renaissance period, the French revolution of 1789 with its emphasis on liberty, equality and fraternity charged them with revolutionary meaning. At a later conjuncture of history in the era of decolonization in the mid-20th century these concepts assumed a new significance, creating a revolution of expectations in the new states that came into being after prolonged anti-colonial movements. But since then these terms have lost much of the charmed reverence that they commanded earlier. Many of the promises held out by these magic words are ringing hollow as the gap between people’s rising expectations and the actual performance of the state representing these ideas is now wider than ever before. The deprivation of a huge number of women, and poor and marginalized people of their citizen rights and entitlement to basic services, the reduction of democracy to a mere electoral game, the crisis of the state manifested in governance failures and a propensity for bureaucratic centralization in the developing countries have entailed a need to constantly re-evaluate the concepts of citizenship, democracy and governance. It is now urgent to find ways to restore the whole range of rights and entitlements associated with citizenship, to reinvigorate democracy and to restructure governance in the light of felt needs and experience. This need is paramount in the South Asia region where the colonial legacy compounded with patriarchal and feudal values still persists strongly and democratic institutions are yet to be rooted due to continual military interventions and civil war in some countries. The divide of gender, class, caste, ethnicity and such other factors also tend to obstruct the development of citizenship, democracy and governance. On the other hand, the process of globalization based on neoliberal economy with its various impacts has launched over the last few decades a new discourse in which citizenship, democracy and governance rate high. Civil society has also emerged as a dynamic and critical democratic force challenging the state and the market. Composed of a matrix of various citizen groups, human rights organizations, women’s movements, people’s organizations and the private not-forprofit voluntary sector commonly known as non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), civil society strives to close the gap between democratic ideals and actual democratic practices. These 42
concurrent developments have now provided a setting for critically analyzing the multidimensional aspects of concepts like citizenship, democracy and governance in their complex inter-relationships so that their full potential can be realized to the benefit of human society, especially the poor and marginalized.
ASPECTS OF CITIZENSHIP The most common perception about citizenship is that it is the link between a person and a state or association of states. Sometimes it is equated with nationality which, however, has ethnic connotations. Citizenship is commonly understood to give one the right to work and live in a country and to participate in political life. One who does not have citizenship is usually considered stateless. The history of citizenship is quite long as it stretches from the Greek city-states to modern times. But a significant shift in the concept occurred during the Renaissance when people transitioned from being subjects of a king or queen to being citizens of a city and later to a nation-state. A citizen considered himself subject to the city’s law and no longer remained content with having a lower social status than the nobles. City dwellers thus sought to rise above a subordinate social status and demanded a greater role in the form of citizenship which gradually resulted in a set of rights and duties. The discourse of French Revolution actually revolutionized the concept of citizenship as the citizen was then liberated from subordination to the prince or the priest, exercising the liberty of belief in matters of faith, demanding from the state a system of public and secular education, and instead of obeying the given laws actually participating in the social act of making the laws whereby the state and society are to function. The development of citizenship is thus an expansion of the rights and political participation of the citizen, which has remained central to the concept in modern times. However, in this onward march the question of women’s citizenship remained unaddressed for long periods of history. Amid the proclamation ‘We, the people’ in the United States and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in France, Mary Wollstonecraft had to ask: what, then, is the gender of the citizen? Do women have the same rights as men? The issue of women’s voting right emerged in the latter half of the 19th century with the rise of sizeable 43
women’s organizations in some parts of Europe and North America though women all over the world had to wait long to be voting citizens. It was only in the early 20 th century that women got their right to vote, first in New Zealand and then in the American State of Wyoming. However, by 1960 women gained this right where elections were allowed except a few Islamic countries and Switzerland. It is also to be noted that notwithstanding the declaration ‘All men are created equal’ in the founding document of the republic in the United States in the late 18th century, slavery of Black Americans remained constitutionally guaranteed there for nearly another century. Also, the legal segregation of the white and non-white races in the United States ended only in the mid-20th century. Thus the idea of citizenship is an evolving one, drawing on the outcome of various struggles and experiments across the world. It is also organically linked to the development of democracy which is all about participation, representation and inclusion. Citizenship needs to be active and participatory which demands that people of all sections and denominations meaningfully participate in the decision-making process in an inclusive framework. Their right should be constitutionally guaranteed and implemented through a truly democratic structure of governance. As we have seen from our experience, people who are excluded from the democratic process are actually disenfranchised from democratic life. Active citizenship in the contemporary society therefore must by definition mean working systematically towards more inclusive forms of citizenship as well as more pluralistic expressions of it. The root cause of social exclusion is material poverty but there are other important causes as well. In 1993 the Commission of European Communities defined social exclusion as follows: Social exclusion refers to the multiple and changing factors resulting in people being excluded from the normal exchanges, practices and rights of modern society. Poverty is one of the most obvious factors, but social exclusion also refers to inadequate rights in housing, education, health and access to services. It affects individuals and groups … who are in some way subjects of discrimination and segregation; and it emphasizes the weakness in social infrastructure and the risk of allowing a two-tier society to become established by default. 44
It is clear from the above how poverty, inadequate rights to basic services and structural discrimination lead to segregation and impedes access to active and engaged citizenship. Ralph Miliband rightly says, ‘there can be no true citizenship without a rough equality of condition. Both individuals and groups are actively excluded by social conditions and institutional procedures which deny them some or, indeed all of the civil, political and social rights of citizenship’ (Marshal 1950). Despite many innovative efforts at poverty reduction in the developing countries over the past decades, inequality and disparity in many of them are on the rise. The rich-poor gap is widening fast and a huge number of people are being marginalized every day. Disparity and marginalization in South Asia is an obvious fact due to complex national and international economic processes, and social structures based on gender, caste, ethnicity and religion. Those who are thus pushed down the economic ladder always find themselves in a vulnerable state and cannot enjoy the citizen rights that they are entitled to in a democratic polity. This happens most severely in the case of poor women who suffer doubly. In many societies particular castes or ethnic groups are said to be lazy or undisciplined or irresponsible. Members of minority religions are suspected of having conflicting loyalties to the state and society. In the South Asia region such identities are often used as a basis for discrimination and as an obstacle to citizen rights. In Bangladesh there is a democratic constitution that enshrines full citizen rights of all people, but the constitutional provision of Islam as the state religion forms a basis for discriminatory treatment to members of other religions and women of all religions. This is not compatible with the principles of democratic citizenship. In Sri Lanka the perceived inequalities and disparities between the Tamil minority and Sinhalese majority are a perennial source of tensions. Although India is culturally diverse and has a long-standing tradition of a plural society, today’s India is facing a grave challenge to its constitutional commitment to citizen rights with the rise of groups that seek to impose a singular Hindu identity on the country. The dalits and other lower classes in India have been facing constant humiliation and growing erosion of their identity, dignity and sense of being part of greater society, the nation and the state. This is a continued challenge to their citizenship despite all the constitutional provisions to secure their rights. In Pakistan the Ahmadias and other minority groups are being continuously battered by different Muslim fundamentalist outfits. The 45
Shia-Sunni conflict and conflicts between various Sunni groups are also a perpetual threat to democratic citizenship because exclusion and marginalization are a corollary of any kind of majoritarian assertion. The pretext of religion is being used against women almost all over South Asia to keep them far away from the rights and benefits of citizenship. Structural discrimination and violence against women also tend to severely curtail their citizen rights. In South Asian countries such discrimination and violence against women are endemic. Child marriage, polygamy, divorce, fatwa, widow immolation, and honour killing are some of these maladies subverting women’s status as full citizens in this region. Measures to remedy the barriers to the development of citizenship in every country require a set of coherent policies to be implemented efficiently. Such policies should include actions to redress people’s socio-economic exclusion; to ensure the political participation of diverse ethnic, cultural and religious groups; to control the assertion of any kind of religious majoritarianism and to ensure gender equality. Also, there should be explicit efforts to build multiple and complementary identities, which would generate a feeling of unity in diversity, a ‘we’ feeling. The institutional and political space should then be open to citizens in which it would be possible for them to identify with both their country and their other identities. It would also be possible for them to repose their trust in common institutions and participate in democratic politics and the decision-making process.
DIMENSIONS OF DEMOCRACY Probably the most common definition of democracy is that it is government of the people, by the people and for the people. This meaning was fully present in classical Greek thought as demokratia, which is itself a composite of two words: demos, for ‘people’ and kratos, meaning ‘rule’ even though in practice Greek democracy denied slaves their citizen rights. Over the centuries the theory and practice of democracy have evolved and diversified and people’s democratic rights greatly expanded. The 20th century in particular has seen a massive expansion of all kinds of right despite some formidable challenges being posed to the advance of democracy. 46
Extensive representation and inclusiveness of as many people and views as possible translating into the functioning of a fair and just system are considered a cornerstone of democracy. Checking unaccountable power and manipulation by the few at the expense of the many is also regarded as one of its important functions. These functions are generally done through elected representatives who come up through free, transparent and fair elections. But this has also given rise to a narrow institutional view of democracy limited to ballots and elections. Many contemporary political commentators have championed this view. Even an astute analyst like Samuel Huntington has observed that ‘Elections, open, free and fair, are the essence of democracy, the inescapable sine qua non.’ But this minimalist view of democracy has some serious limitations. In a society where inequality, disparity and exclusion are widespread the poorer classes mostly find themselves busy with the struggle to survive. They are not always politically organised and united due to their lack of access to education and information. They do not usually have the benefit of their constitutional rights as the ruling classes can manipulate those opportunities in their own interest. Although women, the poor and other marginalized people have their constitutional right to vote, this opportunity does not necessarily translate into their empowerment. The elected representatives may compromise the interest of people to serve their own interests. They are subject to various pressures inherent in society, such as pressures from those who finance their elections. These complex realities often undermine the effectiveness of formal democracy based on public balloting. It can thus be argued that an effective democracy is not possible without enhancing people’s political and economic capabilities. If the majority of people lack social and economic security then their voting right or the right to free speech does not automatically lead to an effective rule by the people. In the same way, mere economic competence or equality without the formal opportunities of a democratic system such as public balloting, the right to free speech, a free media, the freedom of association etc cannot guarantee the benefits of democracy. An effective democratic system therefore presupposes the simultaneous development of all the opportunities and capabilities of people. Amartya Sen has rightly seen an intimate connection between justice and democracy, with some important shared features. Emphasizing people’s political and civil
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rights; he has advocated a shift from the niti-oriented electoral understanding of democracy to democratic nyaya which will promote social justice and security. In today’s globalized world, there is a strong trend to confuse the cause of free markets with the cause of democracy. But there is strong evidence that markets subvert rather than promote the factors integral to the development of democracy. Economic liberalization leads to a concentration of economic wealth in the hands of a few and in political systems where money generates advantages, it leads indirectly to the concentration of political power as well. Those who have money and power tend to dominate the electoral system, leading to distortions in the state and society. It is therefore urgent for both civil society and the state to keep watch on this subversive potential of markets and ensure that the poorer segments of people are not cornered and disenfranchised through the processes of markets. As a political system democracy has been in place in most of the South Asian countries but the region still has a long way to go to take the benefits of democracy to millions of poor, women, marginalized and vulnerable people. The quest for substantive democracy in the sense of social and economic security beyond a formal one is an unending struggle facing those who nurture a vision of a poverty-free, gender-just, secular and egalitarian society. Despite considerable headway on the count of democracy in some South Asian countries, the democratic deficit that is yet to be remedied has its roots in the colonial, patriarchal and feudal legacy. In the late colonial era democracy was conceded in South Asia in ways meant to extend representation and promote economic growth without effecting any fundamental change in the power relations. The guiding motive was to diffuse opposition and protect elite authority. Although the Indian subcontinent became independent in 1947 with the hope of a democratic future, the hangovers from the old colonial conception of representative politics and disciplinary institutions of state as well as patriarchal and feudal structures and ideas persisted in the attempts to build new societies. The current tendency of bureaucratic centralization, continual military intervention in some countries, and state violence almost all over South Asia is mostly a staggering outcome of structural inequity and a lack of democratic norms in all spheres of life ranging from the family to the state.
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India, the largest country in the region and its longest functioning democracy, has definitely a better track record than its neighbours in sustaining the institutions and practices of formal democracy. Parliament, judiciary, election commission and such other institutions are quite viable and effective in India. But Pakistan and Bangladesh, still vulnerable to open and disguised military interventions in politics with a variation in degree, are struggling ahead with their frail democratic institutions. Of course Bangladesh is a little better off with its record of regular elections and improving scenario of social development. The Sri Lankan state fought a war with the Tamil Tigers for over two decades, resulting in a high incidence of civilian casualties and human rights violation. Nepal, too, was engaged in a decade-long civil war with Maoist guerrillas until peace was reached in 2006. The country has already abolished monarchy but it is yet to have a stable political system and institutions in place. Despite a rapid advance on some counts of human development in some of the South Asian countries, the overall picture of the region in this field leaves much to be desired. The weakness of social policies on school education, basic healthcare, child nutrition, essential land reform and gender equality reflects the inadequacy of democratic governance. Corruption is widespread and discrimination and structural violence against women are rampant in South Asia though the picture varies from country to country. Democracy is still one of the most valuable achievements of humanity and the alternative to democracy is autocracy and dictatorship. Democracy expands people’s choices about how and by whom they are governed and thus stimulates the process of human development through the principles of participation and accountability. What needs to be done now is to widen and deepen democracy to promote development and protect the freedom and dignity of all people. Building institutions is a must but what is more important is to install democratic values and norms into all institutions of state and society. Family, the basic institution in our society, is steeped in inequity and patriarchal values which are imbibed by children, who, as adult citizens, carry such hierarchical values and norms into state institutions, leading to a crisis in governance. A priority task today is to effectively redress these iniquitous, patriarchal values and structures persisting in all institutions. Radical reforms in the education system are necessary for institutionalizing prowomen, pro-poor, humane values. Generating tolerant values in society and recognizing the dignity of all citizens is also a priority task. Inclusive and interactive political processes should 49
be brought into play so that divisive communal and fanatic thinking can be subdued. There should be adequate safeguards for minority rights. To cultivate a pluralist culture an active and energetic media, free not only from state control but also from corporate and political pressures, should be in place. National governance in Bangladesh is highly centralized and elitist. The government decisionmaking process should be decentralized and made more inclusive. Democratization of local governance is fundamental if it has to be effective in promoting good governance. This would mean making space for wider people’s participation by way of inclusion of women and marginalized people in the local government bodies, and expansion of the role of local government in development. Civil society should play an increasingly stronger role as a force of resistance against oppressive structures and exploitation and as a facilitating agent as well. It should critically engage with the state to identify gaps and inadequacies at the level of policy and implementation while at the same time collaborating with the state in enhancing gender equality, poverty eradication and development. If civil society can effectively contribute to its core functions of mass awarenessraising, articulating people’s demands and mobilizing them to claim their rights that will greatly help to advance the cause of democracy.
GOVERNANCE The term ‘governance’ was used as a synonym for government since the 15th century. However, in the 1980s, there was a shift in its meaning. From then the term has generally come to mean the interactive role of a multiplicity of stakeholders in the functioning of a state. The stakeholders in this sense include both government and non-government partners such as the private sector and civil society. This understanding of the private sector and civil society as partners of the government is a change from the traditional notion of the private sector and civil society playing a subordinate role. Thus the idea of governance indicates a polycentric state where decisions are taken at multiple centres through a process of interaction. The emphasis in this new paradigm is on a departure from excessive government to increased governance which was compatible with the global policy environment in the late 1980s. 50
Subsequently the term good governance came into being as opposed to bad governance which was identified by western donors as the main reason for the failure of massive aid programmes in many developing countries. From the early 1990s good governance has become an integral part of the development agenda sponsored by donors. It has found its place among the routine conditionalities of the aid package provided by them to the developing countries.
The promotion of good governance has a connection with the rise of neoliberal capitalism after the disintegration of the former socialist world. It was first thought that a good governance package would be conducive to the transition of East European socialist countries to capitalism. In 1990 the then French President Francois Mitterrand and some other western leaders publicly presented some ideas about good governance. They suggested to the donor countries that the aid given to the developing countries should be tied to a package of good governance. Then the donor countries and organizations reached a consensus on some common parameters of good governance but the importance they gave to its constituent elements varied according to their respective preferences. However, three elements were common to the good governance package (i) a competitive market economy, (ii) a well-managed state, and (iii) a democratic civil society. The first condition implies that a developing country seeking to be well-governed would have to open its market for unfettered investment and trade. The second condition requires the state to transfer its economic enterprises to the private sector due to the former’s management inefficiency. This condition also includes a variety of elements such as the government’s accountability, transparency, rule of law, human rights, freedom of speech, democracy, political pluralism etc. The third condition emphasizes the need for a vibrant civil society and a free media. Despite its avowed commitment to democracy, pluralism, freedom of speech etc, this prescription shows no concern about economic pluralism and recognizes only one economic system, that is, neoliberal capitalism. This over-emphasis on the free market as a panacea for all ills in the state and society is neither compatible with the principle of democratic pluralism nor does it help to rectify the defects in the functioning of the market. Instead, by severely curtailing the role of the state it seeks to subordinate the state to an all-powerful, unbridled market and throw millions of poor people at its mercy. This privileging of the free market has made a few 51
hundred multinational corporations (MNCs), which are based in the developed countries, control the whole world economy. These MNCs are not accountable to any particular state or association of states and there is no international convention or process to ensure their transparency and accountability. They are accumulating huge profits, a share of which goes to a small section of the population of the developing countries. There has also been a rise of a new consumer middle class with considerable purchasing power in these countries. But at the same time poverty, unemployment and disparity are starkly on the rise all over the world. This is by no means conducive to good economic governance. A society afflicted by poverty is bound to suffer from widespread injustice and discrimination in all areas of life. Corruption in the developing countries has been a major concern today. It is undeniable that corruption is a main hurdle to the development of these countries. But it is also true that before the current wave of globalization, corruption was limited mainly to some state organizations and nowadays it has become rampant in society due to the expansion of a profit-oriented, unbridled market system and the unethical competition between different corporate lobbies to procure contracts from developing countries through bribing policy-makers. However, a section of the upwardly mobile middle class and government officials are the main beneficiaries of this corruption boom. This has also had a negative impact on the efficiency of the government bureaucracy which is responsible for the implementation of any good governance package. The gap between government policies and implementation in all sectors in many developing countries bears testimony to this. Improvement of governance is a must for poverty eradication and promoting sustainable development in the developing countries. It is also an imperative from the perspective of the Millennium Development Goals which provide a guideline for change and improvement in the quality of life. For improved governance civil society must play a proactive role. Civil society should complement the state in its positive interventions on the one hand and try to curb the coercive role of the state and restrain abuse of power through increased mobilization and empowerment of people on the other. Reducing the role of the state is a common good governance prescription given by donors. But actually the ‘retreat of the state’ from the realm of popular entitlements, health, education, employment, preservation of natural resources is a mere recipe for making poor people more vulnerable and helpless. The state should be allowed to play 52
its role in providing basic services to people, with a deeper level of citizen participation in governance. In fact the modern state obtained this mandate to provide for people when it was separated from the Church in the late middle ages. This responsibility of the state is more obligatory in agricultural countries like Bangladesh where there has been little industrial growth and millions of poor people, particularly women, still depend for their livelihood on a kind of subsistence economy based on common resources like land, water, forest etc. Due to the rapid growth of population and commercialization of common resources under the impact of markets, this subsistence economy is being severely eroded, making a huge number of women, ethnic communities and other segments of poor people more helpless than before. Fulfilment of their basic needs now requires wider public interventions. NGOs with their focus on women and their efficiency to reach out directly to the poor can definitely play an important role in supporting these vulnerable groups but the state’s role in service provision to them should be enhanced rather than curtailed. It may be mentioned in this connection that the recent experience of the structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI) carried out across the world has proved that declining public investment in social sectors are relegating the poor to another generation of poverty. The increased impoverishment caused by structural adjustment sponsored by the World Bank and the IMF has in a number of ways befallen women more than men. It is evident that the public provision of essential services contributes to the reduction of poverty while also reducing the pressure on the environment and additional burdens on women. The state should therefore remain effectively functional to maintain an environment in which women and poor people can live with their entitlements and citizen rights. Civil society should also put pressure on the market to contain the process of displacement, dispossession and inequity generated by its defective working. Well-designed awareness-raising programmes implemented by civil society can go a long way towards making poor people aware of their rights and entitlements to basic services so that they can get mobilized to claim their rights. It may also be considered whether the prevalent system of representative democracy can be positively restructured so that people can effectively monitor the performance of their elected representatives and government officials and exercise continuous influence on them. 53
Empowerment of poor women through organization building and widening their access to resources and institutions is of course an effective step in that direction. It may be pointed out in this context that the question of governance nowadays is not limited to state institutions only, it also includes social, political and market institutions and the inclusion of women and poor people is one of the major indicators of governance. Although some women have risen to top political positions in some South Asian countries, women’s overall place in the decision-making process in this region is still very inadequate. As regards Bangladesh, the process of political empowerment is extremely slow in spite of strong constitutional mandates and a policy for advancement of women. There are quotas for women in three critical sectors of governance: the parliament, the civil service, and the local government but they are not very effective in facilitating women’s representation and participation. There are now more women in the reserved seats in the parliament than before but women members are still chosen mostly on the basis of their party allegiance and family influence but not on the basis of merit and qualifications. There is also reluctance among the political parties to nominate women for the general seats. The representation of women in the civil service is still around 12% and this meagre representation is bottom heavy with most of the women in middle and lower positions. Women can rarely rise to the highest administrative posts and there are reports that they are often subjected to discrimination in matters of promotion and posting. Although women’s representation in the local government has slightly increased in recent years, it is still far from effective. Women in local government also suffer from discriminatory treatment. Concerted efforts are therefore necessary to enhance women’s quality representation in these areas of governance. While the existing quotas and career development opportunities for women needs to be increased, measures should be taken to create an appropriate environment in which they can contribute effectively. At the same time, there should be a greater emphasis on their overall empowerment process and on raising awareness at all levels about women’s productive role in the state and society. CONCLUSION The problems of citizenship, democracy and governance that are evident in today’s world are mainly due to the growth-centred neoliberal vision of development which entails a corrupt governance system that breeds poverty, inequality, exclusion and marginalization. Whether in 54
South Asia or in other parts of the world, poverty and inequality are structural problems and mere cosmetic reforms to maintain the status quo cannot go far in eradicating them. Only a transformation of the existing system and structures geared towards distributive justice can make citizenship, democracy and governance genuinely pro-women, pro-poor and meaningful to the majority of people in the world.
REFERENCES Ahmad, A. (1996). Lineages of the Present: Political Essays. New Delhi: Tulika. Bose, S. & Jalal, A. (1998) Nationalism, Democracy & Development: State and Politics in India. Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, Mumbai: Oxford University Press. Bose, S. & Jalal, A. (1998). Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Hahnel, R. (January 2008). ‘Against the Market Economy: Advice to Venezuelan Friends, Analytical Monthly Review. Vol. 5, (10).. Pashim Medinipur, West Bengal: Cornerstone Publications. Karim, M. (2006). Neoliberal Globalization and People’s Resistance. Shraban Prokashoni: Dhaka. Khan, A. L. (2010). Friendly Fires, Humpty Dumpty Disorder, and Other Essays: Reflections on Economy and Governance in Bangladesh. Dhaka: The University Press Limited. Marshal, T. H. (1950). Citizenship and Social Class and Other Essays. University Press: Cambridge. Martin, I. (1999) ‘Lifelong Learning for Democracy: Stretching the Discourse of Citizenship’, Discourse: a journal of policy studies, Vol 3(1). Dhaka: IDPAA, PROSHIKA. 55
Martinussen, J. (1999). Society, State & Market. Dhaka: The University Press Limited. Room, G. (1999). ‘Social Exclusion: Conceptual and Policy Changes’, Discourse: a journal of policy studies, Vol 3(1). Dhaka: IDPAA, PROSHIKA. Sen, A. (2009). The Idea of Justice. London: Allen Lane. UNDP. (2011). Human Development Report 2011 Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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DETAILS OF AUTHOR
Rokeya Kabir Executive Director Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha (BNPS) 13/14 Babor Road, Mohammadpur, Dhaka 1207, Bangladesh Tel: 880 2 8124899, 8130083 Cell: 88 01713017164 Fax: 880 2 9120633
A front-liner women and human rights activist and development practitioner in Bangladesh, Rokeya Kabir is the founding Executive Director of Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha established in 1986. She is current elected Chairperson of Association of Development Agencies in Bangladesh (ADAB). In 2010, she has been elected as executive committee member of Committee for Asian Women (CAW) based in Bangkok. As a dedicated advocate for ensuring peoples access to their rights to basic services, in 2009 Rokeya Kabir has been selected as a member of a global cabinet of eight women-W8, interfacing G8. She writes on national and international political and economic issues. Email:
[email protected] ,
[email protected]
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SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN PAKISTAN: CHALLENGES, GAPS, OPPORTUNITIES AND THE WAY FORWARD
Fayyaz Yaseen
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SOCIAL
ACCOUNTABILITY
IN
PAKISTAN:
CHALLENGES,
GAPS,
OPPORTUNITIES AND THE WAY FORWARD
ABSTRACT The present paper, besides taking stock of the struggle for the creation of a socially accountable governance system in Pakistan, briefly focuses on to the challenges, gaps, opportunities and the way forward for the success of the phenomenon. Building on the relevant literature available, it also highlights civil society organizations’ work on social accountability in Pakistan and the major stakeholders that can play a role in leading this constructive transition successfully. Moreover, it shares some of the suggestions that may expedite the process towards strengthening people’s voice to call for a governance structure that may initiate inclusive and participatory development while adhering to the values of transparency, decentralization, justice and social accountability.
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SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN PAKISTAN:
Introduction: According to the World Bank definition, Social Accountability (SAc) is the concept that revolves around the participation of citizens and civil society organizations in public decision making process (World Bank, 2005). The DFID defines it as ‘The ability of the citizens, civil society and the private sector to scrutinize public institutions and governments and to hold them to account” (DFID, 2009). It is the idea that lays foundation for good governance – one of the most desired phenomena for successive governments in Pakistan. The ‘Social Accountability’ jargon is quite new for citizens and civil society in Pakistan. However, the essence that it captures, and demands that it puts forth before the governments is not new as the social scientists have long been demanding for transparency driven from citizen’s access to information and fair use of country’s economic and social resources through participatory governance (Ismail and Rizvi, 2000). While referring to Pakistan’s acute governance crisis that remained unresolved throughout dictatorial and democratic regimes, it has been observed that the issue finds its roots in the country’s legislative and administrative framework that hinders transition towards a decentralized local government system and promotes and protects the corrupt and impede the creation and promotion of institutionalization of standard governance practices (Ismail and Rizvi, 2000). Despite having varied definitions for good governance, there has been a wider consensus among the social scientists in Pakistan that the biggest impediment on the way to achieving the phenomena is lack of ‘accountability’ of the public office bearers and the service providers. Perhaps that was the reason that after ousting Nawaz Sharif’s elected government in a military coup in October 1999, the then Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf tried to justify his act by promulgating the National Accountability Ordinance which culminated in creation of National Accountability Bureau(NAB) and promised accountability of all the corrupt. However, as expected, the promise could never be fulfilled and soon after its creation, NAB appeared to be another source of political victimization, validating the point that supply side accountability mechanism is always prone to be misused. 60
Observing examples and situations similar to those in Pakistan and in other developing countries, the international interest has grown into the concept of Social Accountability where it is the media and civil society that has started to demand transparent governments and improved service delivery (Smulovitz and Peruzzotti 2000). Emerging as a tool that complements the process of accountability through electoral process, the SAc has ensured that the civil society can also be a decisive force in ensuring quality service delivery (DFID July 2006). The realization that promoting social accountability in Pakistan can be a catalyst to good governance came rather late to Pakistan (WBI, 2007). However, the idea has started picking up in last few years. The credit for this realization mainly goes to international donors and the civil society organizations that took initiatives to educate masses on importance of good governance and presented with the tools that can be applied to ensure quality public service delivery. And of course to the media that highlighted the success stories and played a role in increased public confidence in its power to hold the public officials accountable. The present research paper is relevant for three reasons. Firstly, this is an election year in Pakistan and thanks to a relatively free media; the masses in the country are looking forward to a future government that, while ensuring transparency and answerability, may overcome rampant corruption and address the inadequate accountability of state institutions. Secondly, considerate of the presently ineffective system of governance, at least in their verbal election manifestos, the political leaders have started to pledge for making government institutions responsive to the public needs to attain a good governance agenda. And finally, in the quest for inclusive growth and development and empowerment of the marginalized, there is a greater call for participatory governance among civil society groups. In these ways this paper is an endeavour to facilitate these groups in deciding how to move forward. Building on these ideas, the first section of this paper briefly elaborates the definitions of Social Accountability and dwells on to the question as to why the societies need it. The second section of the paper takes stock of the social accountability evolution in Pakistan, and also notes the SAc exercises conducted by various national and international organizations so far. Section three highlights some of the challenges that the social accountability initiatives face in Pakistan. Section four dwells onto the gaps or hindrances that have impeded or lessened the impact of social accountability initiatives in the country. Section five elaborates the renewed urgencies for 61
promotion of Social Accountability in Pakistan, while section six dwells onto some of the opportunities or factors upon which the SAc initiatives in the country bank on. Finally, the seventh and last section of the paper presents with some of the suggestions for donors, CSOs and the government to deepen the SAc related developments in Pakistan. The Social Accountability Evolution in Pakistan: Although social scientists in Pakistani have been stressing for public participation in decision making process for long, but it was only in 1995 when evidence based monitoring with the help of communities was initiated first by the civil society organizations (WBI 2007). Two years’ down the line, following the Asian Slump in 1997; these were the economists who demanded for good governance through public participation and monitoring for efficient utilization of public resources (Coventry and Hussein, 2010). However, the major step in this regard was taken by the then government in 2000 when it formed the National Reconstruction Bureau which led to the initiatives of launching local governments. Under this new local government system the authority and decision making capacity were delegated to the lowest tier of governments and the respective communities (WBI, 2007). These reforms, according to Sirker and Cosic (2007) were made to improve people’s access to service delivery. In order to make this system quick and effective, the government also set up the National Reconstruction Information Management (NRIM) System. This new NRIM system, however, had some inherited defaults. It lacked the scope to capture responses from all the citizens as the formal system had record of information only about those who had access to the public services and missed the ones who were the most marginalized and vulnerable and were not benefitting from the public services (WBI, 2007). Faced with this situation, the UNDP, with the help of other international donors, designed and implemented Social Audits at district levels. This was perhaps the first time when one of the SAc tools was implemented in Pakistan. Back in 1999, the Canadian International Development Agency implemented a project named ‘Communication for Effective Social Service Delivery (CESSD) in Pakistan’. The first phase of the project, implemented across North West Frontier Province (presently known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), was initiated with the help of provincial and local governments. Until 2007, the 62
project team worked with five district governments along with some selected sub-district and village level public officials and NGOs. The goal of the project was to deliver decentralized social services through enhanced community participation. The most visible success in promoting citizens’ participation for quality public service delivery was marked by CESSD through establishment of Community Citizens Boards (CCBs). The members of these boards were provided with formal training for enhanced capacity to directly receive development funds and to utilize those funds for grassroots community development project. The experience shared by the Social Audits and the CESSD greatly helped in sensitizing the government officials in realizing the effectiveness of citizens’ engagement for effective service delivery. However, after 2008, the local governance system was gradually rolled back and SAc practices that had started taking roots in the society, suffered a major blow. After this, although there have been isolated initiatives on government’s part where promotion of social accountability has been stressed, but they could not be scaled up. The government’s initiatives to promote social accountability in Pakistan have essentially not been rooted in community’s demands. Rather, they have been mainly driven by the need and wish to please the international financial institution and donors – mainly IMF and the World Bank. On the basis of data taken from a WB funded project on Health in Sindh during 1990 to 1999, researchers (Israr, et al., 2006) argue that good governance, characterized by transparency, accountability and citizen’s participation play critical role in sustaining the donor funded projects. Perhaps that was the reason that one after the other, the successive governments have been implementing donor funded projects while adhering to certain accountability measures. As for promotion of accountability to achieve good governance is concerned, the researchers and social scientists find it greatly contingent upon ‘external accountability’ or ‘vertical accountability’ rather than the ‘internal’ or ‘horizontal accountability’ (Ahmed, R, 2008). However, what governments in Pakistan have been trying to promote is more of a reflection of the former than the latter. This approach led towards creating a greater room for civil society intervention. Mainly supported by external donors, lately, the CSOs have taken initiatives to influence government priorities for spending on and reforming the public service delivery. Initiated by large donors including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the United Nations, the implementation of social accountability tools in Pakistan has also attracted 63
donors including the Asia Foundation, DFID, USAID, Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA) and the International Budget Project. The organizations that have led the process locally, include, among others, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Community Information and Empowerment Technologies (CIET), Devolution Trust for Community Empowerment (DTCE), Mahbub-ul Haq Human Development Centre, Social Policy Development Centre, Heart file, Governance Institutes’ Network International, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Omar Asghar Khan Foundation (OAKF), Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), Shehri Organization, Hisaar Foundation, CESSD, the Consumer Network, Transparency International and the Action Aid. The social accountability tools that have been implemented by these organizations include, among others, Participatory Budgeting, Public Expenditure Tracking Surveys, Monitoring of Public service delivery, Citizen Report Cards, Community Score Cards, Investigative Journalism, public commissions and citizen advisory boards. Challenges to promote Social Accountability in Pakistan: The challenges to promote Social Accountability in Pakistan are pretty much similar to those faced by other South Asian countries that have struggled to attain good governance through civic engagement. In identifying and highlighting the below mentioned challenges, besides the secondary literature, experience of primary research conducted by the SDPI (implementation of Citizen Report Card in Education sector of Pakistan) has also been utilized. The most prominent of these challenges include: i) Government/ State’s resistance to reform: Amid the entrenched governance system, that, at the hands of patronizing politics, has gone extremely inefficient, there is severe resistance on part of government and the state to reform. For instance, after the promulgation of Right to Information Act through a Presidential Ordinance, the Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI), an Islamabad based NGO, tried to access some information held with ministry of Law. However, time and again, its requests were turned down by the respective officials on the basis that the requested information will only open up a Pandora Box, which might lead to political unrest in the country. Access to
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the said information could only be made possible after the organization invoked the Ombudsman. Similarly, when SDPI tried to implement Citizen Report Card in two of the slums in Islamabad to assess the quality of education being provided to the students in public schools of the subjected area, the Federal Directorate of Education tried to hinder the process by initially not allowing the school teachers to cooperate with the organization’s research teams. It has been observed that the resistance on part of government agencies is mainly due to the inherent deficiencies – the concerned authorities do not want to be exposed.
ii) A difficult, confusing accountability landscape: At the moment, for social accountability initiatives’ success, it is essential for them to be politically astute, i.e. the implementers must “test the applicability of these initiatives against complexity of prevailing conditions”. “The task of promoting and achieving social accountability has to be located within the context of political action that would include civil society’s role, but not limited to it.” Researchers (Coventry and Hussein, 2010) argue that “good understanding of the political economy of the sector, to align accountability interventions with the other governance developments rather than stand-alone initiatives that are pro-poor and avoid elite capture” can be of greater help in promulgation of the SAc initiatives.
iii) Disruption by powerful vested interests: The powerful interests that have become major stakeholders of government or public officials’ corruption and wrong doings can go to any extent to hinder application of social accountability tools. In fact not only implementation of the SAc tools, they usually hinder all sort of interaction of the development organizations with their communities. In rural areas of Gujranwala and Gujrat, it happened several times when the civil society organizations were threatened to leave the areas while communities were threatened to not to welcome and cooperate with the NGO officials. Same hostile behaviour have been reported by the organizations struggling to work
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with the communities where religious fundamentalists have hold of the local political and administrative structure. iv) Weak/ no Implementation of Right to Information Act: “Public’s Access to Information is frequently referred to as an important pre-condition to responsive and accountable public institutions” (Coventry and Hussein, 2010). Despite after 10 years of the promulgation of Right to Information Ordinance (October 2002) and the very recently insertion of article 19-A into the constitution regarding Right to information being the basic and fundamental rights of the citizens across Pakistan, the matching mechanism is yet to be worked out that may ensure public offices’ compliance to this new part of the constitution. The researchers’ believe that an environment which is conducive for SAc cannot be created unless there is regular availability of reliable and relevant information. The access to information should not only be free, but also be in an easy to understand way. v) Centralization Pakistan emulates a centralized governance system, where instead of institutions, these are individuals (usually politicians) who wield all the power and authority and exercise them at will without a regard to the law and constitution. vi) CSOs’ weak governance and accountability mechanisms Currently, these are the civil society organizations that are leading the initiatives to promote social accountability to fix the governance crisis in Pakistan. However, not all of these civil society organizations adhere to the standard governance and accountability systems. Many of these CSOs discourage discussions on their own transparency and accountability, which puts their credibility under question. Weak governance and accountability systems of those very proponents of social accountability organizations leave their voices less reliable before the masses and shake their trust in the idea of governance through participation. Unless these six major challenges are overcome, the promotion of social accountability in Pakistan will not become smooth, and will always provide a chance to its opponents to disrupt the process citing these excuses. 66
vii) Absence of an enabling Environment The enabling environment for promotion of social accountability in Pakistan is missing. By enabling environment, we mean there is absence of matching legal and regulatory frameworks, policies, an accommodating political environment and an accessible, open and receptive government. Many of the successful SAc tools implementation exercises on part of civil society organizations could not yield the desired results as due to the legal and constitutional loopholes, despite expressing their discontent from the quality of public service delivery through community score cards and citizen report cards, the citizens could not actually hold the service providers/ public officials to account. viii)
Political and institutional capacity of the government and the civil society:
Amid the elite capture of the political system in Pakistan, the political and institutional capacity of the government to respond to the rights and entitlements, security and social justice needs of the masses has weakened. The researchers note that social accountability initiatives can be effective and sustainable only when they are institutionalized. And the state is obliged to cooperate in broader accountability projects and it facilitates and strengthens the civic engagement into the process. Also, the civil society lacks the capacities and capabilities to convince and realize the government for its constitutional obligation to be accountable to the masses. ix) Absence of Performance Benchmarks There is hardly any public service in Pakistan that is benchmarked. Thus, the researchers and social scientists implementing social accountability tools like Citizen Report Cards and Community Score Cards serve their firsts of initiatives to set the benchmarks which are latter on used for comparisons. Against these benchmarks, gradual improvement in the public services after citizens’ engagement is measured over time.
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x) Lack of social Mobilization and effective media exposure: Researchers believe that ‘citizens’ mobilization is vital to make local governance more inclusive and accountable” (Jha, c.et al 2009). Mobilizing the masses to account the public officials for quality public service delivery requires a lot of efforts in Pakistan. The practice here is that societies have rarely been taken on board for collective decisions, and their complaints have never been heard by the institutions unless endorsed by the local MNAs and MPAs. In such an environment, realizing the masses their power and expecting of them to stand to demand their constitutional right is not at all easy. It requires lots of social mobilization, activities that would educate them of their rights and entitlements and the state’s responsibilities towards them. Media exposure can be of great help in this regard. In the SAc exercises implemented so far, CSOs have rarely used media to highlight their work. Had their work been properly highlighted, this could have served a long way in levelling the field for other similar exercises across the country and could have, somewhat, integrated the struggle for better governance through civic engagement. According to the researchers, citizens’ mobilizations comprise of two steps; firstly, to facilitate their access to information, and secondly, to build their capacity for accountability actions. Gaps in Social Accountability Exercises in Pakistan: The World Bank (2006) observes strong evidences that depict correlation between a country’s governance system and its development performance. The World Development Report (20002001) sees accountability as an essential component to empowerment of the marginalized and hence the poverty reduction. Citing examples of the countries where SAc has been implemented, Ahmed (Ahmed, R, 2008) notes, “unbundling of governance components such as rule of law, voice and accountability, corruption control and state capture have indicated that a greater focus on external accountability can lead to improve governance.” Ahmed also notes that the SAc initiatives can only be fruitful when they are institutionalized and when besides vertical accountability, state’s internal or horizontal accountability mechanisms are also strong and transparent. In context of these statements, when we analyze the social accountability exercises in Pakistan, we find following gaps that have hindered the SAc initiatives from attaining the desired success.
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i.
Required skills are missing
“Every SAc initiative must have a detailed training strategy for both the citizens and the concerned officials who have assigned roles in the programs”. The biggest stakeholders of the Social Accountability process usually lack the skills and resources to conduct it at their own. As the researchers describe it, “Poor people are the greatest beneficiaries of effective social accountability initiatives as they are the most reliant on government services and least equipped to hold government officials accountable” (Malena, Foster and Singh, 2004) ii.
No donor support to build supply side capacity
The Social Accountability agenda in Pakistan, so far, has been supported by the donors, who have mainly focused on building capacities on demand side of the equations. For these initiatives to be effective, it is imperative for the donors to finance the initiatives that build supply side capacities (public officials, politicians, policy makers etc.) as well. iii.
Women’s voice/role is usually neglected
While building communities’ capacity to account the public officials for provision and quality of public service delivery, disadvantaged groups, especially women’s role and their voices are neglected by the CSOs. Being equally valuable stakeholders, their say and voice should also be considered equally important by the CSOs soliciting communities’ responses. iv.
No focus on reforms
The SAc initiatives so far have had a case to case or sector to sector focus, not many of them struggled to sensitize the policy makers for reforms in the desired direction.
Renewed Urgency for Social Accountability in Pakistan: Pakistan is presently suffering from a number of political and social issues for which Social Accountability holds a desired solution. For instance, amid bad governance and poor security provision, Province Balochistan is suffering from abductions for ransom, killings, absence of or poor public service delivery deteriorated law and order situation and other issues of grave nature. 69
According to the constitution, both the federal and provincial governments are bound to provide complete security and protection to the local communities, but in reality, it is only giving excuses for its failures. Recently, the Supreme Court of Pakistan has taken Suo-Moto notice in which it has demanded of the provincial government to step down if it cannot deliver on its responsibilities as laid down in the constitution. The social infrastructure in the province has almost collapsed, and only promoting and exercising social accountability can salvage it from further deterioration. Malala Yousafzai’s incident also marks urgency for the Social Accountability. The young girl who was targeted by the Taliban only used to exercise her right of expression through which she exhibited her love for education. Also, she condemned the violence at the hands of militants who blew up many schools in the area and threatened the girls and teachers from going to school. In this case too, the state failed to protect someone who exercised her right to express. The rise of social accountability can compel the government to ensure enough protection to the locals in the area so that this right be exercised without any fear or oppression. In other issues of similar nature, both in Balochistan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the border security forces, in the name of targeting militants and insurgents, are reportedly committing tyrannies on the local people. If the people are made aware of their right to account the public officials, they can stand to overcome such oppressions.
Opportunities for Social Accountability promotion in Pakistan: By opportunities here we mean the complementing factors already present or have developed in Pakistan’s social and political arena that, if exploited well, can be of great help in promotion of Social Accountability in the country. Among others, these opportunities include: i) Revival of a responsible judiciary Apex judiciary, in the past few years, has emerged as protector of rights of the masses. Through exercising the right to take suo-moto notices, it has heard a number of issues where rights of the common people were compromised at the hands of public officials. It has taken notices of a number of corruption scandals highlighted by the media and ordered independent commissions 70
to probe into them, have taken suo-moto notices of the incidents of missing persons in Balochistan and their reported killings at the hands of law and order agencies, and have heard cases against the public services providers where relief has been given to the common people. The judiciary’s active and pro-poor and pro-people role has also added to the confidence of common people into it. They now frequently resort to it without any hesitation whenever they feel government institutions are not being fair to them. Amid these acts, the judiciary is becoming a partner to the civil society in ensuring demand side accountability. ii) Vibrant Media Present day Pakistan has a very vibrant media that thrives on aspirations of the common masses. It is developing social consciousness and actions that are essential to develop and promote social accountability. On a daily basis, it highlights the plight of people suffering at the hands of officials at public and private institutions. It also follows up with its stories unless notice is taken and the specific issues are resolved. While implementing the SAc tools, organizations like SDPI, CPDI, and Shehri Organization took media, both print and electronic, on board and shred with them their findings. Resultantly, the issues highlighted by them were not only given due space and highlight, but renowned writers picked them up further advocacy work. If systematically engaged, media can prove to be a catalyst in promotion of Social Accountability in Pakistan. iii) Politically aware and charged masses Amid greater exposure to media, the masses in Pakistan are far more politically aware and charged to struggle for their rights. If educated and properly mobilized, they can readily own and stand behind the initiatives that ensure civic engagement in public decision making process. iv) Strengthened civil society Civil society in Pakistan has recently witnessed great success. Lately, it has fought with and ousted a dictatorial regime, despite severe opposition from the government, it has got the judiciary restored, and has got important bills passed on women rights. Banking on media freedom, civil society has greatly added strength to its voice. If civil society is sensitized to collectively take up the idea, it can be of great help for promotion of social accountability in the country.
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v) Receptive political parties: Amid free media and a vibrant and vocal civil society, political parties in Pakistan have experienced a great evolution. Now they are open and more receptive to new ideas. Marking their presence on social media as well to have a direct contact with the society, they now act faster on public demands. Taking advantage of such a situation, the civil society and media can convince them to include promotion of civic engagement in public decision making process into their political manifestos for the upcoming elections.
Way forward/ recommendations for success of Social Accountability in Pakistan: Social Accountability has started to emerge in Pakistan. The World Bank (2005) observes that “the emergence of social accountability has shown that society is powerful, and it has great potential to hold the government(s) accountable.” It has great support from the civil society and the (vulnerable) segments it has benefited so far. Whenever practiced “social accountability provides a platform for the citizens and groups previously excluded from the political process, to engage in the governance process.” While the society in Pakistan is realizing the virtues of accounting public officials through civic engagement, following recommendations may be of help in pacing up this process: i.
Public’s access to regular, reliable and relevant information be ensured – for example Chief Minister of Punjab’s initiative where senior bureaucrats are bound to devote half of their working hours daily to directly listen to the complaints by the people.
ii. Legal and regulatory environment be strengthened for freedom and pluralism in access to information iii. Communication mechanism with the vulnerable groups – women, minorities, ultra poor, be strengthened – like in case of PEMRA, it has established a 24/7 hotline where complaints from the citizens can lodged if they notice any unethical content on the media. In the similar way, hotlines can be established by other service providers e.g. NEPRA, PTCL, WASSA etc.
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iv. Besides leading demand-led initiatives, donors should also focus on building capacity on supply side of the equation – political and institutional capacity of the government be worked upon, and there must be a synergy between the two. v. There must be a good understanding of ‘political economy’ among the SAc initiative leaders so that accountability interventions can be aligned with other governance developments vi. Communities’ role be strengthened through overcoming the ‘centralization’ of power and authority vii. Services provided by the state should be benchmarked viii.
Social Accountability mechanisms should be integrated within state’s project and schemes at all three – planning and design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation, phases
ix. Evidence base should be built through documentation of SAc experiences and their impact evaluations in Pakistan x. Besides building technical skills, donors’ and implementers should also focus on building political skills of the targeted communities xi. The mechanism to engage with the communities and societies be diversified – i.e. the donors and implementers must come out of their comfort zones to work with nontraditional civil society groups such as trade unions, social movements including those of lawyers, and religious organizations xii. Social Accountability initiatives usually address entrenched values of a society, thus, they must be given greater time to work with a flexible support from the donors.
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DETAILS OF AUTHOR Fayyaz Yaseen Research Associate, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Islamabad, Pakistan 38, Main Embassy Road, G-6/3, Islamabad
Fayyaz Yaseen is a researcher and project coordinator at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) – one of the largest think tanks in Pakistan. While working at the SDPI, currently he is associated with DFID’s AWAZ project that endeavour to promote political accountability, quality service delivery and women rights in 45 districts of Pakistan over the next four years. He can be reached at
[email protected] and
[email protected] or 0092-2278134 (ext193) and 0092-3345393105.
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CULTURES OF BOTH CITIZENSHIP AND DEMOCRACY IN BANGLADESH: A CRITICAL STUDY
Supad Kumar Ghose
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CULTURES OF BOTH CITIZENSHIP AND DEMOCRACY IN BANGLADESH: A CRITICAL STUDY
ABSTRACT A healthy culture of citizenship is essential for sound governance and democracy. A number of factors including inculcation of the duties as citizens, not rights are very important in this regard. Once citizens perform their duties well, their rights will be automatically taken care of because enjoyments of rights are embedded in performing duties. This is what Mahatma Gandhi argued. A number of political scientists including philosopher Michael Walzer and feminist scholars are critical of individualistic human rights and argue along this line of thought Bangladesh could not develop a healthy culture of governance and democracy because she has failed to develop good citizens. A number of factors, such as the absence of the discourse of citizenship in the age-old culture of Bangladesh, British colonial rule and its treatment towards Indians as subject and not as citizens, failure of the Indian National Congress and of Mahatma Gandhi to cultivate citizenship, identity politics of the Muslim League during British rule, class-based politics of the Communist Party of India, Pakistani interregnum coupled with radical identity politics of Islam at the expense of the politics of citizenship, the politics of resistance during Pakistani days as a reaction to this Pakistani identity politics, the destructive politics of Jatio Samajtantraik Dal (JSD) in independent Bangladesh, the radical left adventurism of the Pro-Peking communist factions between 1971-1975, religion based politics of the defeated forces of the Liberation War between 1971 and 1975 and their transnational claims, military rule and identity politics, the identity politics of Bengali nationalism and its arch rival Bangladeshi nationalism and lastly, the politics of human rights of citizens at the expense of their duties towards the state as citizens in the post-independent Bangladesh have willy-nilly given birth to a culture of indolent citizenship, poor governance and stunted democracy in the national life of Bangladesh. Struggle for national independence and decolonization (Prasenjit, 2004) that characterized the politics of the second half of the twentieth century, identity politics, particularly the contested identity politics (Appiah and Gates, 1995; Heyes, 2012), identity of the nation state that has dominated the politics of our times (Guibernau, 1996), religion-based politics with transnational 79
brotherhood claims (Haynes, 2001), politics of resistance in the form of agitation and class conflict, material culture of consumerism (Lee, 2001; Miller, 2005), the Revolution of human rights in world politics (Iriye, 2005), proliferation of NGOs, especially their role in human rights (Korey, 2001), and globalization and cosmopolitanism with its commitment to the notion of global citizenship (Enslin, 2011: 91-100) have influenced the cultures of citizenship, governance and democracy. It is further argued here that these factors have collectively strengthened citizenship, governance and democracy in some cases while simultaneously negatively affecting these in other cases. Sometimes, their roles have been paradoxical in the sense that these factors have simultaneously played both positive and negative roles in the promotion of citizenship, governance and democracy. This modest paper has sought to explore critically how the long established Bengali nation has failed to cultivate citizenship from its antiquity to the twenty first century. More particularly, it seeks to explore how British colonial rule and its treatment towards Indians as subject and not as citizens, failure of the Indian National Congress and of Mahatma Gandhi to cultivate citizenship, identity politics of the Muslim League during British rule, class-based politics of the Communist Party of India, Pakistani interregnum coupled with radical identity politics of Islam at the expense of the politics of citizenship, the politics of resistance during Pakistani days as a reaction to this Pakistani identity politics, the destructive politics of Jatio Samajtantraik Dal (JSD) in independent Bangladesh, the radical left adventurism of the Pro-Peking communist factions between 1971-1975, the religion based politics of the defeated forces of the Liberation War between 1971 and 1975 and their transnational claims, military rule and identity politics, the identity politics of Bengali nationalism and its arch rival, Bangladeshi nationalism, the politics of human rights of citizens at the expense of their duties to the state as citizens in post-independent Bangladesh and the material culture of consumerism in the neo-liberal market economy that Bangladesh has been following over last three decades and a half have willy-nilly given birth to a culture of indolent citizenship, poor governance and stunted democracy in the national life of Bangladesh. Bengalis are an old nation with a history of a few millennia replete with rich religious and cultural traditions. No doubt, it is a mixed race but Bengal is a homogeneous country centred on the pride of Bangla language which evolved over several thousand years. Shahshank is regarded 80
as the first ruler of Bengal who got Bengal involved in the imperial politics of North India (Shahanara, 2011: 181). Written in pre-modern Bangla, the Charyapad is regarded as the first book that belongs to Bengali literature. The Pala Dynasty is an authentic Bengali dynasty that ruled Bengal for almost four hundred years, shaping a distinct Bengali culture (Kamruddin, 1967: x). The foundation of this dynasty by Raja Gopal in 650 A.D. is an indication of the democratic process participated by the Bengali elites after a hundred years of the Matsanya period. But nowhere this democratic process refers to any participation by the ordinary subjects, let alone citizens. The great sons of Bengal like Shilbhadra, Atish Dipankar, Santirakshita, and Kamalashila had also been great scholars but their writings do not deal with the rights and duties of ordinary men and women in their daily life. The influence of Bengal spread outside its border, especially in Southeast Asia and in the rest of India but its outside influence was more cultural and religious and not political at all (Majumdar, 1943: 670-689). The much appreciated Ramcharitam of Sandyakar Nandi does not mention any role by ordinary subjects. No doubt, Bengali identity and stability in society emerged during the rule of the Ilias Shahi dynasty between 1342 and 1486 AD (Mohsin, 2004) but ordinary people were still treated more as subjects than citizens. Ordinary people were subjects because they had no say in the political processes of deliberation and decision making which are applicable to citizens. Moreover, subjects were not free at all; rather, only one person was free and that person had been the oriental dictator himself which German Friedrich Hegel has lucidly articulated in his Philosophy of History, though one must qualify Hegel’s statement because Indian ruler was never as absolute as that of China or any Muslim ruler since an Indian ruler was usually invested with Rajdharma. Among the European nations, the English were the last to come and concentrate on Bengal (Ahamed, 1967: 100). The English East India Company had been involved in trade and various commercial activities for a long time before the Battle of Plassey but this interaction between the Bengalis and the English fostered no idea of either nationalism or citizenship. Rather, the Company had eyed Bengal as an easy prey for future conquest. When the Company won Bengal through a sham war called the Battle of Plassey, the ordinary people of Bengal began facing the worst as subjects (Ahamed, 2004: 131) because British exploitation and the introduction of market economy made them pauper. Neither the lofty goals of the American Declaration of Independence nor the Bill of Rights for its citizens adopted in the US constitution had any direct 81
impact on Bengal. The Rights of Man by Thomas Penn which was published in 1789 had no place in the emerging intellectual culture of the Bengalis in the 18th century. However, “the introduction of English ideas inculcated pronounced individualism and freedom from restrictive bonds of every kind. ….The writings of Burke, Bentham, Mill and the philosophical Radicals inspired them with new visions. They came in contact with national thought, scientific knowledge and a new conception of law which guaranteed individual freedom and fundamental rights” (Ahamad, 1967: xlii) though one must acknowledge that there was a wide gap what the English taught and what they practiced in real life administration. Likewise, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens during the French Revolution had no impact on the subjects of Bengal. The Great Sepoy Revolt which we celebrate as the First War of Independence in the Sub-continent is no doubt a significant historical phenomenon that made the Bengalis familiar with the vicissitudes of the colonial rule but played no consequential role in advancing the cause of the Indians. The foundation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, especially its agitational politics in the 1920s under the leadership Mahatma Gandhi brought qualitative changes in politics in the sense that Gandhi sought to introduce a republican model of citizenship which emphasized civic self rule underpinning Aristotle’s characterization of the citizen as one capable of ruling and being ruled. The subtle differences that Gandhi had with Aristotle is that Gandhi preferred duties over rights in the practice of citizenship but this Gandhian principle hardly got traction with the people. This explains why Gandhi stopped his agitational politics after the Chaura Churi incident in 1922 and temporarily retired from politics (Ibid: 17). It should bear mentioning here that several people, mainly the police personnel were killed by the Gandhi-led Non-Violent NonCooperation Movement and Gandhi was shocked at the behaviour of his followers in 1922. Since Gandhi was accused of inciting violence by the Raj, he regretted having led the movement and invited the judge to punish him for his role in the agitation. The foundation of Muslim League in 1906 and its politics for the rights of the Muslim people sought to make them more Muslim than citizens. It is an irony in that citizenship itself can be a source of identity by strengthening his/her sense of self-respect but the Muslim League sought to strengthen Muslim identity at the expense of citizenship. The two nation theory championed by Muhammad Ali Jinnah further accentuated this brand of identity politics at the expense of the 82
idea of citizenship prior to the exit of the British Raj in 1947. Parallel to the politics of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League was the politics of the Communist Party of India which emphasized the class character of Indian politics, dividing the people into the bourgeoisie and the proletarian classes, though traditional class division which made sense in Europe could not be applied in India because Indian society had mostly been organized around caste divisions and cleavages. Both India and Pakistan became independent in August 1947 and overnight people of both countries became citizens de jure as they were no more under the British colonial rule which treated colonized people not as citizens but as subjects. However, transition from colonial rule to the neo-colonial state has not been easy as majority people had not been conscious enough of exercising their rights as new citizens and performing various duties expected of them in the same capacity. Furthermore, Pakistan got bogged down in internecine politics (Rahman, 2004) and this newly-independent country was not sure whether it would build up a democratic polity or plunge itself into religious politics. But finally religion won over liberal politics, rendering Pakistan an Islamic Republic. Once Pakistan turned out to be an Islamic Republic, it sought to make Bengalis more Muslim than citizens “by destroying their cultural distinctiveness” (Shah, 1997:579). The education policy of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as echoed in different reports of the education commissions also made it amply clear that the Pakistani state was more engaged in identity politics than making its people citizens capable of exercising rights and duties. Analyzing Pakistani education policy, historian Zaheda Ahmed observes, .......Since Pakistan was an ideological state the educational system of Pakistan should be inspired by Islamic ideals and principles. It was felt that the educational system in Pakistan should incorporate those ideals which form the bedrock of Islam (Ahmed, 1997: 100). Had the people of Pakistan been properly raised by inculcating into them the culture of citizenship, perhaps the state of Pakistan would not be in such a mess that it has been experiencing since its birth. While seeking to create national identity, Quaid E Azam Muhammad Ali Zinnah, the father of the Pakistani nation, attacked the Bengali people of East Pakistan who were outraged by the attack on their beloved mother tongue, Bangla. Once attacked, they sought to reject the Islamic 83
identity politics orchestrated by various governments of Pakistan. Instead, they preferred to be better Bengalis based on secular values and ethos rooted in their beloved Bangla language. In fact, the language issue caused “the renewal of the traditional and non-communal psyche of the Bengalis. It was, indeed, going back to the roots that had been lost for some time by the euphoria that attended the Pakistan movement (Mallick and Hossain, 2004: 194-195). Since the Pakistani government sought to curb regional autonomy and practiced a politics of disparity against East Pakistan in almost every walk of life (Jahan, 1995), Bengalis started the agitational politics more in line with their age-old rebellious tradition as a nation. It should be pointed out here that the politics of agitation is not conducive to the healthy growth of the culture of citizenship because those who lead agitation willy-nilly develop a habit driven behaviour of disregarding law and order. Frustrated with the response of the oppressive state machinery, it is very likely that those engaged in civic protest may turn to radicalism. This is what happened in Pakistan by the middle of 1960s when students gave up liberal politics based upon the rights and duties of citizens and turned to radical politics as rebels. When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman launched the Six Point Program politics in February, 1966 for greater regional autonomy and received overwhelming response from the Bengalis in East Pakistan, what characterized Pakistani politics was its transition from an inchoate culture of citizenship in Pakistan to the politics of agitation as Bengalis. To be sure, rebellion against an oppressive government is regarded in politics as one of the foremost duties of citizens. But what the Bengalis accomplished was more spectacular since they not only overthrew the Ayub Regime in March 1969 but also brought to an end the united Pakistan as a state when East Bengal emerged as an independent Bangladesh in 1971 following one of the bloodiest liberation struggles that the twentieth century experienced as the most violent century in human history. Since the constitutional politics of Pakistan failed in the face of the agitational politics of the Bengalis and their subsequent rebellion, Bangla-speaking people of the then East Pakistan not only nurtured but also strengthened their age-old tradition of defiance of the established government, constitutional politics and the very idea of Pakistan. To be sure, agitational politics of Bengalis tore apart the state of Pakistan but did it augur well for the newly independent state of Bangladesh? This is what we shall seek to answer in the latter portion of this paper.
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The birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation-state is an unprecedented incident in the postWorld War II world order because Bangladesh is the only state that came into being by breaking a neo-colonial state, such as Pakistan (Shelly, 2010). This unique birth of Bangladesh through a bloody Liberation War in such short time was said to usher in an era of “liberatory” citizenship, patriotism, robust nationalism, sound governance and participatory democracy but several cleavages cropped up between the newly independent state of Bangladesh and her citizenry, resulting in the culture and practice of weakened citizenship, fragile governance and stunted democracy and the negation of the state. The pre-war consensus about the Liberation War was lost no sooner had the country become independent. No doubt, the Awami League formed the post-war government with Bangabandhu at its head but other parties who had participated in the Liberation War were not happy at not being part of the government. The radical student faction of the Student League which formed the Jatio Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) following the Liberation War felt deprived and chose the destructive path of politics. In the name of attaining the so-called Scientific Socialism, they not only denied the post-war government of Bangabandhu its legitimacy but also destabilized the country by frustrating the national building activities of the government. Political thinker Abul Kashem Fazlul Huq has rightly regarded this brand of leftist politics as “a politics of suicide” (Huq, 2008: 287). In fact, the followers of JSD did not seem to be acting like citizens; rather, they acted as revolutionary anarchists, challenging the government in almost every possible way and thus negating the state. Once they attacked the residence of the Interior Minister with arms while bringing out a political procession, the government responded with a heavy hand. The pernicious effect of this brand of destructive politics led to the derailment of constitutional politics, negative culture of citizenship, poor governance and illiberal democracy. Though the nature of class politics orchestrated by the JSD was not clear, several pro-Chinese communist groups who styled themselves as representatives of the haves-not began another type of class war. In fact, various leftists who were out there “to complete what they saw as Bangladesh’s unfinished or aborted revolution, began to wage armed resistance in the country side” (Schendel, 2009: 179). They killed the Awami League workers and sought to destabilize parts of the country. In the name of waging class warfare, they created chaos in the countryside and prevented the government from functioning at its optimum level. These pro-Chinese 85
organizations, blessed by the People’s Republic of China, not only denied the Awami League government its legitimacy but also completely disassociated themselves from any nation building activity championed by the ruling party. In fact, these pro-Chinese groups were determined not to act as citizens; rather, as revolutionary anarchists, they were more interested in overthrowing the government which, in turn, responded fire with fire by passing the Special Powers Act to give itself far-reaching powers to suppress individual liberty and press freedom” (Ibid: 180). The casualty of this type of left adventurism that this newly independent nation experienced were a poor culture of citizenship, poor governance and malfunctioning democracy. The anti-Liberation forces who were once collaborators of the Pakistani Army were defeated but were not finished off. They not only denied the independent existence of Bangladesh but also sought to create chaos in the country by conducting subversive activities in a variety of ways. Since religion-based political parties were banned in politics, they were denied participation in the system as citizens. As a result, they took revenge, penetrated different political organizations and sought to make the post-war government a failure. The Bangabandhu government was faced with the daunting task of rebuilding the war-ravaged country with meagre resources and inexperienced party functionaries and disgruntled bureaucracy with pro-Pakistani leanings. William Van Schendel, an insightful historian, has rightly observed and depicted postindependent predicament that the Bangabandhu government faced. He observes, The new state was confronted with enormous challenges: it needed to disarm groups of freedom fighters and establish law and order, run the nationalized industries, restore the infrastructure, and become a player in the international state system. More importantly, the state had to deliver economic development. The promise of emancipation from political domination by Pakistan had been fulfilled; now the government would be judged on its performance regarding its other promise: to emancipate the delta from economic exploitation, poverty and stagnation (Ibid: 177).
The resultant effect was pernicious and it was very likely that inefficiency and corruption cropped up. The anti-Liberation forces availed themselves of this opportunity to utilize these failures as propaganda and as a result, the government stood discredited in the eyes of people. 86
People became disoriented, giving rise to the poor culture of citizenship in the form of apathy and indolence. In other words, the pre-war expectations of the people from an independent Bangladesh and her resultant performances amidst destruction and devastations of the Liberation War left citizens much dismayed and disappointed. The government of Bangabandhu tried its level best to reconstruct Bangladesh and put her on the road to development but the magnitude of destructions paled the government’s efforts. Poor governance followed since decisions taken at the centre were not followed and implemented and sometimes institutions proved themselves incapable of rising up to the challenge of national reconstructions. Democracy itself did not work in the face of the multifaceted crisis facing the newly independent country.
The military coup of 1975 is a serious attack on the political culture of independence-loving Bengalis since the mindset of the people of Bangladesh is not only averse to the military but also to military rule, popularly called martial law. The politics of military coup and counter coups which numbered almost seventeen during the rule of the military strong man Ziaur Rahman had pernicious effect on the political culture of the Bengalis. The deleterious effect of the military politics was immediately felt on the politics of Bengali nationalism, the culture of citizenship, governance and democracy. New political culture practiced by the military regime resembled and reminded the politics that military regimes in Pakistan practiced during the days of united Pakistan between 1958 and 1971. Ziaur Rahman not only revived Jammat, a radical political party but also used Islamists to prop up his power base (Ibid: 207). The already troubled politics in Bangladesh took a worse turn because a concerted effort was made not only to question the values of the Liberation War but also to replace them with values defined in the language of political Islam. Pan-Islamic slogans were raised and a confederation with Pakistan was demanded. Various secular symbols associated with the Liberation War were replaced by the new ones associated with Islam.
However, the most serious attack on the identity of the Bengalis came when the military government sought to redefine the nationalism of Bangladesh. In the place of Bengali nationalism which inspired the activists as well as freedom fighters to sacrifice their lives during 87
the Liberation War, Bangladeshi nationalism based on Islam was propagated to define the identity of the nation. This new nationalism was rooted in the two-nation theory (Hussain, 1994: 93-98) of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and more couched in the spirits of Islamic values that sought to divide the historic Bengali nation. The constitution which the nation adopted in 1973 following the Liberation War was amended to accommodate Islamic values. The Preamble of the Constitution was also amended and “Bangladeshi nationalism” was inserted in the place of “Bengali nationalism.” Socialism, a cardinal principle of the Liberation War was also redefined to suit the reactionary goals of the new ruling clique. A cultural war was launched by the ruling elites to undermine secular values of the people while glorifying Islamic values in public life. In fact, the liberal vision of Bangladesh and the Islamic vision of the same clashed with each other on a variety of fronts, such as dress, public greetings, gender relations, festivals,
music,
education, etc., (Schendel, 2009: 260-263). Foreign policy of the country was re-oriented to the Islamic countries which once opposed the very birth of the Republic. In fact, article 25(2) of the constitution was amended to provide for special relationships with Muslim countries and whatever was provided for in the constitution was achieved in real life at the cost of relationships with those once friendly countries which gave all-round help to the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971 and supported the post-war reconstruction efforts of the government. It should be stressed here that all these were deliberately accomplished to give the Republic an Islamic character based on Bangladeshi nationalism while keeping the civilian politics suppressed under the clutch of martial law. President Ziaur Rahman was killed in a failed military coup in May 1981. Vice-President Abdus Sattar took over and his rule was supposed to be strengthened in a democratically held election in November 1981 but another ambitious military officer, General Ershad took over on March 24, 1982. This general continued the same politics of Bangladeshi nationalism and sought to give more Islamic identity to the nation with a view to strengthening his power base. To seek cheap popularity, he did something spectacular which no ruler dared to do before. He made Islam the state religion of Bangladesh. However, he faced popular resistances from various political parties, especially the student community. President Ershad went out of luck and finally he resigned in December 1990, paving the way for the era of civilian politics in national life for over last two decades.
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Two major political parties representing two competing brands of nationalisms have successively got the opportunities to form governments through electorate mandates but the politics of nationalism feeding contested national identity has further flourished at the cost of national consensus and unity. Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) founded by General Ziaur Rahman based on Bangladeshi nationalism has twice formed governments and sought to consolidate the politics of Bangladeshi nationalism, creating distance with the Bangladesh Awami which has also formed governments twice. While in power, the Bangladesh Awami League as the true inheritor of the Bangladesh Liberation War has also sought to represent and consolidate secular Bengali nationalism by using the secular symbols and the narratives of the Liberation War. That the two rival political families and the same two political personalities lead respective governments have further created schisms in political life and made nature of our national identity more contested than ever before (Zaman, 2012). All these politics of divisions rooted in the two competing visions of Bangladesh- the Bengali nationalism based on age-old secular Bengali values and Bangladeshi nationalism based on Islamic values have serious ramifications in the nation building efforts in Bangladesh. This politics of Manichean divide, i.e., we vs. they, us vs. them, have created a contested identity of the once solid Bengali nation, pitting one half of the nation who believe in Bengali nationalism against the other half who are proud to follow the Bangladeshi nationalism rooted in Islamic values. The winner-take-all electoral politics and partisan culture of governance have driven a wedge between the rival visions, parties and alliances in such a profound way that Bangladesh has turned out to be a bipolar polity in which when one pole-the BNP and its alliance partners are in power, the Awami League and its brand of politics and its supporters almost automatically feel ostracized from national life, citizenship and governance. When another pole, the Awami League and its alliance partners are in power, the BNP and its brand of politics and its supporters similarly feel ostracized from national life. Thus both parties representing two rival visions of politics have been involved in a zero-sum politics for the last twenty years, paving the way for the growth of reductionistic citizenship. As a result, supporters of one pole vote but do not feel represented at national level because of their being in opposition. They are unwelcome as “citizens” to the law and order agencies in case of registering their grievances. Since they are deprived of enjoying certain rights, they do not feel like carrying their duties as citizens to the state. The same happens to the ruling pole when it is in opposition. This way politics in 89
Bangladesh has entered a repetitive cycle of governmental successions, endangering not only developmental efforts but also vitiating the culture of citizenship, good governance and working democracy. As noted above, there has been a human rights revolution in world politics since the foundation of the United Nations in 1945 and the Universal Declaration of human rights on December 10, 1948 (Iriye, 2005). As a result, human rights have been established as part of the political life of most of the people in the world. However, what has been discernible here is that the world has privileged politics of the rights of the citizens at the cost of their duties over last seventy years, leaving its negative impact on the healthy growth of the culture of citizenship. Since we seek to privilege one plank, i.e., rights of citizens at the cost of the equally important another plank, duties of citizens, we willy-nilly make citizens indolent. This has been first realized well and popularized by Mahatma Gandhi himself long before human rights occupied a pride of place in political discourse in the second half of the twentieth century. However, a caveat is in order because a small digression in theoretical Political Science is attempted here. When H. G. Wells, a noted writer and world historian sought cooperation from Mahatma Gandhi in drafting a Charter of Universal Human Rights of the peoples of the world, what the latter told the former is of profound importance in the discourse on citizens’ rights and duties. Mahatma Gandhi, perhaps the most noted representative of the East told H.G. Wales that he would rather prefer preparing a Charter of Duties to a Charter of Rights. In Gandhi’s own words, “Begin with a Charter of Duties of Man…and I promise the rights will follow as spring follows the winter. I write from experience. As a young man I began life by seeking to assert my rights and I soon discovered that I had none, not even over my wife. So I began by discovering performing my duty by my wife, my children, friends, companions, and society and I find to-day that I have greater rights, perhaps than any living man I know” (Gandhi quoted in Parel, 2000: 89).
Ghandi’s view is not an isolated thinking of his unconventional mind; rather, his preference for a Charter of Duties over Charter of Duties of citizens is consistent with the civilized spirits of India and the marginalized historical thinking in the Political Science. Taking a cue from Indian 90
civilized values and Gandhi’s articulation, many Indian thinkers and philosophers have developed duties and obligations and sought to prioritize these over freedom and rights of individuals. However, Western political scientists have also remained divided since the 17th century over the conceptualizations of freedom and obligation. Aristotle’s concept of citizenship is based on a sound balance of ruling and being ruled. This way he envisioned an active citizenship marked by participation in politics. The social contract philosophers, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Rousseau use the social contract as the means by which order and civil society is maintained. In other words, we agree to a social contract thereby gaining rights in return for subjecting ourselves to the law (Peter, 2008: 2). Here rights automatically imply, as Harold J. Laski said, obligations on the part of the citizens (Laski, 1963). Dennis Dalton points out that there are antimonies between obligations and rights in the West for the last one hundred years. The USA and England have been caught in dilemma over these antimonies (Dalton, 1998). George Sabine has rightly pointed out: the more individual freedom and rights, the less legitimatization of civic duty and economic equality. The United States has witnessed this dilemma from a critical perspective due to the lack of an ethic of social responsibility and community. Michael Walzer, a political scientist is of the opinion that the USA is the most individualistic society. Free choice is energizing and exciting as it is also profoundly disintegrative, making it very difficult for any community to count on the responsible participation of its individual members. It opens solitary men and women to the impact of a lowest common denominator, commercial culture. It works against commitment to the larger democratic union and also against the solidarity of all cultural groups that constitute our multiculturalism (Walzer, 1992: 11-12). Carol Gillian, a psychologist and student of Harvard psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg challenged Kohlberg publishing In a Different Voice, which argued that the dominance of rights ethics has induced a psychology of winning and losing to the extent that it provides a strong potential for violence and a hierarchy of power. She suggests that American society needs an ethic of care that can view life not as opponents in a contest of rights but as members of a network of relationships on continuation all depend. She asserted that “the morality of rights differs from the morality of responsibility in its separation rather than connection, in its 91
consideration of the individual rather than the relationship as primary.” Instead, concerned with the endemic social violence, especially molestation of women that obtains in American society, Gillian suggests that American society should learn to focus on care which rests on the premise of non-violence that no one should be hurt (Gillian, 1982: 30-2, 173-4). Feminist scholars have been more critical for privileging rights over duties. Sara Ruddick argues that without thinking about human nature and hierarchical domination, men and women should actively desire each other’s selves to persist in their own lively being (Ruddick, 1990). Jean Bethke Elshtain has rightly pointed out that rights are more seen in individualistic terms and resultant effect is their lack of civic responsibility towards society and its fellow citizens (Elshtain: 1995). Mary Ann Gordon also reflects the same view and opens her critique that America today lacks the vision of a republic where citizens actively take responsibility for maintaining a vital political life (Glendon, 1993). What these philosophers have been dealing with as a crisis in the discourse and practice of rights in the US society had long been anticipated by President John F. Kennedy. In his inaugural address to the nation President John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can do for your country” (Kennedy, 1961). His inaugural address is famous not for its eloquence but for his insight in understanding the lack of civic obligation towards the society. President Kennedy’s anticipation has been vindicated since many Americans have withdrawn from society over last three decades in the sense that as individuals they bear no or little responsibility towards the society as a whole. Having observed this lacking in American society, US Supreme Court Justice Thomas rightly asked US high school students, “Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for Bill of responsibilities and Bill of obligations” (The New York Times, April 9, 2009). Over last one hundred years, citizens have been given more rights without corresponding duties toward the state. Enjoyment of rights, however, automatically implies duties (Lefkowitz, 2003). It has also been the case that since rights have been given more importance over duties over last one hundred years as part of liberalism, there has been a basic fissure in the social contract between the citizens and states, hurting the healthy growth in the culture of citizenship. It should be understandable that until and unless citizens are prepared to perform duties, it would be meaningless for them to expect rights from their state. Accordingly, every citizen owes certain 92
duties towards the state. He/she owes allegiance to the state in which he/she lives and allegiance must be must unquestionable. Every citizen should also obey the laws of the country. Lawabidingness should be inculcated as habit among citizens. All citizens should pay taxes according to their capacity. A democratic state cannot provide services to the citizenry without tax money from its citizens. Every citizen owes a duty to make an honest exercise of his/her right to vote. It must be noted here that a working democracy depends upon the honest exercise of the duty to vote by every individual. If we turn to politics of human rights and duties as they obtain in the real life politics of Bangladesh, what becomes instantly clear to us is that taking a cue from the US constitution, the constitution of Bangladesh has incorporated a list of basic rights for its citizens. With the proliferation of a number of human rights organizations and activism of NGOs, Bangladesh is almost at par with her Third World counterpart in emphasizing the rights of its citizens. But people enjoy rights with certain limitations. Notwithstanding systemic limitations, various governments have been active in promoting rights of citizens; though partisan politics accompanied with the identity politics of a zero-sum game type has given rise to a bleak picture in this regard. Be that as it may, this author observes and strongly argues that our enjoyment of various rights has not resulted in a healthy culture of performing duties by citizens in Bangladesh. They take various rights for granted while simultaneously remaining oblivious of their corresponding duties to the state. Syed Sajjaid Hossain rightly observes, People in our society in Bangladesh are apt to imagine that human rights mean the right to broadcast loud music, both religious and irreligious, at night with let or hindrance. They would protest if the police were to arrest people who scatter garbage on public highways. Those who proclaim their allegiance to democracy and free speech also demand the suppression of opinion opposed to theirs. (Hossain, 1994: 130).
We have, as Professor Sajjad has suggested, created a culture of enjoying human rights without a corresponding sense of duties as citizens. This one-sided discourse and practice of rights by our citizens at the cost of their corresponding duties has created a culture of indolent citizenship with
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serious ramifications on governance and democracy. This explains why we suffer from bad governance and stunted democracy in our national life. While summing up, we can take a cue from Mahatma Gandhi and argue that performance of various duties by the citizenry can also create a healthy human rights scenario here in Bangladesh. If we perform duties to the state as citizens, then we can help our fellow citizens enjoy their rights in every walk of life because the very performance of duties by one or more citizens imply automatically imply the enjoyment of rights by many. Alternatively, we need to embed duties within the discourse and practice of human rights.
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Citizenship, Social and Economics Education. Vol. 10, No. 2-2, pp. 91-100. Gilligan, C. (1982). , In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press. Glendon, M.( 1993). Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse, New York: Free Press. Guibernau, M. (1996). Nationalisms: The Nation State and Nationalism in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge. Haynes, J. (2001). “Transnational Religious Actors and International Politics”. Third World Quarterly. Vol. 22(2). pp. 143-158. Heyes, C. (2012), "Identity Politics," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward N. Z. (Ed.). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2012/entries/identity-politics. Husain, S. (1994). Civlization and Society, Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Islamic Studies. Husain, S. (2011). , History of Ancient Bengal. Rajshahi: The Bengal Press. Huq, A.(2008). Rashrachintai Bangladesh. Dhaka: Kathaprokashoni. Iriye, A. et al. (2005). The Human Rights Revolution: An International History, Oxford: Oxford University Korey, W. (2001). NGOs and Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A “Curious Grapevine”. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jahan, R. (1995). Pakistan: Failure in National Integration, reprint. Dhaka: UPL. Kennedy, J. (April 22, 2007). “Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy” Great Speeches of the Twentieth Century.. Laski, H. (1963). A Grammar of Politics. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. Lee, M.,(2000). The Consumer Society Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 95
Lefkowitz, D. (2003). A Moral Contractualist Defense of Political Obligation, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Department of Philosophy and Public Affairs, University of Maryland Majumdar, R. C. (1943). “Bengalis Outside Bengal”. In R.C. Majumdar (Eds). The History of Bengal. Vol. I, Dacca: University of Dacca. Mallick A. R & Hossain, S. A., “Bengali Nationalism and the Emergence of Bangladesh” In A. F. S. Ahmed and B. M. Chowdhury (Eds.) Miller, D. (2005). Materiality, Durham: Duke University Press. Mohsin, K.M, (2000). “Muslim Conquest: Bengal Sultanate”. In A. F. S. Ahmed & B. M. Chowdhury (Eds.). Bangladesh National Culture and Heritage: an introduction, Parel, Anthony, Gandhi, Freedom and Self-Rule, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. p. 89. Peter, M., A., et al. (2008). “Introduction”. In M. A. Peters, A. Britton & H. Blue (Eds). Global Citizenship Education. Rotterdam. p, 2 Rahman, S. (2012). The Unfinished Autobiography of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Dhaka: The University Press, Limited. Ruddick, S. (1990), Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace. New York: The Women’s Press. Shah, M. “Social and Cultural Basis of Bengali Nationalism”. In S. Islam (Ed). History of Bangladesh 1704-1971: Political History. Shelly, M. (2010)., Bangladesh: the birth of a new nation in a multipolar world, Dhaka: APPL. Schendel, W. (2009), A History of Bangladesh, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, C. (April 9, 2009) “Reticent Justice Opens up a Group of Students”. The New York Times. Walzer, M. (October, 1992). Citizenship and Civil Society. Rutgers, N. J., Series on the Culture of Community. 96
Zaman, R. (Autumn, 2012).“Bangladesh-Between Terrorism, Identity and Illiberal Democracy: The Unfolding of a Tragic Saga”. Perceptions, Vol. XVII, No. 3.
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DETAILS OF AUTHOR
Supad Kumar Ghose Associate Professor University of Information Technology and Sciences (UITS), Rajshahi Campus Bangladesh. Phone: 01759735993 (Mobile), E-mail:
[email protected]
Mr. Supad Kumar Ghose, is an Associate Professor, University of Information Technology and Sciences (UITS), Rajshahi, Bangladesh. He studied International Relations at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and taught International Relations and Political Science at BPATC, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He also studied International Relations, World History and Military History at the University of Stockholm, Sweden, Old Dominion University, Virginia and Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. As a Lecturer and an Adjunct Professor, he also taught International Relations, Political Science Asian History, and World History at three US universities. Last but not the least, Mr. Ghose obtained several scholarships including the Guest Scholarship of the Swedish Institute and published on American Foreign Policy.
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Theme 2 Accountable Governance for Inclusive Development and Societal Transformation
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SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND ITS CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES
Claudia Baez Camargo & Eelco Jacobs
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SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND ITS CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES
ABSTRACT In a drive towards strengthening basic services through more responsive governance, social accountability programmes have become increasingly popular among donors in recent years. However, as the term is applied to a great variety of approaches, a lack of consensus remains on what the concept exactly entails. This varied understanding of the appropriate scope and level of impact that social accountability initiatives can have stands in the way of drawing lessons to maximise the effectiveness of local participatory schemes. This paper offers a conceptualisation of social accountability as a mechanism and sheds light on its conceptual and practical boundaries. We identify five components of accountability as a process: mandate, resources, performance, monitoring and enforcement. Taking these components as a starting point to analyse accountability in any relationship, it is possible to develop guidelines for the identification of the different levels at which social accountability initiatives can be effective, and what this entails. The impact of social accountability projects can be understood as the extent to which accountability as a process is strengthened. Social accountability schemes usually target one or more of the components of accountability, but sometimes insufficiently consider the accountability mechanism as a whole. We therefore argue that social accountability involves at least three core elements: voice, enforceability and answerability, which together form part of a cycle. Putting these three concepts together, social accountability involves an informed citizenry exercising voice that is transmitted to those with enforcement capabilities in order to generate answerability from service providers and local authorities. Intended to be a reference for interested implementers to ask relevant questions about feasibility, minimum standards for design and review of specific social accountability projects, this paper aims to be a contribution the development of inherently consistent, context-appropriate governance initiatives.
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“The idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle because it is good for you”(Arnstein 1969, 216)
1. INTRODUCTION Social accountability initiatives are increasingly expected to facilitate positive development outcomes such as more responsive local government, exposing government failure and corruption, empowering marginalised groups, and ensuring that national and local governments respond to the concerns of the poor. However, exactly through which mechanisms this is expected to take place and what are facilitating pre-conditions for accountability to work, are topics that have not been sufficiently explored in the literature. As O’Neil, Foresti, and Hudson (2007, v) argued, “there is a need for more evidence on how change occurs, and how voice and accountability relate to more effective states and better development outcomes.” Thus, an acknowledged conceptual void in this field concerns the specific causal chains by which better governance outcomes can be associated with social accountability approaches (see, for example, Frankish et.al. 2002; Reich, 2002; and Thurston et. al., 2005) In this research brief we wish make a contribution towards addressing this void and propose a conceptual framework linking civil society participatory approaches to increased responsiveness of public officials and, based on it, suggest a set of conceptual guidelines to identify essential features of social accountability initiatives. In addition we aim to shed light on the challenges and limitations to the model, which require due attention in programme design. The paper is organised as follows. It starts with a clear definition of accountability in general and social accountability in particular. It then proceeds to discuss the manner in which incentives of local public officials may be affected to improve responsiveness by means of citizens’ participation. Lastly, it highlights some of the practical and inherent limitations to the social accountability approach. Each development context differs from the other so this paper does not offer universal blueprints. However, we intend to provide a map of different elements that are essential to consider in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of social accountability projects. Responsiveness may be improved by strengthening some aspects of the accountability chain, and it is up to implementers 102
to decide which elements have greater feasibility and potential impact given the particular circumstances in each case.
2. DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS Conceptualising social accountability begins with an understanding of the concept of accountability per se. Accountability is here defined as a process within a principal-agent relationship. In this relationship the behaviour and performance of the agent is evaluated against predetermined standards by the principal and misdeeds are sanctioned (Baez-Camargo 2011 6). In public governance, citizens are intrinsically the ultimate principals with the state acting on their behalf to provide a wide array of public goods and services. Following the World Bank’s seminal (2004) discussion, there are five components that need be present for accountability relations to take place in public governance: mandate, resources, performance, information about performance, and enforceability (See Figure 1).
Taken together, these elements suggest that accountability refers to a dynamic process: First, a clear mandate governing what is expected from the agent must exist and be known. Next, the agent needs to have access to the resources necessary to carry out the mandate. With a clear mandate and adequate resources the agent should perform as indicated. However, the essence of 103
accountability resides in the fact that the principal retains the ability to follow up on the performance of the agent. Therefore, performance of the agent needs to be monitored vis-à-vis the original mandate and the potential to enforce sanctions in case of unsatisfactory performance needs to exist. Furthermore, it is important to point out that the different functions associated with accountability need to be interconnected in a coherent manner. For example, resource allocation needs to correspond to the scope of the mandate and the information generated by the monitoring activity needs to be communicated to those evaluating performance and enforcing sanctions. Ultimately, effective accountability is expected to be achieved in a context where the incentives faced by the agents point towards fulfilling their mandate adequately. This in turn can be assumed to be a function of how well the different elements associated with accountability are linked together. Incentives for performance will be compromised if, for example, there are no effective monitoring mechanisms to assess performance or if, regardless of monitoring, sanctions are rarely enforced. Social accountability refers to formal or informal mechanisms through which citizens and/or civil society organisations engage to bring state officials or service providers to account. In recent years donors and policymakers have come to consider social accountability as one of the more promising approaches to build bottom-up democratic governance processes since it takes place precisely at the interface where the state and citizens interact, whether or not institutional space for this exists. The direct participation of citizens is in fact what distinguishes social accountability from other conventional mechanisms of accountability (Malena, Forster, and SIngh 2004).
Most often, social accountability activities are associated with the provision of public services at a decentralised (local or community) level. To illustrate the discussion it is useful to refer back to the World Bank’s 2004 model, where a long and a short accountability routes are identified (See Figure 2.).
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Figure 2 Model for accountability routes in the provision of public services
Poli cal/ Administra ve Authori es (Agent and Principal)
Poli cal Regime
Long Accountability route
Public Administra on
Service Providers
Ci zens
(Agent)
(Principal)
Short Accountability Route Source: Baez-Camargo (2011) based on World Bank (2004)
The long route involves citizens holding the government accountable through mechanisms of political representation (closely related to regime type), and then the government (through formal mechanisms in the public administration) holding providers accountable for delivering public services to the population. Therefore, along this route the accountability link between citizens and providers of public services is indirect and requires adequate performance across a substantially large institutional space. Improving the responsiveness of service providers can be a real challenge because public services are for the most part provided at the local level, where the implementing and enforcement capabilities of the state may be hampered by resource constraints or institutional bottlenecks. For this reason, strengthening a direct or short accountability route through local participatory mechanisms can be seen as a potentially efficient way to exercise some of the functions associated with the principal-agent relationship. This approach may entail, for example, obtaining information about performance from communities directly involved in monitoring service providers.
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In this paper we want to emphasise that in order to improve the effectiveness of social accountability interventions it is important to have clarity on which of the elements associated with accountability relations is being targeted and whether the appropriate interconnections between all the components of accountability are being considered for programme design and implementation. What are often understood as social accountability projects often target specific aspects linked to the accountability and performance of service providers. For example, participatory budgeting can improve local governance performance by making resource allocation more responsive to expectations of citizens. Citizen charters target the mandate element since citizens and local providers come to agree upon expected standards of services (World Bank 2007, 50). Performance monitoring of the public sector may be undertaken through approaches such as participatory public expenditure tracking, participatory evaluation of local service provision, citizen based ex-post auditing and participatory monitoring of procurement and implementation of local government contracts. There are many potential ways in which communities can become involved in strengthening direct accountability. Appendix 1 presents a partial list of social accountability tools. Because monitoring functions are the most frequent type of social accountability intervention here we focus on assessing the design and impact of participatory performance monitoring, though a good part of the discussion will also be applicable to interventions targeting the other elements. However, special attention should be paid to the larger picture in order to make sure that the elements targeted with the intervention are adequately embedded in the specific context to contribute to a situation where accountability of the public officials and service providers is strengthened. Focusing on just one element such as monitoring may generate information on actual performance but does not necessarily have a significant impact on the incentives underpinning that provider performance. For this reason, in the following section we set out the different elements that need be minimally present for the social accountability mechanism to qualify as such.
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3. VOICE, ENFORCEABILITY AND ANSWERABILITY AS KEY COMPONENTS OF SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVES
In this section we elaborate on the component elements for the notion of accountability outlined above to develop a conceptual map linking citizen participation with enhanced accountability of local public officials. Because most social accountability mechanisms primarily intend to strengthen ‘voice’, we give special attention to this concept, exploring its meaning and suggesting what are preconditions for voice to be exercised. The premise is that voice is ineffective unless it can elicit answerability and enforceability (Goetz and Jenkins, 2005; UNDP, 2012). Therefore, we posit that social accountability involves at least three core elements: voice, enforceability and answerability, which together form part of a cycle. We begin by defining and discussing each of these concepts in turn. Voice here is understood as a variety of mechanisms – formal and informal – through which people express their preferences, opinions and views and demand accountability from powerholders (UNDP 2010, 11). The concept of voice distinguishes itself from a simple collection of complaints or comments through the following four characteristics:
First, for citizens to effectively participate in monitoring and evaluating any aspect of public sector performance, they first need to have a clear understanding of what the mandate is. In other words, citizens may very well not even be aware of their rights and entitlements and of the specific obligations that public officers have to fulfil in the course of their work. For this reason capacity building, understood minimally as communicating basic information on mandate, rights and entitlements to citizens who are to perform social accountability activities, can be deemed to be a first prerequisite for voice to be effective.
Second, the individual evaluations and opinions of citizens that result from social accountability monitoring activities need to be aggregated and articulated. Most importantly, the information resulting from the process of aggregating and articulating citizens’ assessments, opinions and complaints should be formulated in direct reference 107
to the mandate highlighting specific shortcomings, unmet targets, and in the case of complaints synthesizing individual grievances into actionable demands.
Third, generating information is not enough. Citizen’s feedback needs to be transmitted to relevant actors or decision makers who can act upon the information and/or for whom the information has the potential to generate costs. In other words, aggregating and articulating information is not sufficient unless it is channelled in a way that it can have an effect on the incentive structures of decision makers and public officials.
Fourth, participation to generate voice and exercise accountability should be seen as part of an ongoing process. Improving the sustainability of citizen participatory actions requires continuous feedback mechanisms whereby citizens can be informed of the responses obtained from public sector officials and service providers as a result of the social accountability exercise
Enforceability refers to a situation where, when the mandate is not appropriately fulfilled, consequences are expected to exist and be executed. Enforceability is a critical underlying factor shaping the incentives of service providers to act in a more or less responsive manner with respect to the communities they serve. Incentives here can be understood in terms of the costs for the service provider associated with unsatisfactory performance. These can be divided into a) “hard” enforcement: formal disciplinary action (usually involving remuneration and career promotion opportunities), which is typically given by public sector institutional rules and regulations, and b) “soft” enforcement: which tend to be informal elements associated with aspects such as reputation, peer pressure, social standing, and legitimacy. Answerability is defined by UNDP (2010) as the obligation to provide an account and the right to get a response. In this discussion, answerability can be understood as voice triggering a response from the service provider or pertinent authority. It is essential in the sense that it is one of the concrete manifestations of the notion that accountability is a two-way process, in the case of social accountability, directly engaging citizens and service providers. As a concrete example of the interconnection of the concepts here discussed, answerability is strongly contingent on enforceability. Without any leverage power of (or on behalf of) citizens, social accountability projects cannot be expected to elicit the desired response or answerability from the responsible agent. 108
Putting these three concepts together, social accountability involves an informed citizenry exercising voice that is transmitted to those with enforcement capabilities in order to generate answerability from service providers and local authorities. This notion and its component elements are illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3
iss Tr an sm
Decision makers
io n
Components and steps involved in effec ve social accountability ini a ves
“Hard” Enforcement
Voice
Service Answerability
Aggrega on and ar cula on
Fe ed ba ck
Ca pa cit y
Bu ild ing
Providers Informa on on mandate, rights and en tlements
“So ” Enforcement
Opinion Opinion Opinion Opinion
Ci zens/ Users Par cipa on
All three elements, (voice, enforceability and answerability) need to be present to at least some extent for social accountability to meet the preconditions for a meaningful and sustainable impact on the provision of public services.
One of the main implications of this model is that because providers of public services are, within contextual variations and different modalities, embedded in the institutional apparatus of the state, promoting the engagement of citizens to articulate their voice is not enough when such 109
voice is not reaching the state and its institutions in one way or the other. When a social accountability exercise has no available channel through which to impact the incentives of service providers, i.e. increase the cost of bad performance, it is very unlikely that tangible results can be obtained though participatory mechanisms of social accountability. Finally, sustainability of direct accountability mechanisms requires answerability, at the minimum through feedback on the manner in which citizens’ participatory efforts have been handled and concerns addressed. Acknowledging that reality is always complex and resources are scarce, this framework seeks to direct attention to, not only the elements that are essential for fostering accountability at the local level, but also the importance of the interconnectedness of those elements. Consequently it is important not just to inform citizens about rights and entitlements, but to also make adequate participatory schemes accessible. It is not enough to obtain an informed opinion from citizens; the process of aggregating and articulating opinions into actionable demands or claims is a highly significant one as well. It is also not enough to create the conditions necessary for citizens to exercise voice, but to have adequate mechanisms and the right target audience to whom to transmit the citizens’ voice. Therefore, even in the case of a successful participatory exercise, for voice to translate into more responsive government and service provision it should be transmitted in a way such that it can impact on the incentives of decision makers.
As implied by the framework presented here, transmission of voice should be directed to those actors who have an ability to directly influence the incentives facing the relevant public officials or service providers. This is not a necessarily straightforward question. States typically entail complex institutional and hierarchical networks. It may therefore be challenging to distinguish the relevant decision makers who have the possibility to act upon the information generated by social accountability initiatives
Voice needs to be communicated strategically. To know whom to target with the incentives it is good to know where responsibilities lie. As a first approximation, we can assume that in terms of hard enforcement mechanisms, those with direct influence on the incentives of service providers will be those making decisions about remuneration and career promotion of the service provider. In most cases, however, decisions on remuneration and promotions are taken by actors that are 110
embedded within the state institutional apparatus. Where exactly those decisions are taken depends on many factors.
One issue to be taken into consideration is the degree to which the sector in question is decentralised and what type of decentralisation is in place. An important distinction may be, for example, between sectoral de-concentration (entailing the mere relocation of execution to the local level) and devolution, which involves the transfer of governance powers and responsibilities to sub national levels that are largely out of the control of the central government (Cabral 2011, 2). Other elements that may need be taken into account is how non-state actors, such as trade unions, can play a role in setting salaries and promotion criteria as well as in implementing disciplinary measures. These considerations are meant to suggest the need to ask questions about relevant actors in the institutional space along the long accountability route. Where can we find the decision makers who have most influence over incentives of the service providers, and who are the potential recipients of the information generated by social accountability initiatives? Another strategic issue that needs be taken into account is who potentially incurs costs from bad performance being exposed.
In terms of “soft” enforcement mechanisms, a closer look at the local and highly particular characteristics of the communities in question may be in order. This is an issue for the programme designers to evaluate in consultation with local stakeholders who can provide insights into the specific customs and informal institutions in each target community. For this power and influence analysis as well as ethnographic background research may render insight into whether generating informal pressure over deficient service provision may be a factor significant enough to induce answerability from the service providers.
Ultimately, voice should be able to generate a shift in the incentive structure of service providers, in the form of hard or soft enforcement measures, triggering answerability towards the citizens who have participated in the social accountability exercise. How this can achieved depends largely on context. The possibility to engage reform minded and receptive government officials may not be abundant in some cases but also the presumptions about citizens’ willingness to
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commit to a participatory role in the long turn may not hold true in a variety of settings. The next section discusses some of the challenges to social accountability initiatives from this perspective.
4.
PRACTICAL
AND
CONCEPTUAL
CHALLENGES
TO
SOCIAL
ACCOUNTABILITY
Building upon the conceptual clarity offered in the previous paragraphs it is possible to further explore the applicability and use of social accountability. As the approach has grown in popularity among donor agencies and policymakers, more has become known about its practical challenges but also more fundamental questions about its applicability have risen. A mixed record of success and failure of social accountability on the ground confirms this (Gaventa and Barrett, 2010; McGee and Gaventa, 2010).
While conceptual clarity is important the need to contextualise interventions becomes increasingly evident. Social accountability initiatives tend to be especially used in areas of precarious statehood, because of the inadequacy of formal structures of governance. They, however, tend to face the same challenges that are associated with other governance interventions in these contexts. First of all, low levels of security or even direct violence discourages the mobilisation of citizens (Schouten, 2011: 2). High factionalism or particularistic interests further threaten the participatory dimension of social accountability, resulting in elite capture and the use of projects for exclusionary means. Lack of administrative capacity, community trust or the constraining effects of poverty can further limit the success of social accountability projects, requiring due attention in project design and implementation. The challenges facing social accountability are however not solely practical in nature but also question the underlying assumptions and universal applicability of the model. This not only necessitates a deeper understanding of the contextual factors shaping the incentives of citizens to participate, but also an awareness of the limitations of the model’s applicability.
What social accountability offers is a bottom-up approach intended to strengthen governance based upon the principal agent model. It is meant to complement the top-down interventions, 112
such as judicial and legislative reform, anti-corruption strategies or capacity-building for public financial management that have long been the main target of governance programmes. As it became evident that the performance of governing elites did not solely depend on more capacity building or better policies, hopes were shifted to the chastening effect of external incentives, i.e. bottom-up pressure for performance. Both approaches however assume the existence of an intrinsic, uncomplicated desire for better public governance and goods provision on behalf of the relevant actors (Booth, 2012: 11), which does not necessarily apply to all contexts. What works and does not work for the actors involved can vary widely across settings in terms of their goals and expectations as well as in terms of what is socially acceptable and feasible for attaining sustained results.
Figuring out these details is not a straightforward task as any governance setting harbours multiple, often conflicting interests and a web of varying loyalties and accountability relationships, whereby principals sometimes act as agents and vice-versa. The businessmen who would welcome a new road do not want their land captured for its construction. The patient who needs better health care in the district is also related to a nurse whose position and income is threatened in any reorganisation. A power plant can offer much-need electrification and jobs but can also threaten livelihoods through the occupation or pollution of farmland. In short, these dilemmas illustrate what limitations reality can pose to the applicability of the social accountability in certain settings, and highlights the need for an awareness of the appropriateness of such interventions in each context.
Furthermore, public goods and service provision in many developing countries is often the result of some degree of co-production between (quasi-) government bodies, charitable or other aid organisations, the private sector and (groups of) citizens (Joshi and Moore, 2004). It is questionable to what extent the principle-agent model underlying social accountability approaches applies to such unorthodox but nonetheless widespread organisational arrangements. In a situation of co-productive service delivery a basic feature is the blurred distinction between regulators, producers, users, professionals, clients and recipients. These circumstances make it difficult to enforce a straightforward type of explicit accountability (Joshi and Moore, 2008: 44). This could be motivation behind the fact that the social accountability label is frequently applied 113
to initiatives that do not entail the essential dimensions of accountability as outlined in this paper.
5. FINAL REMARKS In this paper we have aimed to make a contribution towards bringing greater clarity to the concept of social accountability, taking into account the essential components that shape any accountability relationship and the preconditions for direct accountability relationships between communities and public service providers and/or local authorities to take place. Furthermore, we have outlined a basic conceptual framework to understand and trace the causal chain through which citizen participation can translate into effective voice and how voice itself can have an impact on enforceability and answerability. Lastly, it has highlighted some of the main practical and theoretical challenges to the social accountability approach.
The analysis offered is not meant to provide a single recipe for devising and assessing social accountability interventions. Rather, and acknowledging that each context is different and challenges and opportunities vary accordingly, this paper intends to be a reference for interested implementers to ask relevant questions about feasibility, minimum standards for design and review of specific social accountability projects. We argue for an increased awareness of both the conceptual and practical boundaries of social accountability, which have thus far been insufficiently addressed.
The ultimate goal is to support the development of sustainable
initiatives that are consistent and work with what is on the ground
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APPENDIX 1
This basic framework allows implementers to ask targeted questions geared at optimizing the impact of social accountability programmes. These could include the following: a) Who and how performs capacity building activities? To whom are they targeted? b) How do citizens participate? o How organised are communities/citizens to begin with? o How do we target community members who may be interested in participating sustainably while guaranteeing equal access and representation? o Which are the organisations or mechanisms of civil society interest articulation that are already in place? (Informal) How do they work? Who do they include, or not? What is their relationship with the state? o Are the instruments used for evaluation and generating community inputs adequate for the contextual situation of each community? c) How and how aggregates and articulates opinions and evaluation results? o Are the criteria to synthesise information clear and transparent? o Are evaluations and recommendations jointly elaborated by programme participants themselves or is there a third party involved? o In the case a third party is involved, is this an actor with a neutral agenda vis-à-vis the constellation of actors involved in exercising social accountability? o d) Is voice transmitted to the pertinent actors? While the abstract answer, to those with enforcement capabilities, is quite straightforward, in practice identifying those actors can be complicated. Some of the elements that need to be taken into account are: o
Degree of centralisation of the sector involved. For example, in most developing countries, the state delivers public services in a top-down, bureaucratic manner through sectoral line ministries down to the local level. Centralisation of state structures means that formal sanctions for inadequate performance are usually 115
supposed to be applied by officials along the official hierarchy (Santosh Mehrotra 2006, 264). o Degree of responsiveness of authorities to the public. This is expected to be a direct function of the type of regime, and where there is an absence of institutional participatory or communication mechanisms alternative transmission instances for voice, such as the media, have to be sought out. o What mechanisms (formal and informal) are there to access policymakers? o What actors or agencies have control over remuneration and career promotion decisions for service providers? e) What are underlying factors affecting the incentive structure facing service providers? o
Are political and/or reputational costs important?
o Are formal “hard” enforcement measures applied consistently and predictably o Are there relevant local “soft” enforcement measures that the community can make use of? o What is the informal underlying distribution of power and social networks spanning public-private spheres? f) Are there mechanisms in place to provide feedback information on how social accountability inputs have been addressed? o How often and by whom is feedback provided? o What information is relayed back to citizens? o Are indicators of impact on process generated and disseminated? (i.e. changes in management, disciplinary measures, changes in budgetary allocations) o Are indicators of impact on outputs generated and disseminated? (i.e. better stocks; repairs/renovations; water points constructed; criminal cases reported; more police on the streets) o Are indicators of impact on outcomes generated and disseminated? (i.e. lower infant/maternal mortality; lower illiteracy; greater access to clean water; crime levels down; user satisfaction
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APPENDIX 2 FREQUENTLY USED SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY TOOLS (PARTIAL LIST) (Sources: UNDP, Fostering Social Accountability: A guidance note, TI 2011, World Bank 2007)
Citizen report cards (CRC) Generally involve two related elements: (a) the collection of survey data on the quality and/or quantity of a public service, and (b) awareness-raising and broad-based advocacy based on the results of the survey. They are used in situations where there is no demand-side data, such as user perception on quality and satisfaction with public services. The report card process relies on extensive media coverage and civil society advocacy to achieve greater accountability.
Community scorecards (CSC) Combine participatory quantitative surveys with village meetings bringing together service users and providers to jointly analyse and resolve service delivery problems. Citizens are empowered to provide immediate feedback to service providers in face-to-face meetings.
Participatory budgeting It is a process through which citizens participate directly in the different phases of budget formulation, decision-making, and the monitoring of budget execution. This tool can assist in increasing the transparency of public expenditure and in improving the targeting of budgets.
Participatory output monitoring It is a method through which local actors can monitor the achievement of stated project or policy outputs against identified indicators.
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Social audits These are designed to build accountability and transparency in the use and management of public resources through citizen monitoring, analysis and evaluation of government performance. It can take different forms and cover a range of actors and practices.
Participatory public expenditure tracking (PET) Expenditure tracking is a method to monitor flows of public resources for the provision of public services and goods and uncover leakages and corruption in the system.
Performance-oriented, citizen-based, ex-post auditing Citizens perform physical and financial audits of the local government accounts. By comparing the written records with the actual outputs and discussing them in public venues, citizens forced local governments to answer the following.
Public revenue monitoring It refers to the tracking and analysis of the type and amount of revenue that a government receives. This can detect and help prevent corruption or the squandering of revenue sources, as well as increasing awareness of the amount of money that a government has at its disposal.
Study circle Comprises a small group of people who meet over a period of time to learn about and deliberate on a critical public issue. Trained facilitators provide discussion materials to the circle and move the discussion from personal experience ‘how does the issue affect me?’ to action ‘what can we do about the issue here?’
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Virtual or online town hall meeting Refers to organized web based meetings where participants pre-submit questions to an official or elected representative, and the officials respond during the allocated time. Depending on the technology used, the responses can either be viewed online in real time or can be received via email, phone or live web-text.
Appreciative inquiry summit The opposite of problem solving, appreciative inquiry focuses on the positive aspects or core strengthens of a community or organisation. By focusing on what works, rather than fixing what does not work, it enhances the system’s or organisation’s capacity for collaboration and change
Public forum It refers to a place that is dedicated to the free exercise of the right to speech and public debate and assembly. Limited public forums are established when a government opens official meetings to the public to receive input or feedback. Designated public forums are intentionally created either by government or any other organisation to provide space for public debate and discourse. VOICE, especially if government is involved
Citizen charters These are pacts between the community and the service providers that spell out expectations and roles, enabling the citizens to interact more effectively with the municipality. They specify the expected standards of the services, identify who is responsible, and outline the procedures for the redress of complaints.(World Bank 2007, 50)
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REFERENCES Baez-Camargo, Claudia. (2011). “Accountability for Better Healthcare Provision: a Framework and Guidelines to Define, Understand and Assess Accountability in Health Systems.” Frankish, C.J. et al. (2002). Challenges of citizen participation in regional health authorities. Social Science & Medicine, 54(10), pp.1471–1480.
Gaventa, J. & Barrett, G. (2010). So What Difference Does it Make? Mapping the Outcomes of Citizen Engagement, IDS Working Paper 347, Retrieved from http://www.ids.ac.uk/idspublication/so-what-difference-does-it-make-mapping-theoutcomes-of-citizen-engagement1
Goetz, A.M., & Jenkins, R., (2005). Re-inventing Accountability: Making Democracy Work for Human Development. International Political Economy Series. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Joshi, A. & Moore, M. (April, 2004). Institutionalised Co-production: Unorthodox Public Service Delivery in Challenging Environments. The Journal of Development Studies, Vol.40(4). pp.31 – 49. Malena, C., Forster, R. & SIngh, J. (2004). “Social Accountability: An Introduction to the Concept and Emerging Practice”. World Bank. McGee, R. & Gaventa, J., (2010). Review of Impact and Effectiveness of Transparency and Accountability Initiatives. UK: Institute of Development Studies October. Retrieved May 5, 2011 from http://www.ids.ac.uk/index.cfm?objectid=7E5D1074-969C-58FC-7B586DE3994C885C
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Mehrotra, S. (2006). “Governance and Basic Social Services: Ensuring Accountability in Srvice Delivery Through Deep Democratic Decentralization.” Journal of International Development, 18, 263–283. Reich, M.R. ( 2002). Reshaping the state from above, from within, from below: implications for public health. Social Science & Medicine, 54(11), pp.1669–1675. Schouten, C. (December 2011). Social accountability in situations of conflict and fragility. U4 Brief 19. Thurston, W.E. et al. (2005). Public participation in regional health policy: a theoretical framework. HealthPolicy, 73(3), pp.237–252.
UNDP.( 2010). “Fostering Social Accountability: From Principle to Practice. Guidance Note.” World Bank. (2004). “World Development Report 2004: Making Services Work for Poor People.” Retrieved from http://wwwwds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2003/10/07/000090341_ 20031007150121/Rendered?PDF/268950PAPERWDR2004.pdf. ———.( 2007). “Local Government Discretion and Accountability: A Local Governance Framework”. Social Development Department. Report 40153.
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DETAILS OF AUTHORS 1. Claudia Baez Camargo Senior Research Fellow, Basel Institute on Governance Steinenring 60 4051 Basel, Switzerland Phone: +41 (0)61 205 55 36 Claudia Baez Camargo, holds a PhD in political science from the University of Notre Dame, USA and a graduate degree in economics from the University of Cambridge, England. She is senior researcher and consultant at the Basel Institute on Governance in the area of public governance. Her areas of expertise include health systems governance, power and influence analysis, and participatory anti-corruption interventions. Dr. Baez Camargo is currently participating in the EU/FP7 ANTICORRP research consortium with a project aimed at developing ethnographical approaches to the study of corruption with a focus on the contextual determinants of success of social accountability initiatives. Email:
[email protected]
2. Eelco Jacobs Research Fellow, Basel Institute on Governance Brederodestraat 47-I 1054MS Amsterdam, The Netherlands Phone: +31 (0)6 42011375 Eelco Jacobs, holds an MSc in Political Economy and Sociology from the School of Oriental and African Studies, UK and is a PhD candidate at the University of Basel, Switzerland. He has worked in the field of public, corporate and global governance for development agencies, thinktanks and businesses in Europe, Central Asia and East Africa. At the Basel Institute on Governance he has developed his doctoral research while contributing to the governance of health system project and being in charge of the field work in Tajikistan. In addition, he has consulted for the World Health Organization in the areas of health governance, policy and financing. Email:
[email protected]
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MULTIPLE LEADERSHIP ACCOUNTABILITIES, DISCORDANT DISCOURSES AND CLUMSY STRUCTURES WITHIN PLURAL GOVERNANCE
Donald Curtis
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MULTIPLE LEADERSHIP ACCOUNTABIITIES, DISCORDANT DISCOURES AND CLUMSY STRUCTURES WITHIN PLURAL GOVERNANCE
ABSTRACT
Good governance outcomes in Bangladesh emerge from relationships, institutions and structures of governance that are far from any constitutionally defined ideal. Out beyond the structures of government as such, socially responsible leaders within organisations labelled ‘private’ or ‘nongovernmental’, but increasingly complex or hybrid are helping to shape a governance landscape that defies simple private / public definition. The paper calls for a rethink of the opportunities and challenges of plural governance and an exploration of the ‘space’ that it opens up. It identifies the key role of authentic, multiply accountable leadership, able to make sense within discordant development discourses and notes the emergence of ‘clumsy’ institutional structures and relationships that seek to balance interests and powers around the solution of common good dilemmas.
INTRODUCTION
The Institute of Governance Studies (IGS), BRAC University, proclaims on its website: “For IGS, the concept of governance is best defined as the sum total of the institutions and processes by which society conducts its collective or common affairs”. An inclusive definition of governance requires a similarly inclusive and pluralistic understanding of leadership in public affairs as well as accountability for actions and behaviours that affect the public weal. To reach such an understanding however requires a considerable shift in thinking. Most attention has been given in the literature to attempts to improve the functioning of government as such. Much less attention has been applied to attempting to understand the plural institutional landscape within which issues of common or public good are contested, struggled over, with occasionally positive outcomes.
It is not a matter of evidence. It has long been clear that many initiatives that have had public good outcomes for Bangladesh and beyond have non-governmental origins. Nor is it necessary in 124
this paper to identify or eulogise the well known or less well known individuals who have been so socially inventive. What needs to be explored is the context of this creativity. It requires:
expansion of the concept of governance beyond ideas of constitution or structure to give meaning to pluralism and to the process of interaction that produce it.
coming to terms with destructive and conflict full discourses – sometimes labelled postmodernist - that can signal chaos but seemingly allow space for leaders to form creative institutions
recognition of outcomes in creative solutions to problems of common or public interest that bring together different means of social coordination into ‘clumsy’ institutions that don’t fit anybodies ideal of the good society or the public weal but which apparently ‘work’ to good effect.
And finally
A rethink of leadership and accountability in this context, to identify the roles and skills of leaders who envision new styles of social undertaking within society and negotiate with other political and economic agents to achieve respect for their ideals and enterprises.
PLURALISTIC
RESPONSIBILITY
AND
THE
BANGLADESH
GOVERNANCE
PARADOX
Many Bangladeshi institutions as well as individuals can be seen to concern themselves with public or common good issues in society, influencing outcomes in varying degrees. Formal authority is determined by constitution and law and still rests there, however fragile it sometimes appears. Legal structures separate legislative, administrative, and judicial powers, setting up formal accountability processes, and defining public, private and civil society sectors and boundaries. Within these spheres are institutions with differing sets of values and practices. The history of Bangladesh nevertheless demonstrates that advancing the public good requires vigilant counter-valence as well as widespread initiative, social innovation and ’muddling through’. Furthermore any actor – NGO director, civil servant, political leader or whoever – seeking to advance a common interest or public good will have to interact with others in different agencies,
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national and international, with differing codes and expectations.
Effective leadership and
governance in a pluralistic society is a cross boundary business.
The implications of accepting a pluralist definition of governance, as championed by IGS amongst others, are not fully worked out in the literature, in current political debate or indeed in the discourses of donors which still seem to dominate the field. If many institutions as well as individuals can be seen to contribute to the production of ‘goods’ that are of common benefit to broad social categories of people or the public at large this is, by this definition, governance; think tertiary education, people’s banks, mobile phone networks.
Such agents influence public good outcomes in varying degrees. Is not the annual budget of the Government of Bangladesh influenced to some degree by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) commentary? Is not the intention of the annual IGS governance review to help shape thinking in particular areas of public policy and governance and doesn’t this have some impact in the longer if not shorter timeframe? Is it not the case that the education, health or banking services generated by the NGO sector are public goods; not only in themselves but also as points of comparison for government? Influence, it must be acknowledged, is difficult to quantify. So how this works in Bangladesh today is an open question that cannot be fully explored here. But it is clear that what many observers regard as the Bangladesh paradox of impressive public good outcomes in terms of social indicators co-existing with ‘abysmal’ (as Kabeer et.al. 2010 put it) formal governance indicators, has something to do with the relatively successful strategies and notable leadership of the plural institutions that concern themselves with public good provisions.
Bangladesh may be remarkable for the many people acting through institutions outside government which have a bearing on the overall public weal, but it is not alone. In fact in many countries – including Britain – scholars and professional practitioners are struggling to come to terms with what they see as the blurred boundaries of governance. They find policy, once conceived to be the exclusive responsibility of government ministries, emerging through interactions across ‘policy networks’ that straddle governmental, quasi-governmental, third sector as well as private institutions (Rhodes and Marsh 2010). They note how ‘co-production’, linking clinicians and patients or police and community activists, changes patterns of decision 126
making from hierarchy to network. They identify partnership as a new core concept in the provision of services for the resolution of social ills. These recognitions however are not readily reconciled with conventional constitutional models of democratic government. While much of the discourse surrounding accountability; calling for parliamentary responsibility, civil service conformity with bureaucratic norms, private sector integrity, etc., demand compliance with a predictable constitutional order, workable norms seem to be moving elsewhere.
Workable norms are however open to abuse. To be workable there must be trust. The move away from the clarity of constitutional definition to open structures defined only by usage requires the building of trust across boundaries. Language does not always reflect reality. For instance, Bangladeshi leaders in many positions interacting with international assistance donors are well familiar with the partnership term. BCS Officials and NGO leaders will also recognise that there can be ambiguities in such relationships (Green and Curtis 2005). Inequality can masquerade as equality, prescription be hidden behind the rhetoric of choice, resistance presented as compliance, disagreement as agreement. Whether the resulting field of exchanges in the public realm should attract the label ‘post modern’ or not, it is certainly confusing. Yet, in aid relationships as well as in other cross-boundary exchanges, what this ambiguity does is to highlight the significance of the personal equations that can be established when persons of good intent and personal integrity on either side find common purpose, and decide to build a relationship of trust.
DISCOURSES
Public debate in Bangladesh in this and other areas features a number of contrasting discourses. Without always being transparent they underlie policy prescriptions, government / donor dialogue as well as academic analysis, the media and the political dialogue of the media informed public. A number of models can be traced that are outlined below. While it may be the case that there has been a move over the years since liberation away from the first model towards the second – under the prevailing neo-liberal pressures, internal as well as external - the first has by no means disappeared.
Championship of civil society, the third area of discourse is
surprisingly muted, despite the prominence of NGOs within the country. American style 127
communitarian thinking by writers such as Amitai Etzioni or Robert Putnam does not seem to have had much influence in Bangladesh; perhaps because village studies, finding hidden conflict, gender inequality, resource competition, and marginality [e.g. Hartnam and Boyce 1984] have made it difficult to substantiate any image of ‘community’ as an unalloyed good. For whatever reason, there does not appear to be much advocacy of a more fundamental civil society led development strategy or of a purist community development movement but, to the outside world, Bangladesh is known for the prominence and assertiveness of its non-governmental sector.
These discourses can be outlined as follows; -
assumption that government [state] should have overriding control of policy, direction and provision of the public good;
government ‘does’ o and seeks hegemonic control through planning, regulation, and structured political debate
-
civil society advocates, counters government
private sector subordinated, dependant; can seek to corrupt
citizens are clients who should receive, according to category
[and donors bewail]
assertion that private enterprise should have primacy
government enables
civil society should keep to philanthropy, sports and entertainment
private ‘does’ o hegemony sought through identification with global trends
-
citizens thought of as customers
[donors irrelevant]
championship of ‘community’ or civil society
government should ideally be a civic forum, but in fact is an elite serving an elite through a moribund bureaucracy and has to be held in check through countervailing NGOs 128
civil society ‘does’ through mutual service associations, service oriented ‘not for profit organisations’ and community governance o seeks legitimacy at all levels of society through conferencing and federating while striving to avoid overt political alignment or factionalism
private sector is most equitable when it functions through cooperatives
citizens are to be empowered
[donors dream on]
The underlying models/’pictures’ are traceable in different contexts and times as biases within particular public discourses. The dominant political parties do not seem to align themselves with any of these models, although each allows the prevailing international neo-libertarian consensus to underwrite its economic policy; as is the case elsewhere on the Sub-Continent. This may be both consequent and cause of a fourth kind of discourse, devoid of consensus, full of noise and despair. At times, perhaps particularly when no set of institutions appears to prevail within a sluggish political economy, such antagonisms seem to fester within the national discourse; resulting in a cacophony of political noise. -
images of state failure, civil society contestation and market failure
government consumes; a machine without wheels
civil society fights with itself and chosen enemies
private sector seeks to buy itself stability or escapes to better climes
citizens, isolated or alienated; prey to extremist rhetoric
[donors disappear into cherished idealisms]
It may be particularly when in this perceived ‘multiple failure’ mode that representatives of each sector, private, civil society and government officials, seem most prone to portray sectors other than their own – sometimes even their own - in negative terms.
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STEREOTYPING
This section is necessarily impressionistic. My impressions stem from the time when I was a frequent visitor to Bangladesh, involved with BCS officials as Team Leader in MATT1, a civil service development program.
Meeting batches of officials on their home territory as well as in UK I was astonished at their persistently negative portrayal of the NGO sector and its personnel. It was not that NGOs were an alien species of institution to them. Many had been Deputy Commissioners, obliged to meet with NGOs in District planning and coordination sessions on a regular basis. But, what-ever their actual relations had been on the ground, there was a persistent tendency to present NGO members as foreign funded, self-indulgent do-gooders who exaggerate their effectiveness. The private sector was seen in a scarcely more positive light; a corrupting influence to be held at arm’s length.
My chances to meet with private businessmen were few, but I have vivid memory of a social gathering at which some businesspersons engaged me in amiable, self-praising chat about their ability to facilitate the decision making of the bureaucrats with well applied cash. They mildly despised those whom they corrupted and were more amused than perturbed when they proclaimed “We are the most corrupt nation”. NGOs to them were oddities to be indulged.
NGO personnel sometimes have an heroic self-identity. They can be critical of both the political and administrative process of government, while seeking to distance themselves from the private sector which does not share their anti-poverty and social mobilisation objectives. Nevertheless, I carried away impressions of often enthusiastic and socially relaxed individuals, less constrained than others by the norms and codes of their working environment, but equally inclined to be hyper-critical of other sectors of society.
What struck me as particularly curious about the apparently discordant discourses of key actors within the Bangladeshi elite was the fact that many families straddle the different domains. Even husband and wife partnerships often located the one in the private sector to balance the other in 130
public service with obvious income and security advantages. Extended family networks provide potential links between all sectors [including the military and across the political party divides], some elite families being well placed in all domains, and well able to straddle boundaries. This can also be used for strategic advantage, (Batley and Rose 2011, p238) but this does not seem to dampen the enthusiasm of any individual within the family net for disparagement of the alien organisational cultures within which other family members must function.
Stereotyping is a
form of distancing; disengagement from personal responsibility. Conflicting discourses and pervasive stereotyping within different domains would not seem to be an environment that encourages cross-sector working, new institutional structures or new forms of leadership initiative (Lewis 2008). Yet in each of these fields of social action we find persons who are willing to bridge the cultural divides and engage in constructive action.
HYBRIDITY, INTER-ORGANISATIONAL WORKING AND ‘CLUMSY’ SOLUTIONS
A pluralist governance landscape in not one in which grand plans or overall strategic visions are likely to prevail. Nor in such an environment can uniform standards of service be expected. Nor will the state be able to realistically guarantee individual rights to all its citizens. These may be the criteria of judgement of the external world but thankfully judgement does not preclude adaptive innovation. Vision emerges piecemeal in the thoughts, communications and actions of inspirational leaders - Akhter Hameed Khan in his RDA Comilla period. Plans are generated through learning from experimental practice as well as replication. Improving standards are a function of continuously exercised demand. Rights are not granted from on high so much as won through struggle.
From a constitutional perspective pluralist governance ideas appear to breach established boundaries. Let us label boundary breaching activity simply as transgression, and note that strategically there are three routes open to tackling the problem.
One is to challenge
transgression. Many anti-corruption strategies and campaigns are confrontational in this way. They claim the moral high ground but generally fail. The second it to change boundaries, as for example happens when a public service is privatised, moving all concerned actors into a different 131
sphere of legitimacy. The third is to recognise and foster various forms of ‘hybridity’ and different kinds of alliance, with solutions that appear clumsy, but work.
The ‘clumsy solutions’ idea is a construct of ‘Cultural Theory’ [otherwise ‘the theory of sociocultural viability] (Douglas, 1987, Verweij et al 2006, Gint 2009). The contribution of writers in this tradition to our understanding of pluralism stems from what they identify as three fundamentally different, indeed contradictory, ways of perceiving the world and its problems, each of which can be found at play in any social setting. These they locate in contrasting approaches to social coordination. People who think hierarchically will look to grand plans, and logical analysis. For them accountability is primarily hierarchical. People whose primary identity is with a group or cause will look for solutions to problems through this identity and the window on the world that it allows. Such people give and take account primarily to those whom they deem their peers, sharing core values.
Individualists will look to the contradictions and
opportunities in systems; their understandings underpinned by the logic of markets; their accountability primarily to self and to a partner in a deal. There is a fourth; the thinking of the isolate or alienated that is disengaged or fatalistic, expecting nothing; sometimes prey to the promises of charismatic or fanatics.
These ways of thinking can each be expanded into persuasive logics and underpinned by well constructed philosophical argument – broadly the world-views outlined earlier in this paper. Actual institutions can be dominated by one way of thinking or another but seldom to the exclusion of the others. Seldom does a dominant way of thinking provide a comprehensive answer to a social ill. Usually there is argumentation and negotiation. As Verweij and colleagues suggest; “Cultural theory assumes that the four forms of organising and perceiving are interacting – forever merging, splitting and recombining – in unpredictable ways at each conceivable level of social organisation. Thus four straightforward organisational principles can result in an endlessly changing, infinitely varied and complex social world.” (2007 p5).
Cultural theory thinking, when applied to practical considerations of social policy or governance, would discourage overreliance upon the logic of hierarchies of any kind – even when backed, say, by the authority of science. Equally suspect are the devotions of groups of believers to 132
particular interpretations of social problems or the short horizons of individualist schemers or entrepreneurs.
What cultural theory does encourage is an approach to problems of common
public good / bad that combines inspiration with negotiation, model-building with experimentation and an iterative process of action and reflection; in other words, continuous learning. This is nothing new in itself. One stream of development thinking has consistently argued the virtues of experimentation (Rondinelli 1993) but the cultural theory argument goes further to suggest that grand plans and constitutions on their own will not produce viable public good outcomes while, by calling into play other incentives and identities, ‘clumsy solutions’ can.
Two well known institutional developments in Bangladesh can be interpreted as clumsy solutions. The first is Grameen Bank micro-credit. The second is the system of managing rural electricity supply through cooperatives, the Palli Bidyut Samiti. Neither is perfect, both are in the midst of current disputation but both, at some level, work, or have worked.
The early evolution of what became the Grameen bank has been well documented both by Professor Muhammad Yunus himself and by academic observers (Yunus 1994, Hulme 2009). Yunus’s journey into micro-credit started in interaction with poor people who had no access to conventional banking. In banking logic a loan has to be secured against an asset. For poor people, if security can be achieved at all, it is through mutuality. Yunus the pragmatist found a way to put these incompatible ways of thinking together. Banking logic works at the interface of hierarchy and market. User-group logic sees the common good in the development of trust through routinised savings, loans and repayments.
Peer support and pressure encourages
everyone to stick to a savings regime or mutually monitored borrowing, investing and repayment practices. At best, we know, such regimes can change the social status and bargaining power of group members as well as improving economic life chances.
What must have been evident to Professor Yunus through empathetic experimentation has since been theoretically modelled by social scientists (Ostrom, Gardner and Walker 1995, Ostrom 2005). Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for Economics for her life’s work on understanding how ‘commons’ work, illustrating through her Design Principles for Common Property Resource Management, what people must do to establish trust and to prevent free riding or cheating by 133
monitoring each other (Ostrom 1990). Her design principles also indicate the scope that a higher authority must give to functioning group to allow it to build an effective set of rules.
Early
Grameen (Grameen 1 to Hulme and others) maintained this counterpoise. In later Grameen (Grameen 2) banking logic seems to have been given precedence; allowing more sophisticated banking services to be developed but de-emphasising the significance of the group within the model. Mutuality fits awkwardly with hierarchical supervision by agents of a bank; group meetings can become convenient occasions for an individual to give account to an agent of the bank rather than group accountability, groups sometimes only groups in that they are complicit in recycling loans to cover poor loan recovery. Yet the Grameen 2 model still allows for loans to be granted without individual indemnity so something of its unique character remains.
Turning to electricity supply, the power generators supply a distribution agency, The Rural Electrification Board, which interacts with customers through consumer cooperatives, the Palli Bidyut Samiti, to harnesses consumer group interest in equitable provision. This system was not home-grown within Bangladesh, the model being imported from the USA under an aid programme. The model was nevertheless of apparent relevance. Where a state run enterprise attempts to generate, distribute and supply electricity directly to the end user, multiple parties down the line see opportunities to free ride upon the provision - hooking up illegally to overhead cables, or, for the operatives, to extract rents [either as surcharges on the customers or from the company by allowing free access to customers for a kick-back]. Such systems are also vulnerable to political pressure. Come elections electricity consumers within hierarchical, centralised systems suddenly find that politicians are anxious to solicit support; promising improved supply and constrained prices even if this twin goals are incompatible and beyond their capacity to deliver.
Against this scenario, the idea that consumers be given a stake in the organisation of their own supply is obviously attractive. Many neighbours within a cooperative will be there to observe the illegal connection and disapprove, because one non-paying household or farm puts up the price to everyone else. In other words formal or informal group sanctions and accountability come into play. So far, so good. However, the consumer cooperative is still on the end of a supply line and has no direct influence upon the issues of reliability or cost of what is delivered 134
to them. Recently it seems the Palli Bidyut Samiti have demonstrated their collective will by taking to the streets in protest at intermittent and over costly supplies; as reported by the Daily Star; September 15, 2011. The social solidarity principle is then used as a political tool against the supplier and against the government of the day. Had the cooperatives had a stake in the manufacture as well as the consumption of electricity a better balance of interests and powers could have been achieved.
There is nothing new about clumsy solutions. The Comilla system developed by Akhter Hameed Khan in the 1960s linked an education and research establishment with extension and farmer cooperatives; hierarchy at the local level in interaction with groups of farmers with scope for an individual of outstanding leadership qualities to shape the relationships and establish a model for others to follow.
The Comilla model eventually became incorporated at all levels into
government and may have lost it dynamism but in its origins provided an example that became widely emulated within rural development in many countries.
In control of flood, common good/bad of particular significance in Bangladesh, there is a strong need for coordination between state and civil society. The significance of water movements across the delta and within coastal areas for agriculture, for fishery or transport, varies enormously from place to place. Dykes and drains serve multiple purposes for different people at different seasons. Knowledge within this arena is a key resource and also tends to differ between locals and professionals. Sometimes the knowledge and interests of local resource users’ clashes with that of professionals and bureaucrats (Bernstein 2000), leading to uncoordinated actions in the public domain, putting crops and livelihoods at risk. At other times, the administration can play a coordinating or supporting role in relation to indigenous water management organisation (personal communication from a former Deputy Commissioner). Where coordination can be achieved, as in the development of participatory Water Management Organisations in the coastal regions of Patuakali and Bargura, farmer interests and resources can harnessed to public agencies in a coordinated response to cyclones in the region – a form of coproduction (Jenkins, Chowdhury and Hussain 2011).
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Other problems of common good / bad, as varied as conflict resolution structures in the villages and policy dilemmas in national government are examples where one might expect to find clumsy institutional development, if the theme were adequately researched. Conflict resolution lends itself to some kind of juxtaposition of principled and professional NGO concerned with women’s rights and the established but apparently ever-changing traditional mechanism, the shalish (Lewis and Hossain 2008). In the field of policy analysis various forms of ‘think tank’ or policy institute, seek, sometimes successfully, to establish links with relevant agencies of government, servicing these links with expertise and publically verifiable information or with research tools that help to validate policy outcomes.
We should not expect ‘clumsy’ solutions to be particularly stable or uncontested. Nor should we expect that it is easy for their contradictory underlying organisational dynamics to be accommodated within a new orthodoxy. The very extensive critical commentary that now surrounds micro-credit and micro-finance is in part about its effectiveness as an anti-poverty strategy. But it also challenges the significance of mutuality and group within the micro-finance system. This may reflect current realities within the now world-wide micro-finance movement; where the user-group may have become marginalised or so institutionalised as to escape critical comment. But it can also be read as a rejection at the intellectual level of a human organisational principle that is still perceived as alien within the classic banking mix of hierarchy and market.
Nevertheless, some stable configurations are likely to emerge. Is not the democratic model of parliament counterpoised by administration and balanced again against head of state an example of a reasonably stable, if not always particularly effective, clumsy arrangement?
LEADERSHIP IN CONTEXT
With so much ‘noise’ within the public domain and with apparently complex and ‘clumsy’ institutional establishments emerging what are potential leaders to do? How must they define themselves? How should they find the space within which to lead? I explore this through a
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consideration of accountabilities. The inherited constitution and legalistic tradition does not help.
Constitutional definitions of responsibility for effective government tend to separate spheres, elected parliamentarians for policy and law making, civil service for policy implementation, citizens for accepting law and order and paying taxes and so on. Constitutionalists design such separations as checks and balances, seeking to avoid the risk of over-concentrated power in one sector of government or another.
Constitutions also define accountabilities; parliamentarians to the public through the ballot box, civil servants to their bosses through the hierarchy, public agencies through their contracts and performance expectations, membership NGOs through accounts to members. [Non-membership NGOs, sometimes accused of non-accountability, have been brought to account by government regulation and have also to account to donors.] None of this is necessarily easy.
Constitutions are nevertheless vulnerable. Much of the day to day business of politics, as expressed in the press or on the streets, consists in contesting the boundaries of proper conduct of authority; ministers overstretching their mandates, NGOs making incursions into politics, administrators transgressing the norms of their office to grant favours to personal friends, private entrepreneurs looking for rich pickings in the public domain, or to politicians seeking patronage by interfering in administration.
Moreover moral hazard has to be recognised. A constitutional provision that places responsibility in one institution or office seems to encourage others into responsibility avoidance. Instance; national treasury responsibility for public expenditure on public health is met by tax avoidance and private carelessness about public cleanliness. More generally; once a law that expresses a widely felt need is in place it immediately becomes target for circumvention.
Good outcomes depend upon concerned individual leaders keeping alive the concern that led to the establishment of the office or the enacting of the law. In practice, this ‘keeping alive’ is most likely to arise when there is evidence of failure. Jumping back to the public health instance, it is 137
the failure of government aspirations to universal standards of service that alerts NGO leaders to the need to act; often combining advocacy with elements of alternative service provision. Good practice then entails inter-relationships (Batley and Rose 2011).
What we have to look for is ways of thinking about the leadership styles and behavioural codes that enable this kind of interaction to prevail within the public domain.
ACCOUNTABILITY
The paper demonstrates a need to put the idea of accountability into a sociological or psychological as against a purely technical or constitutional framework.
Administratively,
accountability is a requirement on persons in particular situations or offices to give account for their actions to others in order to maintain established systems. Formal government structures, as we have argued, have formal expectations of accountability. The giving and taking of account within an established system has two sides to it; the process of submitting account and the established set of expectations – the social code or ‘balance sheet’ - against which the account will be judged. In plural, open and challenged systems formal patterns do not work well. Neither side is agreed. We have to ask therefore how successful leaders establish themselves and their reputations, recognising that they have to shape the social codes and expectations in society as well as their own achievement.
It is probably worth registering the psychology of accountability. Accountability is seen by psychologists to be a deep requirement in the development of the human personality (Shotter 1984). Accountability then is not at base a matter of volition or compliance with externally imposed regulation of conduct but of the interactions of an individual with significant other persons through early maturation. It is through such interactions that a concept of self and a knowledge of self, is generated, emerging in the personal accounts that people give of themselves as life progresses.
The psychological dimension provides a starting point in considering accountability within the pluralistic leadership of society. Leaders will be people who are comfortable with themselves 138
and their ability to give account of themselves and what they stand for, to others. This remains a matter of social interaction, with changing, not necessarily consistent, patterns of significant others as life and career progresses. In a social inter-actionist perspective, accountability is multi-directional and has or should have two outcomes. One is that actions help to shape or reinforce effective institutional forms. The other that the actor’s personal integrity and ability to act is maintained through whatever challenges come their way. Leadership is authentic rather than positional (George et al 2007).
The paper recognises three underlying dynamics of accountability; hierarchical, collective, and individual that differ in logic and incentive or motivation. Good governance outcomes typically call for people who are able to respond, according to situation, to all three types of call to account that may bear upon the individual from different directions;
centrally determined, as in demonstrating responsibilities of office, or more widely, of citizenship
peer group generated, as in responding to the standards and codes of professional associations, workplace teams or civil society association norms
and, not least, inter-personal , as in creating good personal reputation in one’s dealings, gaining the trust that stems from an honourable conduct of affairs.
Accountability has therefore to be seen in a sociological as against a technical or constitutional framework.
Accountability may still be seen as the requirement on persons in particular
situations or offices to give account for their actions to others in order to maintain understood performances and relationships. Giving account or taking account through audit can be deeply ambiguous in terms of the relationships that are generated in the process (Power 1997) but this is the point at which personal action and social outcome are made manifest and integrated into an outcome that has, for better or worse, impact upon both society and the standing of the individual.
In different situations one or other of these forms of accountability may be dominant but each is nevertheless in play. In formal terms a civil servant, an officer of the BCS for instance, will acknowledge accountability to his or her boss; the line manager to whom they report. But an 139
officer will also be aware of the need to maintain a reputation for appropriate conduct amongst batch mates or the wider cadre and that their behaviour is subject to the informal scrutiny by this peer group. Informal scrutiny may be another word for gossip. It is perhaps stretching the idea of accountability to its limits to make this point but the social control of gossip is certainly there when two or three officers get together round a desk over a cup of tea [in America management texts, ‘at the water cooler’]. It is a form of peer review and good conduct [as well as some bad conduct no doubt] depends upon it.
Accountability even in formal organisational contexts is
multidirectional.
In management theory the usual focus of accountability is upon relationships between seniors and juniors within an organisation or between clients and the agents that they commission to carry out their wishes. Accountability is hierarchical. In plural social contexts the ways in which individuals relate to others who may have expectations of them is much more complex. For a leader, let us say, in what is labelled an NGO but is providing a public service, such as primary schooling, or perhaps in one of the private universities that seek to promote a public good as well as private profit, accountability is not simply an internal organisational requirement but has an outward dimension.
Where there are many organisations in the field public regard is important, calling for an ability to give some form of account directly to concerned citizens or indirectly through the press. The Government may be in a position to demand account if the leader has not been alert to ensuring that account is given and good relations maintained. Foreign donors or other financiers have to receive account. Multiple accountabilities is in fact the norm. Good outcomes, it can be hypothesised, depend upon the ability of actors to recognise the three forms of accountability in the social situations that they face and act responsibly.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper has sought to explore some dimensions of plural governance, or governance beyond government. There many actors in this scene. Diverse organisations contribute in various ways to the public good. Legally or constitutionally they may be registered as NGOs or as private 140
companies but their goals are social goals, such as education or health and their outcomes benefit specific categories in society or the public at large. Insofar as many of the more prominent organisations might properly be labelled hybrid, there may even be a problem in law; Muhammad Yunus, in his advocacy of Social Business, states “Unfortunately, our legal and regulatory systems do not currently provide a place for social business...” (p117, Building Social Business, The University Press, Dhaka).
Prominent as this kind of development is in Bangladesh, it lacks a convincing development and governance narrative. Donors and international agencies are now supportive of a neo-liberal approach to governance which recognises a role for civil society (Ahmad 2008), but such a view still gives primacy to government. What is required is a view that recognises the energy that is in the institutional plurality that is evident in Bangladesh.
To what does this add up? What kind of developmental society is this? Polycentric was the word that Elinor Ostrom and her husband Vincent Ostrom used to describe the plurality of institutions that they investigated, researched and theorised at their Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University.
A polycentric pattern of development accepts
diversity as normal; the governance of particular types of resource – school, forest, fishery, finance – emerging from negotiation between concerned parties at different locations and levels within society. How such institutions relate to each other became another question, a ‘nesting’ image being one suggestion, (Aggawal 2005) a metaphor that allows for different types of organising principle; hierarchy and group in Grameen 1, to fit together with a degree of harmony. Clumsy solutions theorists come to a similar view from a different premise. They would suggest that there is no ultimate way in which different socially embedded ways of viewing the world are reconciled. Rather, the resolution of a pressing social issue, if it happens at all, will emerge through a process of persistent contestation between parties who carry different cultural biases to the scene. This is good governance through adhocracy. For me these two schools of thought begin to define an environment in which good governance outcomes can co-exist with poor formal government indicators.
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To have some sort of understanding of polycentric development and institutional clumsiness may be small comfort for the leaders or would-be leaders of socially creative organisations; private, hybrid NGOs or social enterprises; or indeed civil servants at the interface of hierarchy and society who want to make a difference. This is an environment that calls for new patterns of accountability.
It is a relatively unstructured and conflict full environment. Leaders, in this
environment, have to both shape expectations and give account, in multiple directions, against the expectations that they help to create.
REFERENCES
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Aggarwal, V. K. (2005). Reconciling multiple institutions; bargaining, linkages and nestin. In V.K. Aggawal (Ed.), Institutional Design for a Complex World Ithaca, Cornell University Press
Avolio, B., William, L., & Gardiner. (2005). ‘Authentic leadership development; getting to the root of positive forms of leadership’. The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 315-338
Barenstein, & Duyne, J. (May, 2000). Is there an endogenous approach to Participation? Collective action in the hoars. Paper presented at the Sixth Workshop of the European Network of Bangladesh Studies, Oslo.
Batley R & Rose, P. (2011). ‘Analysing collaboration between non-governmental service providers and governments’. Public Administration and Development, 31, 230-239.
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Brinkerhoff, & Jennifer, M. (2002). ‘Government-Non-Profit Partnership; a defining framework’. Public Administration and Development, 22, 19-30.
Douglas, & Mary, (1987). How Institutions Think. London, Routledge.
George, B., Simms, P., Andrew N., McLean & Mayer, D. (February, 2007). Discovering Authentic Leadership. Harvard Business Review.
Green, L. & Curtis, D. (2005). ‘Bangladesh: Partnership or Posture in Aid for Development’. Public Administration and Development. Vol. 25, 389-398.
Hartman, B. & Boyce, J.K. (1984). A Quiet Violence: View from a Bangladesh Village. Zed Books London.
Hulme, D. (2009). ‘The story of the Grameen Bank’ in Hulme D and Arun T Microfinance; a reader’. London, Routledge.
Jenkins, A., Chowdhury, A. & Hossein, Md. S. (2011).
‘Participatory Water resource
management – The best form of adaptation to climate change: practical experiences from cyclones Aila and Sidr in Patuakhali and Barguna Districts’. paper presented at the Third International Conference on Water and Flood Management. Kabeer, N., Mahmood, S., & Guilermo, J., Castro, I. (2010). NGOs’ Strategies and challenges of Democracy and Development in Bangladesh’. IDS Working Paper. Volume 2010 (343)
Lewis, D. (2008). Crossing boundaries between third sector and state; life-work histories from Philippines, Bangladesh and UK. Third World Quarterly, 29, 1, pp125-142.
Lewis, D. & Hossain, A., (2008). Understanding the Local Power Structure In Bangladesh. SIDA studies no 22.
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Mahmud, Simeen & Kabeer, N., (2006). ‘Compliance versus accountability: struggles for dignity and daily bread in the Bangladesh garment industry’. Chapter 11 in Rights, Resources and the Politics of Accountability. P. Newell & J. Wheeler, (Eds). Zed Books London and NY.
McKinnon, K., (2007). Postdevelopment, professionalism and the politics of participation. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94, (4). pp 772-785.
Ostrom, E., (2005).
Understanding Institutional Diversity , Princeton, Princeton University
Press.
Ostrom, E., Gardner, R., & Walker, J. (1994). Rules, Games, and Common Pool Resources . In A. Arbor, (Ed.). University of Michigan Press
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons; The evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press
Power, M. (1997). The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Rhodes, R. A. W. & D. Marsh (Eds.). (2010) Policy networks in British government .Oxford Clarendon Press, 1992.
Shotter, J. (1984). Social Accountability and Selfhood Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
Verweij, M, & et.al (2006). The Case for Clumsiness’. In Verweij, M & Michael Thompson (Eds). Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World. Palgrave Macmillan Basingstoke.
World Bank. (1996). Government that Works World Bank. Washington DC.
Yunus, M. (1994). Grameen Bank, as I see it. Grameen Bank.
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DETAILS OF AUTHOR
Donald Curtis Honorary Senior Research Fellow and former Director, International Development Department, The University of Birmingham, UK 53 Sandhills Lane Barnt Green B45 8NU UK Tel : 00447711168520
Donald Curtis, one time head of the International Development Department (formerly DAG), University of Birmingham, UK, and now Honorary Senior Research Fellow there, has continuing interest and experience in institutional analysis and governance. As a researcher / practitioner, consciously seeking an integration of theory and practice, he has worked and written on civil service reform and public management in a comparative perspective and draws upon experience in the management of international assistance projects; academic program design, assessment and evaluation as well as teaching and training methods. Email:
[email protected]
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INSTITUTION BUILDING, INCLUSIVE GROWTH, AND ACCOUNTABILITY: A STUDY OF CHINA AND INDIA
Gurumurthy Kalyanaram
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INSTITUTION BUILDING, INCLUSIVE GROWTH, AND ACCOUNTABILITY: A STUDY OF CHINA AND INDIA
ABSTRACT This paper examines issues related to institution building and inclusive growth in governance regimes with demonstrated accountability.
For our analysis, we study the experiments of China
and India. It is instructive to study China and India because they constitute natural experiments. On parameters (e.g., polity, economy, concept of welfare, emphasis on growth) that are subject of interest in our study, there is substantial variation. But on other parameters (e.g., both began their experiments in late 1940s; both are large, populous and diverse societies) which we would consider to be control experiments there is substantial commonality. Accordingly, we study Chinese and Indian experiments for the last 60 years, and set forth some general observations.1 There is consensus on the long term goals of robust institutions, inclusive growth and accountability because societies with these features are more efficient in resolving economic and political conflicts and achieving better quality of life. But the question is simply this: what is the path to get to those goals?
1
This research paper builds on and incorporates several other publications by Dr. Kalyanaram, including his
presentations in Madras Management Association Publications in March and October 2011, and his paper in Journal of Indian Business Research which is given below. Kalyanaram, Gurumurthy, “India’s Economic Growth and Market Potential: Benchmarked Against China,” Journal of Indian Business Research, Volume 1, No.1, 2009, 5765.
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INTRODUCTION This paper investigates institution building, inclusive growth and accountability. In this context, we study China and India. It is most instructive to study the experiments of China and India for many obvious reasons.
Both China and India are large and populous countries.
Large
heterogeneity – in terms of income, wages, geography, demography and other variables – is common to both the societies. Both China and India began their current experiments about the same time in late 1940s. While there is commonality on demographic, duration and related parameters, there is substantial variation in parameters of interest. For instance, China and India have adopted different political and economic models. Both the countries have been modifying and altering their indigenous models to place their country on an arc of prosperity and social transformation. Chinese and Indian concepts of welfare have varied. They see enfranchisements of the peoples through completely different lens.
Finally, though they have adopted different
paths, both China and India have made significant strides in economic growth and social development. While there is little doubt that today China is significantly ahead of India in all the defined economic and market metrics, both the countries have achieved very impressive growths.
This paper is organized as follows. We begin with an analysis of the economic and political institutions. We then discuss the different models of growth adopted by China and India. We follow this discussion with an examination of issues related to quality of life, and accountability. And then we discuss the path to goals of robust Institutions, inclusive growth and accountability. Finally, we set out some observations based on our analysis and study.
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS AND STRUCTURE Till mid 1970s, China was a closed political and economic system built on the ideology of communism and collectivism and led by Mao Zedong and Chou Enlai. And then China began introducing incremental pluralism in polity till late 1980s when further political reforms ground to a halt. In the early 1980s, China championed what it called “directional liberalism” under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobeng, and Zhao Zhiyang.
The leadership supported
experiments in rural self-government. There was more latitude and freedom given to civil 148
societies. By 1989, Tiananmen Square protests disrupted this hopeful progress. Even though, after 1990, the political reforms have been very limited and incremental there have been some. For example, for the last 20 plus years, there have been orderly transfers of power including the election of a President and members of Central Parliamentary Committee. The transfers of power from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao, and now from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping have been remarkably smooth. Even at the more local levels there is evidence to show that the turnovers of Chinese county leaders has been fairly orderly even though they have been frequent, and that promotions have been driven by economic and revenue growth (Guo 2007). In the 1990s, China permitted its rural communities to form viable informal networks which pressured the bureaucracy and polity to deliver good and sensible governance. Social scientists have shown that such networks can be highly beneficial at a local/ward-level (Munshi 2011). Based on his analysis, Tsai (2007) argues that to be able to “confer higher moral standing on local officials who act in the interest of the groups”, the existence of encompassing and embedding community solidarity groups is necessary. In his study, Tsai found that “villages with those groups are found to enjoy a higher level of government provision of public goods, regardless of their economic situations, of the effectiveness of bureaucratic control, or of the development of local democracy.” Chinese economic progress continued because of continued incremental political reforms subsequent to the Tiananmen struggle, but China would have been on a much more robust inclusive growth path if it had continued the reforms initiated in the early 1980s. Here is the evidence. The employee share of GDP was 48 percent in 1978, then reached a high of about 53 percent in 1990 but degraded to about 45 percent in 2002. There were less than 85 million Chinese who were considered illiterates in 1990s, but that number grew to over 115 million in 2005. Rate of immunization increased sharply in 1980s, only to drop subsequently (Huang 2008). Unlike political reforms, China has been bolder and consistent with regard to economic pluralism. To a remarkable degree, China has been able to separate the political institutions of a monolithic state from economic pluralism.
The Chinese version of State Capitalism has
amounted to private diffuse ownership with single party monopoly of political power. Having
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delivered on sustained economic growth, China has been able to maintain monopolistic political structure with limited concessions such as separation of powers but no party competition. However, researchers (Moore 1969, Desai 2003) have contended that such segregation of economy and polity is not eventually possible. Economic freedom will spill over into demands for political freedom. Even authoritarian governments- i.e. non communist dictatorships- have been unable to sustain monopoly of political power with developed capitalism. Such experiments in Europe collapsed along with the introduction of market economy. While China has been successful in segmenting economy and polity, two major factors may limit the success of this experiment on a permanent basis. First, the growth has to slow down. That itself would bring demands for political expression. Second, the granting of property rights will lead to organization of robust dispute resolution mechanisms and judiciary. With regard to economy, China has been growing at an impressive 10 percent average annual rate over the last 25 years. However, empirically, there is no economy that has grown at sustained annual growth rate of 10 percent for more than 35 years.
Hong Kong, Korea,
Singapore, and Taiwan are the obvious illustrations. The growth rates of these economies dropped to about 6-7 percent after the blistering growth for 35 years or so. In fact, there is degradation in the growth rate – China is now possibly growing more at 8 percent. Both empirically and technically, it is expected that China’s annual growth rate will drop to about 6 percent in the next 4-5 years (Kalyanaram 2009). With regard to property rights, China has introduced some rights to property since 2007. Granting of property rights imposes on any society – China, in this instance – the need for dispute mechanisms and judiciary, and some framework for accountability. There has to be accountability and auditing, legal sanctions and punishments for non delivery or non performance (Desai 2003). From this requirement follows the need to have law. Accordingly, the rule of law -- although slow and halting it may be – is beginning to take shape. The early steps will hopefully strengthen over time. The debate whether China's communist dictatorship or India's democratic system will deliver and sustain rapid and equitable economic growth in the long run dates back to the early 1950s, soon after India's independence in 1947 and China's communist victory in 1949. India adopted 150
pluralism in political structure from day one – since the constitution came into effect in 1950. Democracy began with the first general elections in 1952. While democracy was stress-tested during internal emergency time-period in 1975-1977, it has been a very robust experiment in India. The success of democratic way of life has stunned political scientists and scholars. Adam Przeworski (2008) computes that since World War II, 70 democratic experiments in poorer countries have died. In contrast, all the 37 experiments in richer countries have succeeded. Przeworski determines that “no democracy ever fell in a country with a per capita income higher than that of Argentina in 1975, $6055”. In 1947, India’s per capita income was certainly less than $200, and even today the per capita income is no more than $2000. In light of these statistics, India’s success as a democracy is an “exception.” But pluralism in polity did not lead to rapid economic growth or necessarily in social transformation (reduction in poverty) or greater inclusiveness. The growth was tepid till early 1980s – annual growth rates of 3 or 4 percent were normal and expected. India had adopted a mix of socialism and market capitalism, and this did not generate growth. Further, most of the growth was eaten up by the population growth (which was growing at over 2 percent annually). Accordingly, there was not much disposable resource for inclusive social transformation and development.
It was not only until 1991 with the introduction of
economic liberalization that the growth accelerated to about 6-7 percent annually and even reached an impressive level of over 9 percent annual growth during 2004-2008. India has (somewhat) tamed inflation since 1996-1997 – the current average annual rate is about 7-8 percent, where as inflation was raging at 10-12 percent annual rate prior to 1996-1997. India’s central bank, Reserve Bank of India, has been focused on managing inflation and the current target level is 4-5 percent annual rate. Even though the average growth rate has been robust, inflation has been moderated, the savings and investment rates have been sound, and the balance of payments situation is improved (though all these parameters have degraded over the last two years, but they are still much better than what the situation was about decade back), poverty has been stubborn. By most counts, still almost 33 percent of the population lives in dismal condition. India ranks in the bottom onethird in the human development dimensions. The disparity in incomes has decreased only 151
marginally. Lack of substantial reduction in poverty, unlike in China, has been disappointing and frustrating. While there are many reasons for this, lack of accountable and responsive governance appears to be a significant contributor. And in a democracy, where there are natural redundancies, such responsible governance is even more critical (Jalan 2012). In sum, even such conditions as pluralism in polity and economy, reasonable economic parameters and independent judiciary are not adequate for inclusive growth or social transformation. Accordingly, it is clear that India requires substantial reforms in administration and governance. In addition to the democratization of its polity, and liberalization of its economy, India has carefully crafted and built many institutions. Though these institutions require further reforms, they are credible and robust. China’s record in this domain is not encouraging. For example, the Indian judiciary has been well developed. The judiciary has been independent, except for the 1975-1977 periods when the judiciary also was stress-tested and failed in parts. The judiciary recovered immediately after its stumbles in mid 1970s. In fact, lately the Indian Supreme Court has been activist in a variety of governance, political and social issues. Public interest litigation (PIL), received by the Indian Supreme Court, has led to substantial improvements governance and public conduct. India has also developed respectful financial institutions. The norms and regulations of the financial markets, and the enforcement and supervision by Securities Exchange Board of India of these regulations are credible, if not perfect. They have made the Indian stock and bond markets transparent and investor-friendly. Further, the commercial and retail banking system in India is sound and mature, though its reach in rural communities is still limited.
The central bank,
Reserve Bank of India, has acted purposefully and transparently. India’s stronger (financial) infrastructure in terms of far more efficient and transparent capital markets and banking system is enabling the growth of entrepreneurship and free enterprise. On the other hand, Chinese banks and financial infrastructure are relatively are opaque. They are forced to make “policy loans” that are allocated on non-market principles. It is estimated that the non-performing loans in Chinese banks may be as high as 50 percent. The equity in China comes largely from the state, not from private individuals (Swamy 2005). The banking sector in 152
China remains excessively focused on lending to state-owned enterprises and does not appear to be an adequate provider of credit to private enterprises and households (Lane and Schmukler 2007).
An interest rate ceiling is also distorting the behaviour of banks and limiting the
attractiveness of banks to domestic and foreign investors (Bai 2006). In summary, India has designed and evolved carefully the governance institutions (e.g., dispute resolution bodies such as courts) and standards (e.g., recognition and protection of private and intellectual property rights) over the last 50-60 years. They have acquired healthy robustness. These institutions (e.g. parliament, judiciary) were stress-tested during internal emergency period of 1975-1977, but all the institutions including the judiciary bounced back from the aberrations. Based on other empirical experiments, it can be said that it is likely to take China 30-40 years to develop its own institutions and standards (North and Thomas 1971).
Peerenboom laid out in
2002 the potential arc of progress for China, and that recommendation holds good today: “…a transition to democracy is likely to be necessary to overcome the Party’s legitimacy deficiencies, to address accountability issues, and to reduce growing social cleavages. It is possible that over time the Party could stave off extinction by transforming itself into a Social democratic party. The Party could well gain support of its citizenry if in the next decade it is able to reduce corruption to a tolerable level and to sustain economic growth while dealing with such pressing problems as SOE reforms, reform of the banking and financial sectors, and the need to establish a social security system and to clean up the environment. It could further broaden its appeal by gradually relaxing its grip on society and allowing citizens greater, albeit still limited, freedom of speech, assembly, and association. In short, it could adopt a more communitarian approach. If it does not, and elections are held, it could very well lose out to the party that does adopt such an approach, all else being equal.” With regard to institutions, empirical research (Khanna, Kogan and Palepu 2006) shows that each successful society develops its own set of governance institutions, standards and practices. While there may some de jure similarity in standards, there is no de facto convergence. We now turn our attention to models of growth adopted by China and India, and their attendant consequences. We also discuss the structure of the economy of the two countries.
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MODELS OF GROWTH, EMPLOYMENT, AND STRUCTURE OF ECONOMY China and India have adopted very different growth models and paths. Prior to 1970s, China was a closed economy built on the ideology of communism and collectivism.
Since about 1978
when Deng Xiaoping assumed the leadership, China started introducing pluralism in the economy systematically. For its growth, China has relied on infrastructure improvements and capacity building, encouragement and growth of exports and building of sharp logistics related to export-import, manufacturing, and relatively large-scale industries. In the last twenty year plus, China’s growth has come from large factories which have manufactured relatively low-skills based products such as apparel, footwear, and light electronics consumer goods. India, on the other hand, has had a mixed approach. In the first 30-35 years, India has relied on “mixed economy” strategy where India encouraged private investment but reserved major sectors (such as Energy, Infrastructure) largely for state investment. Empirical data shows that 1980 was an important divide, when the growth rate started breaking away from the persistent 34 percent annual rate, and started accelerating. In early 1990s, due to acute balance of payments crisis India was forced to liberalize the economy further. For the most part, India has relied more on small business and entrepreneurial ventures for its growth. This is exemplified by the success, among others, in the automobile (e.g., Bajaj, Tata), information technology (e.g., Infosys, Wipro), and pharmaceutical (e.g. Ranbaxy) industries. These companies started as entrepreneurial efforts. In India, private sector and entrepreneurial efforts get almost 80 percent of all financial credits and loans, and in China the comparative figure is about 10 percent. India’s recent growth pattern is unusual, in that the growth has been driven by information and high-technology services, in which exports have been a significant factor. This growth pattern has resulted in services becoming the largest component of the Indian economy — contributing 51 percent of GDP — making India’s situation unique in the developing world. Along with information and high-technology services, communication and pharmaceutical industries have also been important contributors to growth and employment. These industries are based on highskills and high-intellectual. A very productive outcome of the high-level of competence in information and communication technologies has been substantial positive spill over(s). For example, India has developed markets in high-end and more routine software services, design products, and business process outsourcing related space. The spill over has also been to 154
enabling better educational services and in a general “can do” attitude among the policy makers and citizens. India has absorbed information technology in various sectors including government and businesses. Information technology has increased productivity, and welfare of the society. In a study of Kerala fishermen, Jensen (2007) has shown that adoption of mobile phone services had dramatically reduced “price dispersion” and increased both “consumer and producer welfare.” With regard to employment, China’s model of large scale industries focused on manufacturing and relatively lower-skills based products and services has been more successful. While the higher-skilled based sectors have absorbed significant numbers from the labour force, it has not been enough for India. Thanks to substantial additional contributions to employment from construction, transportation and trade sectors, India has been able to withstand relatively stagnant agricultural and manufacturing sectors. With regard to poverty reduction, China has been clearly more successful because of its growth model which has been based on lower-skills industries thus allowing absorption of larger numbers from the labour force. Gainful employment has added to the growth of prosperity and reduction of poverty. For example, the per capita incomes in China and India were comparable in 1980 (in fact, India’s per capita income was slightly higher than China’s). However, over the last thirty years China’s per capita income has grown to a level three times higher than India’s level. Of course, China’s economy is also more than three times larger than India’s economy. The biggest difference between China and India may be in the productivity of their agricultural sectors. China’s biggest decrease in poverty took place between 1980 and 1986 when there was a sharp increase in its agricultural productivity (Kotwal 2012) due to improvements in infrastructure. Indian agricultural sector has not been dynamic. For example, agricultural sector today contributes only about 15 percent to the country’s GDP (compared to about 30 percent in 1990) but this sector still employs over 50 percent of the labour force. India has its work cut out to increase the agricultural productivity: irrigation cover has to be increased dramatically (currently it is about 48 percent); better seeding programs have to be facilitated; diversification of crops has to be encouraged and supported; the food policy including procurement, storage and
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distribution of food grains has to be reviewed and revised substantially to make the system more productive and responsive. With all the challenges and limitations, the structure of India’s economy is favourable for massprosperity in the long run. Domestic consumption constitutes more than two-thirds of the Indian economy. All the major large successful economies with mass prosperity such as those of United States of America, Japan, Germany, France, and United Kingdom are driven by domestic consumption. Consumer consumption accounts for about 64 percent of India’s GDP, compared to 42 percent for China [the comparative numbers are about 70 percent for United States, 58 percent for Europe, and 55 percent for Japan]. In fact, there is no large successful economy which is led by exports (Kalyanaram, 2009). The fact that India has maintained attractive investment and saving at about 35 percent (these numbers have increased from about 25 percent in 2000) in spite of strong consumption pattern is further encouraging. consumption patterns are evidence of social transformation.
Further, India’s
In 1960s and 1970s, the
consumption was focused largely on cereals, but now it is more diverse and includes various nutrients (e.g., pulses, dairy). In sum, the odds appear to be in favour of India’s model.
China’s transformation into a
successful economy with mass prosperity is likely to be very challenging unlike India’s path to such transformation.
The transformation of the economy from export-orientation to
consumption-orientation involves very difficult policy and political choices including letting the currency valuation be determined by market forces. In another little noticed but very significant development, India’s rupee has depreciated by about 50% against China’s renminbi in the last 7-8 years. As a result of this and other factors, during the same time period India’s exports have been growing at a faster rate than China’s exports (Mundle 2012). (Of course, China’s exports are about 6 times larger than India’s exports). For China to grow to the next level of prosperity, the economy has to transform itself into a higher-skills, capital-investment based service economy driven more by consumer investment than by export-import. But this transformation is not organic or easy. On the other hand, for India to absorb more citizens into productive economy, lower-skills, large-sized economic activities are imperative. Low labour productivity, challenging and uncertain land acquisition 156
policies, and other factor-related issues are serious frictions to achieving this. So, reform in labour laws and land acquisition policy are important. For example, the government should let market forces and prices determine acquisition of land on behalf of private sector instead of acquiring them at low price and subsidizing private sector. In the next section, we briefly address quality of life and accountability. QUALITY OF LIFE AND ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY On almost all quality of life metrics, China has done well. India lags behind woefully. The data reported by Sen, compiled from the World Bank and the United Nations sources, shows that “life expectancy at birth in China is 73.5 years; in India it is 64.4 years. The infant mortality rate is fifty per thousand in India, compared with just seventeen in China; the mortality rate for children under five is sixty-six per thousand for Indians and nineteen for the Chinese; and the maternal mortality rate is 230 per 100,000 live births in India and thirty-eight in China. The mean years of schooling in India were estimated to be 4.4 years, compared with 7.5 years in China ((Sen 2011).” In a similar pattern, China’s overall adult literacy rate is 94 percent, and India’s is about 74 percent. More specifically, the literacy of girls is almost at 100 percent in China and it is at about 80 percent in India. Undernourishment of Indian children may be as high as 50 percent, but it close to zero in China. Immunization rate hovers around 97 percent in China compares with 66 percent in India.
It is obvious that, relative to China, India is lagging behind sharply on human development. But even by absolute measures, India’s achievements in this domain are clearly dismal.
However, this is only part of the story. India has provided its citizens inviolable fundamental rights such as freedom of speech, religion, and political associations.
India’s constitution
delineates the fundamental rights in Part III. These rights are highly circumscribed in China. The constitution does not provide for these rights and the civil societies are too weak to demand such rights.
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India’s constitution not only articulates the fundamental rights but it also enshrines inspirational individual and social rights which are called the Directive Principles of the State in Part IV, articles 36-50. As directed by the constitution, the Directive Principles are guidelines that must inform the statutes and regulations designed by the state. These Directive Principles are broadranging covering social justice, economic welfare, foreign policy and legal and administrative matters. For instance, article 43 provides that “the state shall endeavour to secure, by suitable legislation or economic organization or in any other way, to all workers, agricultural, industrial or otherwise, work, a living wage, conditions of work ensuring a decent standard of life and full enjoyment of leisure and social and cultural opportunities, and in particular the state shall endeavour to promote cottage industries on an individual or cooperative basis in rural areas.”
Freedom is so fundamental to human life and purpose that it is impossible to place value on it. It can be argued persuasively that the India has enhanced the quality and welfare of its people more fundamentally and positively by respecting the fundamental rights of its citizens.
In addition, substantially higher political and economic accountability and transparency in India enriches the quality of life in significant and important ways. For several evident reasons, economic and political accountability is more robust and real in India. Democracy assures at least a minimum level of accountability, transparency and responsiveness. Political leaders are subject to periodic elections, and these elections keep the policy makers close to the pulse of the peoples. Protection of freedom of speech and assembly, and other fundamental rights by constitutional declaration and by the judiciary makes democracy substantial. Active and watchful media, again protected by statutes and judiciary, add to the selfenforcing viability of pluralism.
The Indian statutes have an interesting provision: any citizen can file a civil complaint in a high court (appellate court) or the Supreme Court (the highest judiciary body) requesting the court to review and examine a matter of public interest when the citizen has reason to believe that the public interest is being compromised by the governing agencies and/or by individuals (public interest litigation). Through public interest litigation provision many aberrations have been exposed (including doubts about allocation of second-generation licenses and allocation of coal 158
mines as contemporary examples). One of such early complaints, Vineet Narayan vs. Union of India (1996-1997), generated landmark decisions on public corruption from the Indian Supreme Court. The existence of this provision in the legal system, and its successful application has generated pressure on all stakeholders – government, businesses, and individuals – to be transparent and to make decisions without serious compromise to public interest.
Such
mechanisms are not even contemplated in China.
Information is the most empowering instrument. When citizens are informed, there is greater accountability, responsiveness and transparency.
China and India have taken dramatically
different routes. China controls and monitors the content and distribution of information. In its enforcement of tight control, China employs serious punitive measures including incarceration.
On the other hand, India has supported diffusion of information so long as national security and public welfare were not compromised. Even if the government were to impede information flow and exchange, the media, civil societies and the Indian judiciary act as corrective instruments. India has now enshrined the right to information through an act of parliament. Under the provisions of the Right to Information Act 2005, any citizen may request information from a "public authority" (a body of Government or "instrumentality of State") which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to pro-actively publish certain categories of information. Adoption of information technology in various sectors in India has made governance (by government and businesses) more accessible and accountable, and decision-making more transparent. For example, e-governance has required the governments to computerize all the records, and record all the transactions contemporaneously. Now, over 1.2 million companies file electronic disclosures.
These company disclosures create a level-playing field for all
stakeholders by providing regular, detailed, and standardized information about the state of an institution. And about 100,000 banks are mandated by the Reserve Bank of India to make electronic filings and maintain electronic records of all transactions. Digitization of records and transactions has made supervision relatively easy.
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The Indian Information Technology Act (2000, 2008) has formalized electronic record keeping and electronic transactions. The Act provides “legal recognition for transactions carried out by means of electronic data interchange and other means of electronic communication, commonly referred to as “electronic commerce”, which involve the use of alternatives to paper-based methods
of communication and storage of information and also facilitates
electronic filing of documents with the Government agencies.” Since China is intent maintaining the political monopoly of the party and control over the economy, the disclosure requirements for government or businesses are predictably minimalist.
PATH TO GOALS OF ROBUST INSTITUTIONS, INCLUSIVE GROWTH AND ACCOUNTABILITY
While there is consensus on these goals and the long-term outcomes of these instruments, there are differences in the path to be adopted to achieve these goals. There are two broadly defined approaches. First and the one widely applauded approach is a “rules-based” approach. In this approach, the society designs and builds institutions that develop and foster pluralism in polity and economy, reduce corruption, increase accountability and transparency, and strengthen the property rights and the rule of law.
This approach has been argued by large number of
economists including North and Sen. The second approach that is gaining currency among scholars and policy makers is “developmental governance” approach.
Here, the focus is on
developing processes and capabilities of critical agencies for solving specific problems because the market failures are too widespread for “rules-based” approach to operate effectively. While the first approach focuses on a global set of rules and institutions, the second approach argues for development of capabilities, processes and institutions in more targeted and specific domains. The summary argument is thus: once credible threshold level of development is achieved through project-management approach, the society can implement universal set of rules (Khan 2012).
There is increasing theoretical and empirical evidence, including the arguments and evidence presented in this paper, to support the “developmental governance” approach. For example, 160
empirical analyses of the good governance data from the World Bank show: societies with larger per capita income and higher growth rates also score higher good governance, but the correlation between good governance and growth rates is relatively weak.
The data presented in this paper shows that China has adopted a “developmental governance” approach and succeeded in achieving high rates of growth for the last 25 years. Over the same time-period, India has adopted a “rules-based” approach and its economic growth rates are perceptible less impressive. Evidence from smaller economies and societies such as Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan also add to the strength of this argument.
However, there is a big caveat.
Almost all the societies that adopted “developmental
governance” initially, achieved substantial growth, and then transited to broader reforms also invested in substantial number of “rules-based” elements at the early stages of development. These rules-based elements include institutions and norms governing polity, economy, property rights and public conduct. But in the case of China, that is not the case. While China has taken small measures to incorporate rules-based features, the level and scope of such features is very limited. The question is: has China done enough to be able to eventually transit to a society of broad reforms and “rules-based” institutions?
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS China’s experiment advises us that a minimum level of political reforms is necessary for the economy to grow even when economy is designed to be pluralistic. The experience also shows that greater political participation, even if it were incremental, facilitates inclusive development. India’s experiment tell us that even such apparently favourable conditions as pluralism in polity and economy, reasonable economic parameters and independent judiciary are not sufficient conditions for inclusive growth or social transformation. Clearly, effective delivery of products and services is necessary for such inclusive growth. It is evident, from China’s approach, that low-skills based model of growth will absorb larger numbers from the labour force, thus providing an opportunity for immediate and perceptible 161
reduction in poverty.
And the most significant reduction in poverty will come from
improvements in agricultural productivity, as demonstrated by China’s success and India’s failure in this regard. The basic structure of India’s economy (driven by consumer investment) places better odds on India to achieve mass-prosperity. If China manages to achieve mass-prosperity through its current economic structure (when more than one-third of the economy driven by exportsimports), it will be a new model indeed. As we learn from the experiments of China and India, it is not possible to develop robust instruments to ensure accountability and transparency without credible democracy, i.e., pluralism in polity. Pluralism in economy is not enough. It is pluralism in polity that creates a selfenforcing dynamic for design of accountable governance in all sectors. Non-democratic forms of governance, when benign and focused, may be able to deliver well in the traditional metrics (e.g., life expectancy, nourishment, infant mortality) of quality of life and inclusive development. However, such governance cannot deliver on the fundamental rights of human life: liberty and freedom. Building and designing a robust democracy requires self-reinforcing mechanisms and institutions. Elections and ability to express preferences in political choices is necessary, but not sufficient. Freedom of speech, unimpeded access to information, credible judiciary all have to be built and fostered together simultaneously. This is clear from India’s experiment. It is also clear that in a democracy accountable and transparent governance is more central to productive delivery of goods and services (for inclusive development) because the pushes and pulls of democracy demand more redundancies. We can infer this from Chinese and Indian experiments. China is going to transition to some form of pluralism in polity or eventually its progress on all fronts will recede and there may even be regressive steps. Progress to pluralism in polity is not certain or inevitable, but that’s the only path to continued growth and progress in society. With pluralism both in polity and economy, greater levels of and sensitivities to inclusiveness and accountability will be organic outcomes. 162
China has largely adopted the “developmental governance” path to growth and development, and it has been remarkably successful in this approach. In the 1980s, the focus was on improving the infrastructure capabilities, roads, railways, bridges, and plants and machinery. In the last two decades, the focus has been on further improving infrastructure capabilities, but also on enhancing the logistics and manufacturing capabilities substantially. All this has earned huge dividends. Now the focus is a bit blurred and the intent is to move high on value chain and that is proving to be more challenging for China. But China has built and encouraged “rules-based” institutions and reforms in very limited manner. On the other hand, India has largely adopted larger reforms and “rules-based” path to growth and development. This has been reasonably successful, but the results are in no way comparable to China’s accomplishments. Actually, India’s most salient successes have been in domains such as automobile and high-tech sectors where India has adopted a more project-management approach. In any case, India’s growth has been impressive and all this has been achieved even as the society has enforced democracy and substantial rights to property. The fundamental empirical question is: in the next 25 years, which one of the models – China’s or India’s – will prove to be more successful? Nested in the fundamental question is this: can a society which adopts almost completely project-management approach to growth and development with very minimum rules-based features transit to a society of broader reforms and mass-prosperity?
REFERENCES Bai, C-E. (2006). The Domestic Financial System and Capital Flows: China, Mimeo, Tsinghua University. Desai, M. (November, 2003). “India and China: An Essay in Comparative Political Economy”. IMF Conference on India/China, Delhi.
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Gang, G. (2007). “Retrospective Economic Accountability under Authoritarianism: Evidence from China”. Political Research Quarterly, 60 (3), 378-390. Huang, Y. (July/August, 2008). “The Next Asian Miracle”. Foreign Policy. Huang, Y. (March, 2006). "The Microeconomic Rise of India". Far Eastern Economic Review. Jalan, B. (December 1, 2012), “India’s Economic Prospects”. Silver Jubilee International Conference on Development: Successes and Challenges. Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research., Jensen, R. “The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance and Welfare in South Indian Fisheries Sector”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122 (3): 879-924. Kalyanaram, G. “India’s Economic Growth and Market Potential:
Benchmarked Against
China”. Journal of Indian Business Research. Volume 1(1). 2009, 57-65. Kalyanaram, G. (March, 2011). “China and India Growth Models and Approaches: Paradoxes, Insights and Outcomes”. Madras Management Association. Kalyanaram, G. (October, 2011). “The Fragile State of Global Economy & Hopes for Growth”. Madras Management Association, Khan, M. H. (December 9, 2012). “Governance and Growth”. Presentation at International Conference on Governance and Public Service Transformation in South Asia, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Khanna, T; Joe K. & Krishna P. (February, 2006). “Globalization and Similarities in Corporate Governance: A Cross-Country Analysis”. Review of Economics and Statistics. Vol. 88(1), p 69-90. Kotwal, A. (December 3, 2012). “Why is the growth trickling down so slowly?”. Silver Jubilee International Conference on Development: Successes and Challenges. Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research. Lane, P. R. & Segio, L. S. (2007). “The Evolving Role of China and India in the Global Financial System”. Open Econ Review, 18, 499-520. 164
Lily L. T. (2007). “Solidary Groups, Informal Accountability, and Local Public Goods Provision in Rural China”. American Political Science Review, 101, pp 355-372. Moore, B. (1969). Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Penguin: London. Mundle, S. (December 3, 2012). “Indian Economic Policy Making: Successes and Challenges”. Silver Jubilee International Conference on Development: Successes and Challenges. Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research. Munshi, K. (2011). “Strength in Numbers: Networks as a Solution to Occupational Traps”. The Review of Economic Studies, 78 (3), 1069-1101. North, D. C. & Thomas, R. P. (1971). “An Economic Theory of the Growth of the Western World”. The Economic History Review. Volume 23(1), pages 1-17. Peerenboom, R. (2002). China’s Long March to the Rule of Law. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. Przeworski, A. (2008). “The Poor and Viability of Democracy”. In A. Krishna, (Ed): Poverty, Participation and Democracy. Cambridge Press. p 125-146. Sen, A. (May 12, 2011). “Quality of Life: India vs. China”. The New York Review of Books. Srinivasan, T.N. (2006). “India’s Economic Growth and Global Integration: Experience since Reforms and Future Challenges”. Jackson Hole Symposium presentation. Swamy, S. (March 5, 2005). “Political Structure and Economic Reforms: A Comparative Appraisal of India and China”. Economic and Political Weekly, p. 934-940.
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DETAILS OF AUTHOR
Dr. Gurumurthy Kalyanaram Professor and Consultant GK Associates Dr. Gurumurthy Kalyanaram, got his Ph.D. from MIT. Over the last twenty years and more he has taught, 1researched and consulted extensively all over the world and particularly in the United States of America. He can be reached at
[email protected]
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Theme 3 Equity Architecture of Government - Business relations for Growth
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GOVERNING THROUGH COERCION AND CONSENT: THE CASE OF THE READY-MADE GARMENTS INDUSTRY IN BANGLADESH
Kazi Mahmudur Rahman
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GOVERNING THROUGH COERCION AND CONSENT: THE CASE OF THE READYMADE GARMENTS INDUSTRY IN BANGLADESH2
ABSTRACT:
The normative underpinnings of trade-led development are premised on modernization theoretic premise of development, and associative assumptions include justifications about enhancing individual freedoms and progressive advancement of societies as a whole. The assumptions are also at the core of efforts and strategies of states and state representatives organizing to be ever more competitive globally, in order to attract investment (FDI) and, thus, creating the conditions to move up along the ‘development ladder’. In the context of Bangladesh, the progressive narratives of trade more generally, and the ready-made garment (RMG) industry more specifically, has been the dominant discourse of the government as well as some ‘cultural’ theorists of cultural modernization. However, the workers in their testimony bear different signals which have been articulated as a subaltern’s antiphon exposed through their continual hidden/apparent protest. The core of this paper is an exposition of the governance mechanisms through how the new international division of labour (NIDL) sustained despite the worker’s struggles. At one extent, workers have been identified as a catalyst for this development metaphor and in other extent justification (i.e., conspiracy theory) being put forward for these embedded sufferings. As a broader discourse, it (governance mechanism) justifies the NIDL through the contingent nature of hegemony- the uneven balance between “force and consent”, in the fault lines of legality within garment factories. It is theses fault lines to which our attention is drawn by worker’s testimonies and the living proof that they share with us. It is precisely these governance mechanisms that keep sustaining and reformulate these fault lines.
2
Working draft and not for any citation. This draft is a part of author’s ongoing research. Comments and suggestions are welcome @
[email protected]
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1.
INTRODUCTION
The international division of labour, which the practices of colonialism helped shape, where poor countries exported primary commodities to the rich and the latter then specialized in production and export of manufactured goods marks the Ready-Made Garments Industry (RGI). However, since 1970s, a number of factors that include rising labour cost in developed countries, trade liberalization, and deregulation of market have affected a drastic transformation in the direction and pace of capital, goods, services and labour. Therefore international division of labour transformed into a new international division of labour (NIDL) justified with the notion of comparative advantage. Particularly for the poorer countries, with enormous supply of unskilled labour, their ability to compete in international trade very much depends on the proper and intensive use of such labour. It has been argued that through these rigorous and appropriate uses, they could be stepped into a ladder of ‘Development’ with a strongly promised win-win outcomes (Sachs, 2005). These progressive narratives have, thus, been constituted through two interlinked assumptions; competition and development where nation-state transformed into a competition state in order to streamline development. In the context of Bangladesh, the progressive narratives of trade more generally, and the garment industry more specifically has been the dominant discourse of the government as well as some ‘cultural’ theorists of cultural modernization. A number of national as well as international development commentators conceive of ready- made garments industry as an ‘aashirwad’ (blessing) for countries like Bangladesh in general, and for women workers in the RMG industry in particular. The diffusion of modernity is interpreted as development and progress, while for others it is associated with the decline in the quality of life and a form of enslavements. However, since development is not just a goal, it is a method of rule (McMicheal, 2010; 49), this paper exposed the methodological rules (governance mechanisms) on which this particular development project has been sustained.
Since labour power is a critical input into every commodity chain, this chapter seeks to identify the various modes of labour control and reproduction that one can find along a chain. This chapter shows how exactly the governance (or in particular mechanisms of controlling labour) of the RGI has been organized by different actors and what the implications are for workers and for their rights and living conditions. In my analysis I will show, on the one hand, two grounded 170
governance modalities operated using coercion and, on the other hand, consent and efforts in legitimizing those mechanisms.
In order to do so, in this chapter I have derived a systematic narrative, which combines commodity chain analysis with a multi-sited investigation based on in-depth interviews and close observations) by specific reference to core debates about the governance of the value chain. Throughout the paper I have used commodity chain and value chain interchangeably. Commodity chain is mostly associated while illustrating the actors involved with this chain whereas value chain describes (Overall methodology has been described in the second chapter. The chapter also provides an account of the political power relations underpinning the “worker/employer” constellation in the RMG sector by investigating the formal and proto-formal arrangements underpinning these relations. These comprise rights, procedures, regulatory provisions, and progressive narratives and lead to accounts of the agents involved in promoting these, or detracting from them by situating all of this in a broader (political) enabling context.
Therefore, I have divided this chapter into three sub-sections: the first section outlines the conceptual and theoretical debates on value chain and particularly with reference to addressing the labour issues. The second section delineates how the governance mechanisms operate through force and consent. In this perspective both institutional and regulatory policies along with constructed cultural norms has been exposed. The third and last section highlights how actors legitimize various governing mechanisms despite the workers’ suffering.
2.
GOVERNANCE, VALUE CHAIN AND ADDRESSING THE WORKERS’
STRUGGLE: CORE DEBATES
In the mid-1990s, Gary Gereffi formulated and popularised the GVC approach (Gereffi 1994, 1995, 1996; 1999). Gereffi’s description of the workings of commodity chains is composed of material, spatial, and political components (ibid, 96). Global commodity chains have three dimensions: (1) an input-output structure (i.e., a set of products and services linked together in a sequence of value-adding economic activities); (2) a territoriality (i.e., spatial dispersion or 171
concentration of production and distribution networks, composed of enterprises of different sizes and types; and (3) a governance structure (i.e., authority and power relationships that determine how financial, material, and human resources are allocated and flow within a chain. This dimension also shows that how chains are coordinated and who does the coordination) (Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, 2001, 96). Overtime, this framework moved into its fourth dimension of “institutional context”. Sturgeon (2001, 11) observed that value chain “does not exist in a vacuum but within a complex matrix of institutions and supporting industries”. However, on the one hand Gibbon (2001b) extended Gereffi’s “governance” dimension to a more inclusive category of governance and institutions, while on the other hand, Humphrey and Schmitz (2002) included the role of local and global linkages.
Debates on governance have been at the heart of much of the literature on globalization and global value chains (GVCs) (Held and McGrew, 2002; Henderson et al., 2002; Dicken, 2003; Gereffi, 2005; Gereffi et al., 2005; Coe et al., 2008). Consequently, the literature to date extensively debates the rise of global standards on the array of distinct public, private local, and global actors engaged in the formulation of standards (Messner, 1997, 2004; Clapp, 1998, 2005; Finger and Tamiotti, 1999; O’Riordan, 2000; O’Rourke, 2003; Nadvi and Wa¨ ltring, 2004; Zadek, 2004; Gereffi et al., 2005; Hughes, 2005, 2006; Ponte and Gibbon, 2005; Barrientos and Smith, 2007).
The critique of the GVC approach has concentrated mostly on methodology, along with the development perspective, and particularly on its salience towards addressing the sufferings of the workers. Scholars have frequently conceptualized the GVC approach as being solely about governance, but relatively salient on questions about why (structural requirements) and how (role of actors) particular industries come to be located in particular place. The problems of this value chain has been echoed by others, including Bernstein and Campling (2006, 240), who claim that the field has no common purpose, object of analysis, theoretical framework, or methodological approach. It has been generally recognized that the “institutional context” plays a vital role in shaping GVCs, and what has gone missing in the literature of what institutions actually are, and how they relate to GVC governance. Institutions are not just framing devices external to product or commodity systems, but exist also as the rules, norms, and behavioural systems that shape the 172
very essence of how product or commodity systems are organized. The input-output model is also problematic because what they (proponents of value chain like Gereffi himself) constitute as output (as a final commodity) is often associated with severe disasters (like a fire in the garments and killing of a large number of workers). Therefore, economic activity cannot occur in the absence of the social relations, in which it is embedded (Granovetter, 1985).
The vast bulk of the literature has emphasized the international drivers behind the rapid proliferation of standards. They include company specific codes of conduct, sector specific standards and labels, as well as generic international standards that apply to product specifications, safety concerns, as well as to issues of process organization covering social, environmental, and ethical concerns. However, as Kennedy (1999) and Lund-Thomsen (2007) note, national regulatory pressures can also drive the implementation of standards within national and GVCs Standards, which take many shapes. Whereas, Raworth and Kidder (2009, p. 166), criticised the structural motive of standards or codes of conduct and claimed that these are defensive precautions against scandal (the buyers are earning more at the expense of the workers, who have been even died in the workplace), many leading brands have adopted ethical codes of conduct specifying labour standards that their suppliers must meet. The regulatory implications of standards are highly questionable, especially with regard to how they relate to labour rights and relations. Rahman et al. (2008), through a benchmark survey on the RMG industry, revealed that
“[t]here is no strong relationship found between factory level compliance standard and level of profit received by enterprises. Enterprises mode of taking export orders, particularly those which take majority of orders from buyers, was not found to have any influence on maintenance of better compliance standard in the factory.” (Rahman, et al, 2008, 156).
Interestingly, the study also revealed “more than 80 per cent FDI-led enterprises mentioned that they did not consider having these certificates to be a necessary factor for getting work orders from buyers” (Rahman, et al, 2008, 142). Information is lacking (or is otherwise undisclosed) on
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how standards impact on actors, especially on workers, but also on small-scale entrepreneurs, further down the production and supply chain.
As implemented in theses value chains, competitiveness adopted a set of practices that entail squeezing employees at the bottom of the chain in order to lower costs and increase flexibility. They showed that theses networks are compatible with significantly asymmetrical relations between buyers and suppliers. They find that retailers or importers, who put intense and growing pressure on their suppliers to reduce costs, increase services, or both, significantly drive the apparel chains in a similar way. When factory owners lack the will, resources, or knowledge necessary to find other routes to increased competitiveness they offload these demands onto employees. Subsequently, these take the form of deteriorating working conditions and more inhuman employment conditions. If we accept commodity chain analysis as a mode of critical inquiry, imagining how it might also constitute a form of politics is not a great leap—not only as a method of unveiling the prevailing social relations of production, but also as a means of resisting the exploitation and alienation that theses entails.
3. GOVERNANCE THROUGH FORCE AND CONSENT: THE CASE OF THE RMG INDUSTRY IN BANGLADESH
While analysing the governance in the garments industry Bangladesh, a combination of formal and proto-formal governance has been observed in this paper. Both favourable investment policies and special privileges (like the export processing zones) have facilitated the entry of the global retailers into the national economy. Apart from theses two, it has also been associated with the transformation of regulatory governance where retailers, buyers, or investors have been exempted from abiding by the national laws and allowed to use their own (e.g., the Wal-Mart are enjoying same sort of privileges while setting up their factories in the EPZs which may be located in Bangladesh, Cambodia or Vietnam.) regulations (or at least investor-friendly). For example, export processing zones (EPZ) in Bangladesh has formulated a separate investment and labour law, which is largely diametrically opposite to the national legislature.
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Efforts to attract FDI in Bangladesh are anchored in an overall framework of policies that seeks to create a favourable environment for a market-friendly, private sector led development. The EPZ law forbids workers to form trade unions. In fact, the EPZ aimed to attract investors by having no trade unions and decreased possibility of production disruption. Following long debates over the issue of allowing trade union activities in EPZ factories, the government agreed to allow the formation of workers welfare committees (WWCs) in the RMG factories located in the EPZs. A WWC is usually comprised of representatives of workers and factory management, who regularly meet and discuss worker-related issues. Rahman et al. (2008) mention that “regular meetings under the ambit of WWC weren’t likely to reduce the gap between management and workers as regards issues with conflicting perspectives” (p. 161). The motivation for introducing the WWC was to ensure existing trading relation with the USA, which once threatened to boycott Bangladesh subject to the non-fulfilment of workers’ union rights.
Along with this institutional context, the global regulatory regime, particularly the code of conduct and standards manifest the chain prerequisites of the apparel trade. In response to the threat of scandal and to reputation, brands and retailers introducing ethical codes of conduct specify labour standards that the supplying factories producing their orders ought to maintain. Such codes are typically audits of onsite labour conditions. Codes may have had a number of important impacts (like banning child labour or improving factories toilets), but the extent to which these codes can ensure factory compliance with decent labour standards depends on the lead firms’ own sourcing practices (Brooks, 2007, p. 173). On the downside of the chain, the factory owned is forced ("squeezed") by retailers and cultural orientation to become rich through garments trading, exploited the workers by not the paying them their legitimate living wages and other benefits that they were entitled to. [It has been revealed that the rise of the business class in Bangladesh has been initiated through the proliferation of garments trading.]
Combining all the three aspects, the regulation, and codes of conduct, in a leaner context, allows me to examine how a value chain (particularly, by addressing labour standards) works in Bangladesh. Firstly, manufacturers are required to follow national law, then the ILO core labour standards, and then the particular buyer’s code of conduct. When monitoring mechanisms 175
applied, most of the buyers used to carry out individual monitoring using their own audit firm or a third party. Until the local manufacturer could produce timely and accurate garments production, the auditing of the code of conduct appeared to be merely cosmetic, rather than an acknowledgment of workers’ actual conditions. The auditing mechanisms were constructed in such a fashion that both the parties (the garments manufacturer and the audit house) were uninterested in addressing the workers grievances. Buyers cancelling orders placed with manufacturers (with whom they had long standing relations) who had not maintained standards was rather uncommon (In certain cases they warned factories by putting standard color code (green, orange and red). In most cases, either the workers refrained from expressing their dissatisfaction (because of the feared of losing their job) or being trained not to express their dissatisfaction, or the audit firms failed to properly investigate the non-fulfilment of standard requirements.
However, this sort of response neither originated from the workers suffering nor did it recognize their genuine deprivation. The current phase of global value chain restructuring allows the powerful forces of multinational retailers and branded manufacturers to fulfil their interests. Lead firms (global retailers) deploy their strategies not in a vacuum, but among spatially embedded suppliers and consumers with concrete economic and political circumstances. While discussing the codes of conduct, the buyers’ preferences to their own codes of conduct pose a challenge for the suppliers. One supplier usually has more than one buyer. If each buyer has a different set of requirements, it becomes difficult for the suppliers (meaning local garments manufacturers) to implement all the requirements simultaneously. In addition, as a monitoring measure, the supplier must undergo several audits per year for each buyer. The direct suppliers are better (in compare to sub-contractors) equipped to comply with codes whereas subcontractors (and small firms) find it more challenging financially as well as from an implementation perspective because of a lack of knowledge. The small and medium size factories, which usually include subcontractors, seldom fail to comply with the code of conduct. In the last few years the cutting and making (CM) prices are trending downwards (Rahman et al, 2008) hence buyers could consider to introduce sustainable pricing so that their suppliers can comply with their requirements. Major global retailer/buying houses are always on the lookout for cheaper sources
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of procurement of apparel items from countries such as Bangladesh. Oftentimes I see the hypocrisy between 'ethical buying' and 'unethical sourcing'.
Though the private business associations have in-house social compliance monitoring teams— most of them run by ex-government officials—who complement the work of the government factory inspectors and carry out inspections at the member factories of the respective associations. On the other hand, the Bangladeshi government encounters several hurdles when monitoring the implementation of the national labour law, mainly due to resource constraints. Currently, the government of Bangladesh has only 53 factory inspectors who are responsible for all sectors. There are no specific inspectors assigned for the RMG sector.
The following sections show how these value chain pressures combine to create insecure terms and conditions for workers in the Bangladesh RGI. It has also been reflected (through this analysis) that how all actors in the value chain—global retailers, governments; local manufacturers, private trade associations—share a consensus on both optimum profit and managing/controlling the workers.
3.1 Functioning of Disciplined Production site and Disciplining Workers: Pressures for the workers
The changing nature of RGI retailing and its increasing production is reflected in changing pressures in the supply chain, in terms of time and speed, flexibility, costs, and risks. The problems of low wages, overtime, harassments, and abuses (Details have been mentioned in the earlier chapter) result from the operation of factories that run on a crude basis. The retailers expect a very high level of performance and production, while they keep increasing their demands in terms of speed, cost and quality. The manufacturers want to be in the business and downgraded the pressures to workers and declining the workers’ struggles. However, the government, being aware of the adverse export consequences (since RMG export constitute more than 15 percent of the country’s GDP), did not raise the workers’ wages. As such, a combination of force and consent sustains within this apparel sector.
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During my fieldwork (During July-November, 2011), I have witnessed a number of protests in the RMG industry. The management said to me that none of the problems would have happened if security and employee screening had been tighter because a few troublemakers who had “infiltrated” the factory in the guise of “legitimate” employees caused the problems. Apart from this direct violence (as a result of protest), numerous acts of indirect violence (mostly fire and building collapse) occurred regularly. An example of this is the tragedy of November 25, 2012, where a fire in the Tajrin Fashion factory in Savar killed 112 workers and injured another 300 workers. The impact of this tragic incident (in terms of protest by the workers and NGOs demanding both for the dead workers life compensation and arresting the factory owners) last for few months but later put behind both by the workers and factory owners. It can be thus questioned as regard lost memory of this conflict by both Bangladeshi workers and more generally within Bangladesh since this sort of incidents used to happen on a regular basis. I would rather identify this circumstance as a ‘policy of appeasements’, where global retailers, factory owners and government first acknowledge the problems/sufferings and later attempts to naturalise (In the Tajrin Factory Case in November 2012 in Bangladesh, all the three party (retailer, factory owner and government) all the time claiming that they are monitoring the factories where they lack fire safety issues. However, in practice, this claim only confined to testrun factory visit, rather than institutionalize the issues.) the entire scenario.
Apart from the unique governance mechanisms (disciplining workers), the RGI is composed of an unseen, intricate, and complex web of supply chains that run like invisible web around the world. These chains have been structured to gain low-cost, low-risk, and flexible production in an increasingly competitive environment. The payment for their work was often below overtime rates, frequently late, and sometimes unpaid. Workers had to work overtime, either because the management wanted them to do so, or because they were slow in finishing on time, or because they would require extra overtime payment for their daily survival. Non-formalisation is another aspect of how manufacturers govern the RGI industry. In Bangladesh, a number of workers I interviewed had no contract or employment letter. Though a number of factory owners claimed that they provided with the workers with a contract letter, my in-depth interviews of workers revealed a different story. Mazeda, a young worker in Narayanganj, said the following:
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“The owners gave us a one page contract letter while joining the factory. But, afterwards, they took it back that so that they could use the document for other workers. I still cannot remember the content and it is not needed at all. Do you believe that they will fulfil everything written over there? In fact, probably we can’t protest since they created the environment as such.” (Interview number 7)
Without contracts, this meant that they were ineligible for certain legal entitlements. If they were fired, they could not prove that they were employed, so employers could escape all responsibilities for their staff. Though popular discourse (both the government and civil society has constructed) about formal employment through RMG trading is something very common, in reality they themselves make this employment more in an informal manner in order to create a flexible space for governing the workers, positioned at the lower end of this value chain.
One of the central pressures that the workers faced is the management of low wages. Common problems surrounding wages were that wages were low, late, incomplete, and sometimes complex to calculate. Wages were often purposely made complex, so that workers could not calculate their wages in advance and did not know if they had been underpaid. Besides, wages has been fixed on piece rate, time rate, or minimum wage, or on a combination of all three payment methods. Interestingly, wages tended to be higher or the same (in comparison to minimum wage), the closer the factory was to the top chain (means the main retailer, i.e., Gap). Sub-contracting factories usually received lower payment. My in-depth interviews and observations revealed that were in the big factories, and sub-contracting and sub-sub-contracting factories manufactured the same products. Even retailers, such as Wal-Mart (Recent Ashulia’s Fire incidents in November 25, 2012 in Dhaka, Bangladesh showed that garments were making Wal-Mart Products. Later on Wal-Mart declared that they didn’t have any contract with the factories and they were producing Wal-Mart products without their consent. However, interview with a number of entrepreneurs suggested that the sourcing of production gas been done both by the direct buyers (Wal-Mart) and their approved agents (i.e., in India). It is not true about WalMart claim since working through their agents is very common for many factories as well as for many workers.) as I have been able to observe, were aware of this situation.
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None of the factories (at least I have not come across any during my interviews), paid full the monthly salary, attendance bonuses (or even festival bonuses), overtime payments altogether in one day. Some of the owners argued (Have been derived from field work) that “if they were given full payment, they might not come back to the factory and would go to another factory, they might misuse the money, or might have face problems carrying this ‘huge’ sum of money”. Coupled with underpayment of wages and retention of legitimate allowances, workers had money deducted from their earnings because of a long list of offences which they are used to facing. These included being sick or late, and not achieving daily or weekly quotas. Since quality control and accurate production is the first priority, inaccurate payments are not a major concern for the retailers or the manufacturers.
The role of trade unions becomes a pertinent question because a number of problems mentioned above could have been solved by an affective trade union. However, the industrial relations scenario in Bangladesh is quite complex. The Bangladeshi Constitution and the 2006 Bangladesh Labour Act provide for the right to join unions and, with government approval, the right to form a union ( In law and in practice, trade unions are not allowed in the EPZs. Hence, this is a violation of the Bangladeshi constitution itself. ) However, many restrictions apply and the government, in practice, does not ensure respect for these rights. It does not adequately provide for freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, and the right to strike. Only registered unions can engage in collective bargaining, and each union must nominate representatives to a collective bargaining authority, subject to the approval of the Bangladesh government’s Director of Labour. In the RMG industry, NGOs and a group of people (comprised by the RMG owners, ex-trade union leaders or businessman) have financed a number of registered unions. On a number of occasions, the political parties have provided financial and administrative support for unions. A total of 32 national garments federations are registered with the Department of Labour and according to their data they have 63,000 workers members. However, these unions can only be allowed by the garments factory management. Therefore the activities of the union are mostly confined to awareness-building programmes (e.g., health and safety issues, with support from NGOs), protests in the streets for discrimination against workers, or to demand (in seminars, meeting, or in a street) an increase in minimum wages.
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The law establishes excessive requirements and complicated procedures in order to register a trade union and, in practice, the registrar rejects many applications. Employers are not impeded from using various anti-union practices including threats, dismissals, legal suits against unionists, and intimidation. The police often use excessive force to disperse protesting workers, in some cases causing deaths and, often, injuries. EPZs fall under special labour legislation, whereby basic workers’ rights are not protected and workers are prevented from organising and bargaining collectively. There have been reports (BILS, 2011) with regards to increasing pressure on workers’ unionisation efforts. Subcontracting permits businesses to break up their production locations and, as a result, many workers are not aware of who their employers are, so they cannot unite against them. My in-depth interviews, the anecdotal information I collected, and the close observations I made reveal that that government and employers are becoming increasingly hostile towards trade unions. This has also made workers reluctant to join trade unions where they do exist. Trade unions were under pressure internally because of corruption and workers perceived some unions to be working to support the employers rather than the workers. A number of trade unions also become more affiliated with both ruling and opposition political parties; hence, the political power, rather than the workers, became their primary interest. In Bangladesh, workers involved with trade unions faced redundancy, harassment, and intimidation, as well as being threatened with murder. Recently (In July, 2012), this threat was carried out: Aminul Islam, a prominent trade union leader, was killed. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that a number of factory management considered him as to be a threat to the industry as a whole. The government is still investigating the matter. Again, all these activities or narrow governance mechanisms focused on creating deterrents so that other workers will not act the against factory management. In Bangladesh, little difference appeared in workers’ unionisation between manufacturers that had direct contact with buyers and factories that did not. Despite the fact that large brand-name merchandisers or retailers had a code of conduct that entitled workers to form unions and bargain collectively, monitors from these companies never asked any of the workers if they had any involvement in trade unions or faced any problem in organising. In-depth interviews with some of the retailers revealed that they were somewhat happy about the absence of trade unions, which according to them are the “source of all sort of disruptions of production activities” (Derived from a interview with a retailer based in Dhaka during August, 2011) Bangladeshi newspaper 181
reported that “factory managers in Bangladesh often employed an armed mastan (musclemen) group to drive out the union” (Daily Star, 2010). How words become a part of dominance becomes evident through the governance process of the RMG industries. While visiting RMG industries in Narayanganj, one of the employers (Managing Director) was quite annoyed with the workers (particularly on those who were involved with the protest), because he said “fakinnir put” (son of a beggar) would struggle (go strive) if they would not employ them. On a number of occasions, garments owners claimed that “it is the owners who provide bread and butter to the workers and ultimately provide employment and facilitate poverty reduction.” (Derived from an in-depth interview)
The following two examples expose the manufacturer’s display of power; one example is linked to research and media activities (exposing workers sufferings) and other to a proposed maternity leave position. In a recent Bangladeshi local TV talk show (Ajker Bangladesh: Dateline Ashulia - 13 June 2012; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t5rkOreQk0), one of the garment factory owners and ex-chief of one of the RMG trading associations demanded that the government should ban or even arrest persons, researchers, or organisations involved with research or reports that go against the RMG industry’s reputation, in particular, and Bangladesh in general. The latest show of power and domination was by the garment factory owners who at first threatened (on June 03, 2012 (The Daily Star, June, 2012) to shut down their factories (subject to sustained worker protest) and, later on, shut down the factories of the entire Ashulia region (which has more than 300 factories) for five consecutive days. Anecdotal information suggests that the owners lost 20 million dollars (USD) during this closure, which would be the equivalent to giving the workers, had they wished to do so, a five per cent salary increase. This appears (or should be) a quite depressing scenario for both the owners and the workers. However, the owners were quite happy to give the workers a lesson and the workers suffered quite a lot—especially those working in piece-rate basis. The second example regards maternity leave, which further revealed about the factory owners’ perception. I interpret this as a structural phenomenon (socially constructed knowledge) linked with the patriarchal cultural construction. Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association (BGMEA) has argued that the proposed 24-week maternity leave instead of 16 182
weeks, will encourage a higher birth rate, negating population control efforts in the country. The association also proposed introducing 12 weeks or 84 days of maternity leave for female workers in the garments industries to keep pace with production in the sector. In a recent statement, the BGMEA, the peak body of the garments makers and exporters, said that the industry had been contributing to birth control in the country since the 1980s because female workers felt discouraged from having children in order to keep their jobs. They further proposed that because 80 per cent of workers in the garments industry are women, their long leave would greatly hamper production and increase administrative complexity if recruiting the new workers to fill the vacant position. In addition, a long absence decreases workers’ skills and workers could also not return to work if they found a better opportunity elsewhere. The BGMEA’s stance of reducing maternity leave from a commercial viewpoint defames Bangladesh’s women, children, and the community and disgraces future generations. However, this sort of structural construction has been intuited with the institutional force, which I discuss in the following section. One of the prominent governance processes in the RMG is the creation of the industrial police (IP), which is a specialised police force established to look after industrial areas. It came into operation on 31st October, 2012, with headquarters in Dhaka and four regional offices at Gazipur, Saver, Narayanganj, and Chittagong. The five objectives of the IP state the following: “(1) to ensure the law and order of the industrial areas; (2) to ensure the safety and security of the property and personnel involved in the industries; (3) oversee the activities of the organized groups working to destabilise the industrial sectors; (4) extend immediate support to any unusual situation/labour unrest; and (5) collect, collate and disseminate information to higher authorities.” (GOB, 2011) Interestingly, no indication appears in the five objectives of IP that this force aims to safeguard the interest, insecurity, deprivations of the workers, or any sort of violation of labour laws. Even during my fieldwork, especially during a situation of unrest in a factory (i.e., in Tejgaon in Dhaka), the industrial police mostly protected the factory and the owners, rather than the workers. Some of the workers stated that on a number of occasions, just before their payment date, they observed the presence of industrial police, and, subsequently, they heard about the closure of factory. They claimed that “this is a tactic by the management so that they could delay 183
payment and could earn interest depositing money in the bank”. An in-depth interview (Carried during July-November, 2011) with the industrial police also revealed that management instructed them to save or protect the factory first and concern themselves with any issue regarding the workers until later.
4. GOVERNANCE THROUGH LEGITIMISATION FORCE AND CONSENT
The earlier section exposed the governance mechanisms applied through force and consent. However, recognition of regimes of torture, abuse, and control in globalised production sites of the RMG has been legitimised by state and non-state actors. These examples of abuse are both grounded in and reproduce a large political economy of production, consumption, and imagemaking. Quite interestingly, both the state (constantly supporting the garments owners and concealing the worker’s movement as a conspiracy) and civil society actors (NGOs, academia, media, and private trading houses) have promoted these legitimisation efforts. The following section details these efforts.
A number of occasions, garments manufacturers (This information has been derived from Field survey carried during July-November 2011.) assumed that people who work in factories lack basic intelligence, because they lack a proper education and have insufficient mental capacity. Therefore, in the RGI, a principle of combining standardization of production practices, such as the break-down of work task on the assembly lines, has been very prominent. Further to these production strategies and after a series of protest during 2010, 2011, a number of programmes to teach “responsible behaviour of the workers” have been inaugurated in Bangladesh in collaboration with the donors, NGOs, and business bodies. The basic aim of these programmes is to make them disciplined (or bring them under control), because a number of them become agitated when they were dire deprived. GiZ (German Development Cooperation Agency), with the collaboration of two local partners, the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) and Bangladesh garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), has funded one of these programmes, Promotion of Social, Environmental and Production Standards (PSES). The programme aims to introduce social and environmental standards, and models of arbitration. The programme’s ultimate aims has been designed in a 184
manner as “the only way for the industry to remain competitive in the long term, while maintaining humane social standards and environmentally sound production methods”(ibid) . Two of the national NGOs, Awaj Foundation and Karmajibi Nari acted as local partners by organising awareness-raising workshops and distributing information in the factories. PSES claims that women received higher wages and BKMEA member factories have improved their productivity by around 33 per cent on average. It also claims that in some cases labour productivity has doubled. However, an in-depth interview I conducted (Carried out during September 2011 in conjunction to my field survey) with both with the project coordination officer and beneficiaries’ (workers) reveals a different perspective. The design of their model of arbitration programmes is such that they trained workers about their behaviour during protests. This includes, not stopping work, not being involved any sort of destructive activities, and not getting out of factories. This illustrates the ultimate intention of the governance mechanisms of the RMG. Quite remarkably, another aim is for helping to reduce illness and worker absenteeism, which, according to them (PSES), will have a positive impact on the companies they (the workers) working for.
The most prominent and common feature of legitimization efforts can be traced through the hyped “conspiracy theory” outlined not only the factory owners and private trade association but also the government. The government’s responses to the protests have generally entailed a combination of coercion (for instance, arresting protesters) and attempts to re-vitalize and consolidate the dominant discourse about the benefits of the RMG industry. In the case of the latter, the fact that the protests could reflect the genuine grievances of the workers was either dismissed out of hand, or deflected by framing the protests as part of a larger (foreign backed) anti-government conspiracy that private business bodies, NGOs, and foreign governments had instigated.
In terms of direct coercion, the government has responded drastically to the workers’ protests in an attempt to discipline those labelled “so-called provocateurs” (Official government claim about the workers who protested) with the help of the new “industrial police” specifically created for the RMG sector. The “industrial police” force came into existence on July 31, 2010 when the Bangladeshi Prime Minister warned that “the government will not tolerate any anarchy and 185
destructive activities in the garment sector”, promising that “tough action would be taken against the people who are creating anarchic situation in the garment sector” (Daily Star, 2010). The coincidence of interests between the government and manufacturers is perhaps, in this case, unsurprising. Irrespective of shared ideological commitments to development as modernization, the government itself has much at stake in the RMG industry. For example, twenty-nine Parliament members (MP) in Bangladesh are owners in the garments industries (10 per cent of total MPs) and another 25 percent are indirectly involved with this industry (Bangladesh Election Commission, http://123.49.39.5/asset/index.php?lang=bn). This indicates the governmentbusiness compact has arguably had the effect of diluting state responsibility for protecting workers from the violation of their rights.
For the last couple of years a new trend has been emerging within the garments trading associations. This trend includes workers participating in fashion shows and several “Idol” programmes like Indian Idol or American Idol. The association leaders, the media, the government, and some NGOs, which have been involved with these programmes and which hope to enhance the cordiality between industry owners and workers, have called this a new era for workers because they “would not considered themselves distinct from the mainstream working force”. As an annual event, BKMEA arranged the largest knitwear show, the “5th Bangladesh Knitwear Exposition” on 2-4 October, 2010, at Dhaka Sheraton Hotel. One of the conspicuous aspects of the three daylong events was the unique fashion show in which the only garment workers of BKMEA member factories participated. The grand fashion show took place in the exhibition grounds, the Winter Garden of the Sheraton Hotel. Wearing the attractive outfits they made, the workers, according to the BKMEA took part in the catwalk “with pride and pleasure”. Along with the local buyers, the representatives from different business conglomerates, civil society, and the media were present at the show. In a speech to the audience, the BKMEA President Md. Fazlul Hoque expressed his hope that the unique fashion show would set a new trend among the workers and the buyers from both home and abroad to expand the industry.
Furthermore, in 2012, the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association introduced a television “Idol” competition (a stage reality TV show) named ‘Gorbo 2012’ 186
(literally ‘proud’). It was screened on Bangla Vision, a private Bangladeshi television channel intending to find music talent from a particular section (people working with RMG) of the urban poor of Dhaka, Savar, Gazipur, Narayangonj, and Chittagong. The programme aims to continue on a regular basis. Consequently, the intention of pulling the consumers of urban folk music in the scope of visual media opens up a different set of cultural politics. Certain kinds of optimism and pessimism dominate media analysis, as Baudrillard and Maclean (1985) observe. Optimisms such as Marshall McLuhan are optimistic about technology’s capacity to produce transparency in information and communication through generalized planetary communication. The ideological optimisms, too, lead scholars to think that the media ensures mass participation in the productive process empower the masses. They view the mass media, e.g., television, as an ideological device that propagates the view of the ruling class among the audience. In addition, they consider it to be parallel to the capitalist economy in that it reproduces both materially and symbolically, the capitalist relations that prevail in society (Rajagopal 2001, p. 4). The Gorbo- 2012 story is an interesting case of how the culture industry operates through multiple agencies and individuals, even irrespective of their own affiliations, and how it promotes the hidden governance manuscript of the RMG. It provides an example of the alliance between media houses and the garments factories, where the media inevitably snaps up and brands individual innovations. The objectives of such education are quite clear: to present poor garments workers in such a manner so that they can no longer be identified as exotic, but rather as someone familiar.
CONCLUSION
The cumulative governance trends I discussed above and the contemporary trends in the organisation of production that the re-regulation of the global economy reinforces have made it very difficult for workers to organise and/or improve their conditions of work. The worker’s living conditions in the form of testimony opens up the possibilities for exposing the fault lines of globalization and showing the contingency of hegemony. Such contingency is laid bare when I place Rahima’s (interviewed garments workers in EPZ) testimony about the violence that meets unionization efforts next to the garment trade advertisement for Bangladeshi EPZs. This advertisement tells businesspeople, “For Optimum Profit Invest in EPZs of Bangladesh” with incentives such as “The law forbids the formation of labour unions in the 187
zones and strikes are illegal.” (EPZ Flyer). The side-by-side reading of labour repression and state and paramilitary violence with advertisements for export processing zones where labour unions and strikes are illegal shows the impossibility of seamless “optimum profit” in exploitative productive practices. We can see the contingent nature of hegemony—the uneven balance between force and consent within garment industry.
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DETAILS OF AUTHOR
Kazi Mahmudur Rahman PhD Candidate and Tutor School of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS) University of Queensland St Lucia, QLD 4067 Building 39A (General Purpose North), level 5 Telephone: +61 733469341, Fax: +61 7 3365 1388
Kazi Mahmudur Rahman is a PhD Candidate at the Political Science and International studies at the University Of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. He received his MA in Development Studies major in International Political Economy and Development from the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, Netherlands. He is a Hansard/Chevening Research Scholar on Democracy and Public Policy at the LSE, London, UK. His research interests cover a wide spectrum of areas which includes, trade and governance, globalization and critical development studies. He has published a number of book chapters, monograph and journal articles in various forums. Email:
[email protected] Web: http:/www.uq.edu.au/polsis
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ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS IN ENSURING SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODSCASE OF WASTE PICKERS OF LUCKNOW CITY
Vandana Tripathi
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ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS IN ENSURING SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS- CASE OF WASTE PICKERS OF LUCKNOW CITY
ABSTRACT The paper examines a business case for incorporating institutional intervention in one of the major public service delivery via Solid Waste Management through the case of waste pickers in Lucknow. It aims to offer a socio-economic profile of waste pickers in Lucknow and then assess the various roles that can be adopted by organizations and other institutions to address the needs of waste pickers keeping an international context in mind. Finally, the paper will make recommendations that would assist in formal integration of waste pickers in the Solid Waste Management process. The first section of the paper builds the background of evolution and progress of Urbanization in India and its consequences on city management. It presents the evolving demography of Indian cities. Further, the emphasis shifts on explaining the meaning of “waste” as it has developed through years. The section then goes on to explore waste economy in India with special emphasis on Lucknow. It explains the role of waste picker which is unique to India and their contribution to the economy, ecology and environment. The second section of the papers presents the socio-economic profiling of waste pickers in Lucknow. It also introduces the sustainable livelihood framework which incorporates the context of vulnerability of waste pickers as a social class, and how structures and processes can be shaped to arrive at meaningful livelihood strategies for this class. It examines the vulnerabilities that waste pickers are exposed to as a social class and how capital in different forms such as social, economic, human, political etc. entwines itself in their everyday lives.
The third section of the paper offers insights and effects of participation of institutions to introduce structures and processes that would enable the integration of waste pickers into mainstream solid waste management. It analyses the access of infrastructure, basic services, 196
cheap credit and workplace available to waste pickers. By citing international cases, the paper seeks to arrive at a structure whereby position of waste pickers can be improved through formalized engagements or cooperative movements. The paper concludes that waste pickers are the most disadvantaged section of informal labour sector. The livelihood framework will help in evaluation of vulnerable groups and formulation of strategies for their overall well-being. The government cannot adopt a straitjacketed approach to this unique case of socially sensitive solid waste management. Finally a proper support to waste pickers will reduce their poverty and improve their social recognition, simultaneously leading to a sustainable approach to benefit all stakeholders and conservation of environment.
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SECTION I – INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background Urbanization as a global process has been growing over the years. India too has been experiencing the high rate of urban growth, reflected in the increasing number of million plus cities in the country. From the text box no-1 given below it is clear that Indian cities have experienced growth in urban population and an era of modernization and trade liberalization with all kind of consequences for the city management. It seems that modernization has failed in delivering the expected outputs of high economic growth and in fact has resulted in increasing the gap between the rich and the poor distinctly visible in the cities and reflected with the number of poor living in the informal sector in India. The high rate of urbanization combined with globalization has impacted upon the production & consumption patterns of citizens (Ed. Muller & Laroui, 2000). As a consequence of which, there is a change in the composition and quantity of urban waste generated There is an increase in plastic waste and other harmful wastes and decrease in the amount of organic waste. This has increased the burden upon the environment and the public health of the cities as a whole calling for an integrated approach towards solid waste management.
Box- 1
Changing demography
India 2001 – total population 1027 mill, 360 million in 1951 growth rate 1.7% India 2001 – total population 1027 mill, 360 million in 1951 growth rate 1.7% India 2001 – urban population 285 million (27.8%), it was 62.4 million (17.3%) in 1951. Growth rate 3.12 % Source- Census of India 2001
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1.2 The usefulness of ‘Waste’ The term ‘waste’ has a different meaning for different people. In general, one can say that waste is ‘unwanted or useless item’ for the person who discards it; it does not necessarily mean that the product is defective or worn out. It is situation where the product or material that does not hold value anymore for the first user (Aziz, 1984). Therefore ‘use or useless’ is subjective and the waste could have value for another person in a different circumstance, or even in a different culture. There are many large industries that operate primarily or exclusively using waste materials – paper and metals are the commonest – as their industrial feed stocks. Scheinberg (2001) considers waste, both as a negative and as a useful material providing a potential source of income. It can in fact be the only free resource available to poor people, or urban dwellers, who cannot access the other resources available in the country. In present developing economies, several individual’s livelihoods are dependent upon waste recycling and waste management largely under informal sector (Baud & Schenk, 1994). There are also formal sector examples, such as sugar cane factories that sell their fibres and cane waste to paper factories that produce paper out of it. Unfortunately not all wastes can be regarded as resource. Many hazardous and toxic materials cannot be safely recycled or reused therefore separate measures are introduced for its treatment Since the last two decades, there is a strong urge to move beyond the conventional approach of regarding waste as useless towards a new approach that considers, by looking at waste as a resource. According to Venkateshwaran (1994) waste is an invaluable resource and a source of income even for the municipality. In fact in few cities like Mexico and Cairo, the scrap dealers and private entrepreneurs pay a fee to the municipality to get access to the waste materials.
1.3 Solid waste management (SWM) in India SWM is to manage the society’s waste in a manner that meets public health and environmental concerns and the public’s desire to reuse and recycle waste materials. There has been a growing emphasis upon environmental sustainability through reduction of waste in production and distribution and enhanced emphasis upon re-use and recycling (Furedy, 1992). As an outcome of 199
the social movements, countries in the west have already started to proactively approach the waste as a resource with partnership among stakeholders. Most of the developing countries are still caught up in the conventional engineering systems of collection and disposal for solid wastes. According to Furedy (1992) the waste economy, in the Asian countries, comprises of a large number of urban actors and activities in waste trading. In case of India the hierarchy (ascending order) is as follows
Waste picker
Middleman/contractor
Scrap dealer
Second hand markets
recycling industries
It is due to this involvement of large variety of urban actors and activities working with waste in informal sector, it becomes increasingly important to formulate and aim some socio-economic and ecological goals along with the environmental sustainability aspects of SWM in the context of developing countries (Furedy 1992) The municipal Solid Waste Management (MSW) is counted upon as the major function of the municipalities in Article 18 mentioned in schedule 12 of the Indian constitution. MSW has been recently gaining a primary focus in the Indian context. The Supreme Court of India has passed on rulings on MSW Management in the year 2000, which sets up standards for different waste components and thereby acts upon as the benchmark for making model Indian cities over the same. It provides a deadline for all municipalities by the year 2001 and also makes it mandatory for all the municipalities to practice Solid Waste Management in partnership with other urban stakeholders. (Joseph, 2002) Current scene of MSW in the Lucknow city Lucknow, capital city of Uttar Pradesh with 2,266,933 million in habitants (Census of India, 2001) is one of the fast growing cities (for data on quality and quantity of waste generation look 200
annexure 3 & 4). Following the Supreme Court rulings, the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) has incorporated a strategy for community-based SWM practices in the city, involving participation from residents/ households, sweepers and other municipal staff related to sanitation, private sector etc and attempts/commits itself to become a model city in the framework of Integrated SWM.
However, study conducted by Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), 2006, reveals that the current scenario of municipal SWM (as per the Supreme Court rulings of 2000) is far from ideals of Supreme Court rulings as till date
the guidelines by Hon. Supreme Court are not being followed by many cities
some cities have experienced only in some components (only with few stakeholder) without putting an entire integrated system in place
The set programme standard by Supreme Court has in no way been reached by majority of cities. Average compliance is around 33% in segregation, 38% in primary collection, 29% in covered storage depots, 9% in processing & a meagre 1.4% in disposal of solid waste
Reasons mentioned by local bodies for non-compliance are inadequate institutional capacities, lack of technical knowhow and manpower, lack of financial resources and community awareness
1.4 The role of waste picker
In India, waste management practices have been institutionalized (formalized) by making the local government responsible for it. Wherein the govt fails to keep up the services, luckily there are other important urban actors such as waste picker, scrap dealer etc making for it partly. Waste picking involves, as the name suggests, picking up of waste from the non-identified garbage dumping points around neighbourhoods, streets and also the dumping ground thereby making their position highly vulnerable. While working with waste they are diminishing the ill-impact of garbage upon public health and environment of the society. They are the real champs of garbage collection throughout the city, segregating them under different set of items such as iron, plastic etc and finally selling it to the middlemen or the scrap dealer to be further sent for recycling etc (Singh, 2005).
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Various theorists have given their perspective on the contribution made by this group in terms of environmental management etc. in different set of researches made upon the position and role of waste picker; we find various aspects covering the important role that they play in safeguarding public health and environment. Most of the discussion over their role is centred on the 3 E’s i.e. Economic, Ecological and Environmental.
1.4.1 Economic contribution There is a cost to pick up the garbage from household; segregate and safely dispose, if the municipality has to do it all. The economies arising out of waste segregation and the cheap availability of raw material to the recycling industry, has been possible by involvement of waste pickers (Aziz, 1984). With the recycling and reuse of products the waste picker makes the optimum use of the scarce resource possible. He mentions that waste picker operating at very low wages, make the waste industry more profitable for those with capital investments. It is no way to mention that it is good but it does gives a reflection to the conditions in which waste picker has to perform.
1.4.2 Ecological contribution The on job performance of waste picker keeps the open spaces in the neighbourhoods free of ‘waste’ and provides scenic serenity. The costs thus could be spent upon environmental conservation activities. Hayami, Dikshit & Mishra (2003) mentions that ‘if their operations were absent, the waste collected by them would have been thrown away into parks and streets beyond the capacity of public garbage dumps.
1.4.3 Environmental contribution Venkateshwaran (1994) says that ecological serenity is maintained due to the effective engagement of informal sector in SWM. She explains the idea through example of Paper industry wherein the waste picker sorts the waste paper and timely provide raw material to paper 202
industry which recycles it and bring it back into the economy thereby reducing the environmental degradation.
1.5 Aim and purpose of this paper
Number of researches undertaken on the issue of position of waste pickers provides sufficient data to say that their situation is getting complicated day by day with newer forms of vulnerability being created out of the informality of the trade or due to the fact that there are more organized ways /mechanism to keep it in the informal sector. One such reason for keeping them in the informal sector is to keep the prices of the raw materials as low. Thus, waste pickers are one of the most important but less recognized actors in an urban informal waste system; therefore, an attempt is being made in this paper to increase the recognition & respect for this special group. This thematic paper will therefore focus on the following 1. to provide a socio-economic profile of waste picker in Lucknow city with the help of Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) 2. to assess the role of Corporate and other institutions in addressing the needs of the waste picker with the support of international cases 3. lastly to make recommendation about how to positively integrate them into the formal Solid Waste Management process.
SECTION II- SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE OF WASTE PICKER IN LUKCNOW CITY This section provides a socio-economic profile of the waste pickers in the Lucknow city by theorizing under Sustainable Livelihoods framework of DFID (1999)
2.1 Informal Sector and vulnerability Growing urban population when combined with informality tends to give rise to various sets of complexities Indian economy is characterized by wide presence of informal sector. Based on the 203
International Conference of Labour Statisticians, Expert group on Informal Sector Statistics (Delhi group) the definition of informal sector in India is “unincorporated enterprises owned by households engaged in non-farm production with non-fixed location”. As per the Government of India NSS report 519 (2005), a sizable 83 percent of non-agricultural employment is in informal activities, comprising of self-employment (small &/or unregistered enterprises), wage employment in informal jobs (without formal employment contracts, or social protection), and informal employment outside informal enterprises (including industrial homeworkers sub-contracted by formal firms and domestic workers engaged by households). Formality & informality of work is a continuum and per se does not create poverty. It is the nature of economic activities due to the poor endowments of workers that creates vulnerabilities (Unni & Rani, 2003). The Shramshakti Report (1998) lists waste picking as one form of selfemployment in a wide range of informal sector occupations (Chikarmane & Narayan, 2000). There is no simple relationship between working in the informal economy and being poor (Alter 2003). It is important therefore to know how poor waste picker survive in such an informal sector arrangement with almost negligible assurance of security around.
2.2 Sustainable Livelihoods Framework The livelihood assets & vulnerability framework provides a wider scope for building an understanding over (a) Vulnerability context- discussed in the following paragraphs (b) Position of assets –discussed under sub section 2.3 & (c) Role of institutions and processes in determining the accessibility to assets- discussed in section III According to Chambers and Conway (1992), a livelihood is defined as comprising ‘….the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living’. A further addition has been made by using the term “sustainable livelihood” which refers to the fact that livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from 204
stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural resource base (Carney, 1998).
Source- DFID (1999)
2.2.1 Vulnerability context of the waste pickers The life of waste pickers is often affected by shocks such as diseases, outbreak of epidemics, man-made disaster such as fire etc. The outbreak of diseases affects directly causing death as well as prolonged illness thereby involving monetary expenses and loss of income as well. Fire in these settlements is happening often as people still use fire wood or ‘smoke chulhas’ (stove). In one go, several of ‘kutcha’ half built houses are burnt (Singh, 2005) The trends have been observed as impacting upon the access to livelihoods of the waste pickers. It has been discussed in different studies that the modernization approach does call for stakeholder participation primarily focusing upon private sector and the communities themselves. The waste collection and storage has been handled over to the private sector thereby marginalizing the waste pickers. The profitable waste management industry has been slowly taken over by private sector and poor waste pickers have been systematically pushed out of the market in absence of collective power. Different climatic condition too affect the lives the waste picker. Monsoon is their biggest foe as over flooding of drains makes dirty drain water enter into their houses during monsoon. Most of 205
the waste picker during the time of survey mentioned about the sleepless nights during rainy season, wherein the men or women are awake at different times so as to make sure they evacuate before the water enters into their houses (Singh, 2005) there is no storage place for them to keep the sorted waste and therefore during monsoon both the collection and storage of waste becomes a problem.
2.3 Livelihoods of waste pickers in Lucknow city The DFID sustainable livelihood framework identifies set of 5 capital/ assets and suggests that these are the major determinants of the individual’s livelihoods and it is their interaction with the other structures and institutions that makes it sustainable and in the long run reduces vulnerability. The 5 capital are human, physical, financial, natural and social capital. It has an inverse relationship with vulnerability i.e. the more the number of assets the individual has, the less is the vulnerability faced in the environment. A waste picker life in the city is based on the day to day survival strategy, which impacts and gets impacted by the set of assets possessed by them exhibited as coping strategy. In this section, we closely look at the set of 5 assets, with the waste pickers of Lucknow city, which assists them to combat the challenges put forth in the urban settings and specifically their occupation. 2.3.1 Human Capital Human Capital refers to the quality and number of human resource itself that has a direct impact upon the livelihoods opportunities. The person with a certain set of skills (acquired) can generate a certain set of income and reduce her/his vulnerability. According to DFID (1999) objective, strengthening human capital is ‘improved access to high-quality education, information, technologies and training and better nutrition and health. Average size of the household among the waste pickers is 5-6. Amongst them, mostly the women are engaged in the picking of the garbage and the sorting takes place within the household with involvement of children (Hunt, 1996). The man carries out negotiations for the sorted waste. Waste picker men have studied up to primary level while most women are illiterate making their position highly vulnerable. There is overall less emphasis upon education of the 206
children as was mentioned by them “bina pade hum jaise kaam karega, aur kuch nahi…kyunki padhne se bhi naukari nahi milegi” (without studying, s/he would work like us, as even studies/or being literate does not guarantee a job). Another major reason cited has been that the waste pickers hailing from Bangladesh and Assam do not know Hindi which is the principle medium of instruction in schools (Agarwal & Tripathi 2006). It is not only education but also due to their stigmatized work, poor living conditions and lack of any skill training, there is less use of technology and access to information. The only skill training takes place from that from parents to children. The waste pickers face many occupation related hazards. In fact they are rather so habitual of their working conditions that they are not conscious of the problems (Singh, 2005). For most of the waste pickers, ‘low wages’ is the only and most important problem as they felt that the money paid by the contractor was very less. However, since all of them were in debt of their respective contractors they had no option but to sell their ‘collected waste’ to him (UBDA 1992). Few waste pickers also consider adverse impact on health as a major drawback of waste picking. Since the waste pickers work with bare hands, bruises and cuts on hands are very common along with dog bites (Huysman, 1994). Incidences of abuse- physical and verbal by the police and the public alike have been reported. Residents of colonies, where the children and women go for waste picking, verbally abuse them. At times the police apprehend the waste pickers as thieves. In their work, they have to confront the many arms of the police: railway, traffic etc. The police also play a major role in evictions (Furedy & Alamgir, 1992) As such; they are forced to dance to the tune of the police, paying bribes (cash/kind). The extortion racket also involves the local goons and dadas (gangsters). Cases of ‘rangdari tax’ and ‘hafta’ (compulsory payment on monthly basis) are common in which they have to part with substantial money in order to ply their trade. 2.3.2 Social capital Social capital is the resources upon which people draw in pursuit of their livelihood objectives, these are developed through networks and connectedness, membership of more formalized groups, relationships of trust, reciprocity and exchanges. A popular interpretation says that in modern era it is not important what you know rather whom you know. According to DFID
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(1999) objective, social capital is creation of ‘a more supportive and cohesive social environment.’ In Lucknow city, the waste picker ranges from different religion, caste, region and state (Agarwal & Tripathi 2006). The settlements of the waste pickers have grown on the historical lines of migrant followed by another known relative/ friend or common native land. Traditionally the work was done by lower castes Hindus but due to growing economic inequality it has become major livelihood for different caste groups. Muslims as waste pickers has been a rather recent phenomenon in the city. Most of them claim to be coming from Far East in Assam but in real are the Bangladeshi illegal migrants (Hayami, Dikshit & Mishra, 2003) who migrated from flood affected areas in search of livelihood. Along with these external migrants, there is a large number of intra-state (Sitapur, Unnao, eastern UP) and inter-state (Bihar, Bilaspur, Assam (farraka, dhubri) migrants. Specifically in the case of waste picker, the settlements constitutes of migrant families, as waste picking as an occupation is highly disregarded in the society (Huysman, 1994). In the anonymous life of a city it becomes easier for them to forego their primary identity and take on the new identity as waste picker. In fact many of the waste pickers from upper caste have not gone back to their native village/town as they feared social exclusion based on mere occupation (Agarwal & Tripathi, 2006; Singh, 2005). The proximity in the life of waste picker is experienced more by ethnicity than the physical proximity. The different settlements are characterized by high number of evident group from a particular region for e.g., its Bihari’s settlement (people hailing from Bihar-one of India’s backward states) its Assamese settlement (people hailing from Assam). In times of distress, they tend to help each other in their own limited ways by just being together and trying to bring in external help when required. The sharing goes to the extent that it is on the mutual guarantee that the contractors are ever ready to employ people on their recommendations (Singh, 2005). This variety in different forms does give rise to set of complexities. Most of them, though staying physically close, fail to communicate to each other and respect each other values. Quarrels and fights over small things are highly evidenced which give rise to tension in the neighbourhoods. There is an increasing evidence of apathy towards people form different set of communities. The minimal interaction between the two groups is primarily due to their diversity –the waste pickers have migrated from Assam and are all Muslims, whereas the construction workers are 208
Bilaspuris and Hindus. Different languages of the two groups also augment the divide between them. Therefore we do not find much existence of CBOs etc in the settlements based either on ethnic group or occupational group.
2.3.3 Natural capital Natural capital refers to the natural wealth possessed by the individual comprising of land, water, availability of greenery and access to fresh air. According to DFID (1999), it is ‘more secure access to, and better management of, natural resources’. Imagine the settlements of the waste pickers whose work entail dealing with other’s waste. It is often characterized by rags and dirt all over, though inside the houses are quite clean. Their settlements are often located on a less valuable land or less profitable land. Most of them grow along the big drains called “nallah” or next to the railway tracks. Due to the big drains being clogged, the area often gets flooded during rainy season leaving the over flooded water getting into people’s houses. The natural surroundings of the settlements are of poor quality. There is a limited access for fresh air due to packed neighbourhoods (Huysman 1994). Due to less open space around, the kids play next to the open deep drains and fall an easy prey to it while playing.
2.3.4 Physical capital DFID (1999) defines it as ‘access to basic and facilitating infrastructure’. The settlements of the waste picker are highly degraded and are not of standards of safety norms (Rouse & Ali, 2001). The houses are often half built with the danger of roof falling any day. There is hardly any outlet for fresh air to come in. There are some settlements where rents are paid by the contractors. For e.g. Chand Wali Masjid (mosque) committee received monthly rent of Rs 1200/- per 6 huts from contractors. The waste picker has to spend a yearly sum of Rs. 400-500 on maintenance. Most of this expenditure is concentrated during the rainy season when these half built houses need to be covered with a new polythene sheet to prevent leakage. Some households take loans to meet these expenses. Most of these settlements had faced eviction which takes a heavy toll on their business since they have to restart the cycle of building up working capital and therefore refrained from making any investment in housing. Though the houses inside are very clean but 209
personal hygiene is rarely evidenced amongst them as practice. They do household work simultaneously with the garbage sorting, without washing their hands (Huysman, 1994). These settlements are often characterized by lack of access to basic services which impacts largely the women. No access to toilets is highly inconvenient to the women as they get up early in the morning and cannot relieve themselves during the day time or during pregnancy etc (Agarwal & Tripathi, 2006). There are public toilets available at times in the vicinity but are often not used by them due to distance,
Box-2 choosing private clinics Munni Devi (waste picker) reported that her 6-month baby suffered from jaundice and was admitted in the civil hospital. The doctors hardly paid any attention and the child died in the hospital. In her words
“uske baad maine sarkari haspatal ki sakal nahi dekhi” (After that I have not visited any
long queues and cost on per seating per person. The community taps serves as major source for drinking water. Being few in number, long queue and fights over water are common phenomena. Moreover, the tap water is unfit for drinking. During the survey (Agarwal & Tripathi, 2006) most respondents reported the quality of water as bad (yellowish). In absence of an appropriate place to throw their garbage, the open spaces (however little it may be) become the dumping ground for them where no municipal vehicle comes. The non-cemented drains (kutcha) are there but are not networked with that of neighbours so in absence of proper outlet, most of the time it remains clogged and gets over flooded during rainy season. Due to poor living and working conditions the waste picker suffer repeatedly from illness. Apart from common ailments like cold, cough fever, water borne diseases, skin diseases, stomachache are also prevalent. Tuberculosis is also reported due to constant contact with dirt. Most of these households visit private clinics generally charging a fee of Rs 20/- and provide medicines at additional charges. Private clinics are preferred as doctors are readily available and it is less time consuming. Incidents of being humiliated by staff, long queues, bribes and neglect of patients were widespread.
2.3.5 Financial capital It refers to the paying capacity of the individual involving flow of cash and also savings-credit needs. As per DFID (1999) it is ‘more secure access to financial resources’. As discussed earlier, the income out of waste picking is very less therefore most households are dependent upon more 210
than one occupation for income. There is a strong combination of women going for as domestic worker and men working occasionally as street vendors (Huysman, 1994) Different category of the waste fetches different set of prices (Huysman, 1994). The most valuable item out of waste is iron due to its high probability of reuse and high longevity while the lowest is paper waste due to its low quality when picked by waste picker and low longevity esp in rainy season. Since the waste is sold depending upon its durability on shorter intervals the cash flow is low with the waste picker which makes them to go for smaller and expensive purchases as not buying in bulk. The city has evidenced the new form of bonded labour. Talking particularly about the Assamese, it has been revealed during the field visit in these settlements that the contractor /middleman (belonging to Assam) have been repeatedly visiting the State to bring young couples from flood affected areas. He pays a onetime fixed amount to the household and brings them to the city. Being ‘kind’ enough to the couple for having taken them out of difficult circumstances, he imposes several conditions in terms of single trade mechanism (can’t sell the waste to anybody other than him irrespective of low price) such an imposition leaves the household with hardly any other coping mechanism other than working hard and harder. (Agarwal and Tripathi, 2006). Saving money is less practiced among the waste picker and therefore most often are heavily into debts (Furedy, 1992; Rouse & Ali 2001). The specific reasons for them to borrow include home visits, festivals, house maintenance & also for ceremonies such as birth, death and marriage. The waste picker tries to make use of the relatives and friends apart from the contractor to get the money. There also exists informal sector banking charging heavy interest rates. They are caught in a vicious cycle of low wages and indebtedness by spending at least 5% - 10%of their monthly income on interests and loan repayment.
2.3.6 Political Capital Along with the capitals of DFID framework, another crucial capital is the Political capital. Waste pickers are not a single consistent group as most of them are migrants from different country side and also ‘illegally’ from Bangladesh. Many of them do have voting rights back in the villages 211
but not at all in urban areas (Indian constitution does not allow dual voting rights in the same country i.e. for voting rights change of location is permitted provided that the previous one is removed. ). Absence of voting rights in these urban areas makes them vulnerable to any of the populist moves of the political system as they do count upon as probable vote banks. When enquired about the same, the waste picker did not realize the importance of the voting rights as they reside here on the very temporary basis. They have strong ties with back home therefore do not will to forego their voting rights in rural areas as against the urban areas. In absence of voting rights, there is hardly any representation of their opinion and thereby no accountability could be expected out of the elected representatives. Thus the multiplier effect of the voting rights is absolutely missing in the lives of the waste picker. There is no union or cooperatives of the waste picker which can bind their energies for strengthening collective bargaining.
Low assets n low self esteem
Irregular and low income employment
High expenses and low quality of life
No savings and increased debts Poor housing and ill health (pay more)
Figure 2: vicious cycle of poverty of waste pickers (Agarwal & Tripathi, 2006)
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2.4. Summary The Literature reveals that waste pickers are living a life based on survival strategies. The absence of any social security in these jobs has resulted in the creation of a class of 'working poor' who are engaged in low-quality jobs to scrap together whatever income they can to survive, even if such employment is insufficient to bring them above the poverty line. Each individual household relies upon the set of assets they have and tries to capitalize upon them to build a livelihood. In fact compared to other occupational groups, waste pickers have very limited access to assets due to stigmatization which catches them in circle of poverty and lack of self esteem.
SECTION III- A NEW POSITION OF WASTE PICKERS. WHAT INSTITUTIONS CAN DO? This section deals with the role of structures and processes playing key role specifically into integration of waste pickers
3.1 Role of institutions and processes The role played by institutions can have both positive as well as negative impact. The positive impact, in the case of waste picker could be seen as successful integration in waste management while the negative impact could be reflected from the systematic barriers created to keep them out of opportunities. So far since waste has not been considered as resource by municipalities in Indian cities therefore one can say that there are institutional barriers to the process (Albert, 1983). SWM department in municipalities spent 90% of the total allocated budget upon the collection and transportation of the waste leaving no room recovery (Joseph, 2002). Keeping the different sets of constraints faced by the municipality, it is the key time to make policies that recognize the major role of the informal sector (Furedy, 1989, 1990) esp. that of the waste picker. Waste pickers appear to be marginalized in such a way that many of the structures that ‘perform functions that affect livelihoods’ are inaccessible to them. Access to a legal system at both street level (the police) and at higher levels (the judicial system) is an empowerment tool and can provide valuable protection to personal well-being, rights and property (Rouse & Ali 213
2001). The Civil Society too is not keen in advocating for their cause as they are often reported as ‘public nuisance’ and are stigmatized as ‘insurgents’ to the city. To get them out of the exploitative market and to help them organize some strategic planning and change in outlook is required. Moreover, flip side of vulnerability is overall well being. By taking a closer look at the waste pickers’ vulnerability we see that by making interventions at their unorganized status and access to better infrastructure, would not only lead to improved lifestyle but also contribute in helping them achieve a better living status. Institutions and organization have a major role to play in facilitating the poor, and determining the availability of the assets (Furedy, 1997). Realizing the importance of the role of institutions, I would like to bring in the focus, GO-NGO partnership for reduction of vulnerability faced by waste pickers. Some international experiences have been cited to support and build an understanding over the process. The major areas of concern includes-
3.1.1 Access to infrastructure and basic servicesOne of the primary pitfalls in the life of the waste pickers is the lack of basic services at their residential areas as well as workplace. In fact, it is a pity that people who live in dirt and work hard to remove dirt from other’s life have not been compensated enough.. There is no storage place for keeping the sorted waste, which has a heavy toll during rainy season. The government should prioritize upon slum improvement programme in the areas of these waste pickers. 3.1.2 Access to work place-
New modernization approach has impacted upon the lives of the waste picker in terms of affecting their access to the work place .i.e. waste dumping areas and their access to such areas. They are not welcomed by residents of high income areas as often mistaken as thieves. This requires both institutional changes in regulation of their entrance to such places as well as change in attitude of the residents towards these special peoples.
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Box- 3
Garbage recycling Project-Metro Manila, Philippines
The “Garbage Recycling Project” in Metro Manila has evolved through individual efforts of Leonarda Comacho, backed by a NGO. She started her work thinking that a viable approach to household resource recovery had to have the co-operation of junk shop dealers. Hence the project, originally called Linis-Ganda ("Clean-Green") and based in San Juan and Quezon City only (Comacho, 1991), focused on: gaining the co-operation of neighbourhood waste dealers in employing door-to-door buyers ("eco-aides"), (issued with photo identity cards by Balikatan); mobilizing the support of households for separation and sale; and aiding the dealers in technical and business development (Furedy, 1992) (Comacha 1994)
3.1.3 Recognition and status incrementA positive impact of modernization process has been evidenced wherein the condition and status of waste pickers have improved/ enhanced. Supporting the waste pickers and the organizations behind them may be just, and at best, temporary ‘relief’ measures, if the societal position of the collectors doesn’t fundamentally change. It is required to recognize and empower them with emphasizing upon the environmental utility of these and making them partner of the profitable utility. (Baud&Schenk, 1994) Box-4
"Scavengers in Indonesia— a Human Development Programme"
The Scavengers' Development Project covering three Javanese cities- Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya, focused on waste pickers with strong emphasis upon changing the official and the public's perception of pickers, supporting organization of pickers, educating their children and possible acceptance ("integration") into the waste management system. Interest was aroused when President Suharto made a statement, in 1989, that waste pickers are "a self-reliant brigade" who deserve public respect and should not be treated as "tramps." Working with local volunteers "Mitra Pasukan Kuning" (Friends of the Yellow Troupe) a loose association of waste pickers was formed, that had 7, 110 registered members by 1991. (The reference to the Yellow Troupe is to the official cleaning staffs who wear yellow uniforms: pickers are seen as informally assisting the cleaning staff). In 1990 the mayor announced that an assistance team would work with the pickers' association to issue identity cards, and organize picking areas. The assistance team 215
worked to prevent harassment, and to facilitate access to health and social care agencies. The pickers' organization pledged to be socially co-operative (re law and order) and to help keep the city clean. Organizations such as the Rotary and Lions Clubs have given welfare aid, and the public sympathy is shown by actions such as the donation of gift parcels specifically for waste pickers at Ramadam (about 6,000 parcels have been given out each year for the past four years).
3.1.4 Formalizing and engaging as a cooperative:
Waste pickers are highly unorganized and therefore are exploited by residents, contractors and police etc. it is imperative to collectivize them. Efforts of different NGOs have already began in different parts of the country and wherever government extended its support and recognition, it has definitely changed the position of waste picker. By mobilization and organization of the waste picker, a network be established for purpose of not only collective bargaining but also to bring in the feeling of social solidarity by providing them with the opportunity for sharing their thoughts, ideas, joys and sorrows. Stree Mukti Sangathan, a woman empowerment NGO working in the Shivaji Nagar, Mumbai, struggled for securing the livelihoods of women waste pickers by negotiating with the Bombay Municipal Corporation to offer and provide contracts for waste collections in specific zones. The women members are issued an identity card and they go to the collection centres in the vehicles provided by SMS. Such a partnership between SMS and BMC has helped the waste picker to sustain not only their livelihoods but also brining in selfconfidence amongst them as contributing towards society.
Box – 5
Successful Waste picker Cooperatives in Colombia
The most dynamic waste picker cooperative movement in the world today exists in Colombia. The Cooperativa Recuperar is one of the most successful waste picker coops in Colombia and Latin America. Recuperar, based in Medellin, was created in 1983 and today has 1,000 waste picker members, 60% of them women. Members of Recuperar earn 1.5 times the minimum wage and are affiliated to the Colombian system of socialized medicine. Members can receive loans from the coop, scholarships to continue their studies, and have life and accident insurance. 216
Recuperar carries out three types of activities. First, it offers SWM services. Coop members collect mixed wastes and source-separated recyclables. The coop signed a contract with the city of Guarne and now collects, transports and disposes of the solid wastes generated in the town. In 1996, Recuperar earned 30 million Colombian pesos and the contract saved the city 5 million pesos (approximately U.S. $30,000 and 5,000, respectively). The coop also operates a materials recovery facility (MRF). In 1998, Recuperar recovered 5,000 tons of recyclables, mostly paper, cardboard, glass, metals, textiles, and plastics. Second, Recuperar provides cleaning and gardening services to the local bus terminal, private companies, public spaces, local fairs and conventions. Third, the coop offers its members as temporary workers that can be hired by public or private organizations to perform various activities
3.1.5 Access to cheap credit – As observed in the previous section, most of the waste pickers are indebted to the scrap dealer or the contractor for different unavoidable reasons (circumstances). Many of these workers operate on capital borrowed on very high interest rates in the informal sector. Given the informality of trade and relatively low income level, the formal channels of credit are even more reluctant to lend to such workers. In order to break this vicious circle of informality and poverty the issue of employment and income has to be directly addressed (Canagarajah and Sethuraman 2001). Availability of work on a regular basis with better remuneration is crucial to generate and improve the quality of employment. For the self-employed access to credit and development of microfinance and marketing institutions that cater to the needs of poor entrepreneurs would work to break the cycle. The access to credit would help them to diversify into different occupations and explore small and micro enterprise. The ability of the self-employed to raise capital is limited due to their lack of contacts and low ability to bear risks arising from the poor economic and social status. There could be an endeavour to promote informal enterprises by increasing their assets and productivity through a mix of micro-finance and business development.
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3.1.6 Social security-
A parallel goal is the development of policy interventions, to protect informal workers through state regulation by providing insurance coverage for illness, maternity, property, disability, old age, and death. The Karnataka Unorganized Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Work) Bill 2001 is a step towards finding the right balance. This legislation has resulted in the constitution of a Social Security Authority to provide for registration of workers and regulation of employment conditions; including wages, hours of work, medical and maternity benefits, overtime payment, leave, gratuity, provident fund, bonus, pension, insurance, and housing for different segments of unorganized workers. A second important feature is that it gives the state government the right to constitute boards for scheduled employment with representation from the government and the unorganized workers to administer welfare schemes.
3.2. Summary The success and sustainability of such schemes will largely determine the economic destiny of large number of waste pickers currently overshadowed by the celebrated formal sectors of the waste economy. Integration of waste pickers has brought significant changes in cost reduction as well as boosting the achievement of social goals of a welfare state. Both govt and NGOs should try to change the negative attitude by informing citizens about the advantages of resource recovery. With the waste pickers themselves organizing for their protection, there is reason to hope that concerted action to ensure better rights and livelihood could lead to some positive changes. The political legitimacy, its mandate for planning and close cooperation of the municipality is imperative for the successful integration of waste pickers.
SECTION IV- CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION Following the discussion in previous sections of the paper, we can conclude that waste pickers are the most disadvantaged of informal waste workers, having the lowest levels of literacy, lowest earnings, and worst working conditions. They are socially stigmatised and are often believed to be 218
habitual thieves. All this culminates into them having low self-esteem. They are often "outsiders" with few local connections, or network support; thus they are often transitory, and un-amendable to, or unaware of, trade organization. Unless special arrangements are made (such as designated working areas) their work usually interferes with the official waste management system, and is thus condemned by municipal managers. The problems of social development are even more complicated with involvement of women and children (Huysman 1994). This situation leads to non-recognition and continued denial of justice to waste picker as a group.
The livelihood framework not only helps in evaluating the present status of the vulnerable groups and formulating strategies for their well-being, but at the same time also compels us to ask questions about the approaches and the existing methodologies and simultaneously helps analyse the processes of the government and the non- government systems. I have tried to critically analyse and assess the existing condition of the rag pickers taking the livelihood frame -work as my base. Assets are the most important dimension of the vulnerability framework. Sustainable livelihood depends on the ownership of different livelihood assets, which are distinct, but at the same time heavily interwoven with one asset determining the availability or the lack of another. Linkage between sustainable livelihoods for waste picker is sought by bringing in integrated waste management for sustainable development. Modern day waste management practices lay a lot of emphasis upon the stakeholder participation and capitalizing on each other assets for over all sustainable development. The governance institutions and civil society have a crucial role to play in addressing the needs and issues of livelihood of this unprivileged group. Gandy (1994) argues that local government should focus more on developing strategies to incorporate the recycling industry and waste picker in particular as primary stakeholder so as to reduce the overall cost landfill and waste disposal. However, none of the Government agencies or the NGOs and the private sectors has projects planned for the waste pickers in the city of Lucknow. State Urban Development Agency (SUDA) & its district level wing, District Urban Development Agency (DUDA), Lucknow did not have a comprehensive database about such an important occupational group (Oxfam report, 2006). The civil society so far treating them as ‘untouchables’ can assist the institutions by carrying out interventions at the neighbourhood level for attitudinal changes demanding 219
integration of marginalized waste pickers. Work with waste pickers to change their status, skills and social acceptance, especially in cities where pickers have minimal earnings, is the most difficult task for organizations devoted for socially-sensitive waste management. The government should understand that ‘one shoe will not fit all’. Instead, what is both desirable & feasible is a working policy framework, outlining an approach to policy formulation that can be applied in different contexts by different stakeholders. The dilemma of their integration would always exist, which requires fundamental changes in the Indian society, before conditions which can be created in which useful occupations such as waste collecting will be duly acknowledged. This paper argues that, when waste picking is supported – ending that exploitation and discrimination– it represents a perfect illustration of sustainable development wherein poverty is reduced, raw material costs for industry are lowered (while improving competitiveness), resources are conserved, pollution is reduced, & the environment is protected. Instead of being a problem, waste pickers can be part of the solution to the seemingly intractable problem of collection and disposal of solid wastes. Waste pickers can be successfully integrated into formal SWM programs for the collection and recycling of solid wastes, as several cases in Asia and Latin America demonstrate. By supporting waste picker cooperatives, refuse collection could be extended at a low cost, creating jobs and benefiting low-income communities. As is usually the case in social development work for the very disadvantaged, resources is required over long periods and a requirement to become self-sustaining in a short time may be quite unrealistic.
REFERENCES
Alter, M. (2003). Rethinking the informal economy Seminar :November number 531 2003. Retrieved from http://www.india-seminar.com Agarwal, P. & Tripathi V. (2006). Poverty and Vulnerability among occupational groups in Lucknow. Unpublished Research, Oxfam India Trust, Lucknow. Aziz, A. (1984). Urban Poor and Urban Informal Sector: Ashish Publishing House, New Delhi 220
Baud, I. & Schenk, H. (1994). Solid Waste Management-modes, Assessments, appraisals and linkages in Bangalore. Manohar Publisher & Distributors, New Delhi. Census of India. (2001) Retrieved from www.censusindia.net Furedy, C. & Alamgir, M. (1992) Slum pickers in Calcutta slums, United Basti Development Association -UBDA, Calcutta Furedy, C. (October, 1992). Garbage: exploring non-conventional options in Asian cities. Environment and Urbanization. Vol. 4 (2). Gandy, M. (1994). Recycling and the politics of urban waste; Earth Scan Publications limited, London. Hayami, Y., Dikshit, A.K. & Mishra, S.N. (2003).Waste pickers and collectors in Delhi: Poverty and Environment in an Urban Informal Sector; FASID Discussion Paper on International Development Strategies no. 2003-004 Hunt, C. (1996). Child waste pickers in India: the occupation and its health risks Environment and
Urbanization.
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http://eau.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/2/111 Huysman, M. (1994). Waste picking as a survival strategy for women in Indian cities Environment and Urbanization. Vol. 6(2), 155-174. International Labour Office. (2002). Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture. Geneva. Kurian, J. (2002). Perspectives of Solid Waste Management in India paper presented at International Symposium on the Technology and Management of the Treatment & Reuse of the Municipal Solid Waste, Shanghai,China,
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Muller, M. & Laroui, Ir. F. Moningka, L. (2000). Community Participation in Solid Waste Management: factors affecting the sustainability of community participation. UWEP Occasional Paper. National Sample Survey Report 519. (2004-05). Informal sector and conditions of employment in India. Ministry of labour, Government of India (GOI). National Commission on Women Workers in the Informal Sector. (1998). Shramshakti report. Government of India (GOI). Rouse, J. & Ali, M. (2001). Waste pickers in Dhaka, Water Engineering and Development Centre, Loughborough University. Scheinberg, A. & Anschutz, J. (2006). Slim pickin’s: Supporting waste pickers in the ecological modernization of urban waste management systems, International Journal of Technology Management and Sustainable Development. Vol. 5 (3). Singh, S. (2005). The perils of rag picking. Unpublished Research, Oxfam India Trust, Lucknow. United Bastee Development Association. (1992). Historical Background of Rag picking in Calcutta & Socio-economic analysis of Solid Waste Management. Unni, J. & Rani, U. (November 2003). Seminar number 531. Gender, informality and poverty. Retrieved from http://www.india-seminar.com Venkateshwaran, S. (1994). The Wealth of waste: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, New Delhi.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Bromley, R. & Gerry, C. (1979). Casual work and poverty in third world cities; John Wiley & Sons, Brisbane.
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Furedy, C. (1993). "Working with the waste pickers: Asian approaches to urban solid waste management." Alternatives, Vol. 19( 2), pp. 18-23. Grafakos S., Baud I.S.A., Klundert A.,(December 2001). Alliances in Urban Environmental Management. Working document 14. Retrieved from www.waste.nl Klundert, A. & Anschiitz, J. (2000). The sustainability of alliances between stakeholders in waste management. UWEP working paper draft. Scheinberg, A. & Vreede, V.,(Ed). (2004). Integrated Sustainable Waste Management in Bangalore, UWEP Report. India Vol II Jose, A.V. (August 12 - August 18, 2006). Is legislation the Only Solution Economic and Political Weekly. Vol 41 (32). Retrieved from (http://www.epw.org.in/epw/uploads/articles/5129.pdf) Mitra, A. (June 25 – June 30, 2006). Size of Informal Sector Economic and Political Weekly Vol 41(25). Retrieved from (http://www.epw.org.in/epw/uploads/articles/2248.pdf) Drinkwater, M. & Frankenberger.
Maxwell, D. (2001). Operationalizing household livelihood security Timothy.
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DETAILS OF AUTHOR Vandana Tripathi Asst. Professor and Coordinator, Centre for Social Initiatives (CSI) Institute for Technology and Management (ITM), Navi Mumbai Contact Details: +91-9167636927,
[email protected] About the author: I completed my post-graduate degree in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and have a background and experience in developing and executing projects for sustainable urban development, writing and editing creative communication and building capacities of human resources engaged in the urban sector. My career started as a Programme Assistant in 2004, and subsequently grew to the level of Programme Coordinator handling a budget avenue of Rs. 50-70 lacs annually. From time to time I have also strived to update my knowledge and build my existing skill set participating in various capacity building events organized by global and local agencies. My engagement with Sahbhagi Shikshan Kendra (Lucknow) lasted beyond five years where my association with voluntary organizations enabled me to work effectively with their local communities and be able to tell their stories so that others – donors, volunteers and campaigners like me – could contribute in various capacities in making the world a better place. I actively led a team to develop strategies, produce communication material and implement campaigns that inspired actions from individuals, groups (Self Help Group, Elected Representatives etc) and institutions (government and non government) towards sustainable urban development. I explored and implemented tailor made capacity building strategies to build practical skills in organising communities for sustainable urban development. A strong component of research into local community needs and stakeholders’ motivation has always informed my work. In 2007, I was privileged to be chosen by CORDAID, a Dutch Funding Organisation based at The Hague, to pursue 3 months advanced diploma course in Urban Social Development. In the year 2008, I won a Dutch Government Scholarship, Netherlands Fellowship Programme (NFP)
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for a yearlong M.Sc programme in Urban environment and Infrastructure Management at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Currently I am one engaged as Asst. Professor with Institute for Technology and Management and discharge role of facilitator for CSR subject and give practical exposure to students through one month dedicated internship with NGOs pan India.
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DETERMINANTS INFLUENCING COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE UNDER PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS (PPPs): AN AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE
Quamrul Alam & Md Humayun Kabir
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DETERMINANTS
INFLUENCING
COLLABORATIVE
GOVERNANCE
UNDER
(PPPs) AN AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE
ABSTRACT Over the past two decades, private sector involvement in building large public infrastructure through public private partnerships (PPPs) has significantly increased in developed and developing countries. The implicit assumptions were that PPPs would increase quality in the public service delivery and reduce costs as private sector's operational efficiencies and managerial skills bring innovative management practices. Australian governments have been pursuing PPPs for infrastructure projects. Governments around Australia have recognised the importance of public and private sector collaboration that play an important role in building modern public infrastructure.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the operational aspects of one of the largest infrastructure projects 'East Link' in Victoria, Australia to demonstrate how the collaborative management approaches can be instrumental in designing an effective procedure to implement large infrastructure projects. Few management studies and literature have investigated how the management practices can be operationalized in large infrastructure projects to reduce costs and time. Understandably, the large number of stakeholders often with conflicting interests makes large infrastructure projects complicated to coordinate and manage. The paper investigates how collaborative governance model (CGM) provides better quality services through sharing of knowledge and information, managing risks, involving stakeholders with an innovative engagement regime to complete the project on time and on budget.
Our research findings reveal that the collaborative management practices that the East Link project management team developed clearly signifies that the extent of relationship between the stakeholders and the private party was a key determining factor for establishing a collaborative governance model based on mutual trust and respect between participating partners and key 227
stakeholders and aims to achieve a common target. This paper argues that a CGM model can ensure better quality to public service delivery system through private sectors' innovative managerial skills and expertise. Though completion of the project on time and on budget is crucial for a successful PPP arrangement, the role of effective and sustainable monitoring, reporting and performance measurement procedures to ensure accountability and transparency at the implementing stages of the East Link project was instrumental in creating a CGM.
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INTRODUCTION
Over recent decades, private sector involvement in building large public infrastructure through PPPs has significantly increased. The debate on the use of PPPs models centres on whether these models are better than conventional public management in terms of delivering public services in. The studies on PPPs mainly examine the efficacy of this approach through economic lenses, where time and cost savings have been emphasised. Few studies have investigated how management practices can be operationalized in large infrastructure projects to influence costs and timely delivery.
A broad academic literature has presented PPPs as a collaboration between public and private sectors entities (Hall, 2004, Hall and Kennedy, 2008, Ysa, 2007, McGuire, 2006).The main focus of this literature is on how to make this evolving collaborative partnership more workable and manageable (Ysa, 2007). Another school of thought highlights the contractual relationship between the public and the private sector to share risks and benefits through a long-term contract (Carroll and Steane, 2000, Bovaird, 2004, English and Baxter, 2010, Hodge and Greve, 2010, Hodge and Greve, 2007a). Advocates of both schools agree that PPP approaches may increase efficiency of public services by allowing both parties to share risks and benefits, and provide assets and services previously the sole responsibility of the public sector. But little attention has been paid to factors such as mutual trust between parties, sharing information, previous working experiences and the institutional framework, which are instrumental for the collaborative process. In particular, involving key stakeholders in this collaborative process has received minimal coverage in the literature.
Infrastructure projects have traditionally required higher levels of technical and managerial skills to deal with challenges and risks associated with projects; there has also been a wider recognition in the studies on Australian PPP projects around financial accountability (English, 2007). While Australian PPP initiatives have been most successful in attracting private finance for infrastructure, the issue of stakeholder involvement in the planning and implementing phases, and, more importantly, building trust among the clients and the providers, has been given little attention. In recent years, involving stakeholders in the management of PPPs has received 229
considerable attention. Since PPP projects involve a large number of stakeholders, lack of involvement may lead to a lack of citizen trust in infrastructure development through PPPs (Johnston, 2010). Johnston in his study on Sydney’s cross-city tunnel toll way suggests that ignoring the community’s opinions in the management of PPPs is a threat to ensuring governance in a toll way PPP project. Stakeholder involvement in the management of PPPs is crucial in building trustworthy relationships between major parties and stakeholders. Australian literature on PPPs has not adequately addressed the impacts of stakeholder participation in the management of PPPs.
Evidence from the literature also suggests that, despite the large volume of studies on risk allocation (Bennett and Iossa, 2006, Bloomfield, 2006, Corner, 2005, Edwards and Bowen, 2003, Edwards and Shaoul, 2003, Grimsey and Lewis, 2002b), little attention has been paid to empirical study of suitable strategies for managing risk in infrastructure projects. It is important to note that clearly specified roles and responsibilities of project parties, proper utilisation of resources through exchanging project-related information between participating parties, mutual trust, and involving key stakeholders may also play significant roles in managing risks. However, these factors have been neglected. Since 2000 the issue of governance has become an important topic in PPP studies (Koch and Buser, 2006, Raisbeck, 2008, Robinson et al., 2010, Wilson et al., 2010, Hodge and Greve, 2010). Transparency in the tendering process, disclosure of information regarding the Public Sector Comparator (PSC) and other contractual documents and, most importantly, key stakeholders’ participation has been highlighted in the literature (The Public Sector Comparator (PSC) is the technical construct developed to test whether PPP arrangements provide superior VfM compared to traditional procurement methods). Issues of governance have been discussed mainly from structural point of view, such as regulatory and institutional arrangements. This partially addresses the key aspects of collaborative governance. Collaborative governance is a combination of institutional and procedural governance. The impact of management practices on collaborative governance structure has not yet been investigated empirically. Therefore, despite the fact that the literature on infrastructure projects under PPPs has increased significantly over the past few years, there appears to have been a lack of emphasis on the management of PPPs that focuses on governance issues (transparency, accountability and stakeholder engagement). 230
This paper critically reviews the factors that are the likely determinants that influence management approaches and practices of infrastructure projects under PPPs. This paper mainly focuses on key issues of PPPs on which academics and practitioners have been debating to provide a theoretical explanation about the management approaches and its relationships with the governance of PPPs. Firstly, this paper reviews the existing debate on the nature of partnerships between the public and the private sector. Secondly, it examines the key determinants of management practices that affect the collaborative governance structure.
DEBATE ON THE NATURE OF PARTNERSHIPS In recent years, collaboration has become a cornerstone in the PPP debate. A broad body of thought has presented collaboration between public and private sector entities as an important process of partnership (Hall and Kennedy, 2008, Johnston and Gudergan, 2007, Klijn and Teisman, 2003, Ysa, 2007, McGuire, 2006, O'Flynn, 2009). Theoretically, collaboration refers to any joint activity by two or more organisations that intend to create public value by working together rather than individually (Wood and Gray, 1991). Wood and Gray further argue that this interactive process involves an autonomous group of rational actors who use shared rules, norms, or organizational structures to act or make collective decisions. Network building between different actors is also highlighted in the literature as a means of collaboration. Mohr (2004) views collaboration as a network of independent public and private actors who come together to form cooperative and interdependent working relationships to provide improved management skills and financial solutions. But the emergence of such networks has introduced a range of procedural issues, including, for example, how to share risks and benefits, how to build relationships and how to exchange information when two different organisations collaborate. These have not been critically examined. McGuire (2006) adds that this collaboration between two sectors is a process of managing relationships. McGuire further defines the collaborative management as ‘a concept that describes the process of facilitating and operating in multiorganisational arrangement in order to remedy problems that cannot be solved easily by a single organisation’ (McGuire, 2006). Head (2008) supports the argument that multi-organisational collaborations introduce a wide range of expertise, knowledge and resources facilitating innovative thinking about complex issues, which are common in PPP arrangements. The 231
specialised knowledge and skills to deal with complexities, along with the increased demand for state-market collaboration, have thus received considerable attention as the key factors for collaborative governance (Ansell & Gash, 2008). While the significance of the collaborative nature has been emphasised in the literature for providing flexibilities in PPPs, the importance of the role of contracting in the formation and operation of PPPs has also been recognised by another school of thought that mainly focuses on their legal and contractual aspects (Andrew and Cahill, 2009, Baxter and English, 2010, Hodge and Greve, 2007b, Hodge and Greve, 2010, Carroll and Steane, 2000). While these two schools of thought have their own explanations of the nature of PPPs, advocates from both sides agree that PPP approaches increase efficiency in the management of public services, allow both parties to share risks and benefits between them, and provide assets and services (Hodge and Greve, 2005, Regeczi, 2005, Zadek, 2008, Zarco-Jasso, 2005) which may previously have been the sole responsibility of the public sector. While there is a general consensus in the literature that collaboration offers benefits for achieving common goals (Kanter, 2002), a considerable number of researchers raise questions about the challenges and complexities of collaboration between participating actors (Milward et al., 2009, Thomson and Perry, 2006, Selsky and Parker, 2005, Weber and Khademian, 2008). Kanter(2002), for example, comments that the benefits of PPPs exceed the boundaries of contractual relationships and move towards a relationship marked by ‘collaboration’. Commenting on the challenges of collaboration, Selsky and Parker (2005) note that ‘when actors from different sectors focus on the same issue, they are likely to think about it differently, to be motivated by different goals, and to use different approaches’. Explaining the complexities, Thomson and Perry (2006) argue that organisations enter into collaborative agreements to achieve their own goals and expectations and for self-interested motives. Sharing ideas and exchanging information between multi-stakeholders are important initiatives for collaboration, but the diverse interests of stakeholders create complexities and challenges for collaboration. It is not surprising that PPPs are in many ways treated in the literature as straightforward contractual relationships between the public and the private sector (Carroll and Steane, 2000, Grimsey and Lewis, 2004). Due to the incomplete nature of contractual agreements, issues such as strategies for managing risks, stakeholder engagement, sharing information, and developing 232
trustworthy relationships between partners have not been appropriately explained in PPP literature. Collaboration is, therefore, an imperative which provides flexibilities for introducing mechanisms for reducing risks, encouraging innovation and enhancing cooperation between participating actors and stakeholders. The preceding literature provides legitimate arguments for the adoption of PPPs both as contractual and collaborative agreements. However, considering the evolving trends of PPPs, it must be acknowledged that the nature of relationships between the public and the private sector has significantly changed due to the complexities and uncertainties of PPP contracts in the last decade. It is important to note that there are, at least in theory, more interactions taking place between the public and private sectors and that ventures may last longer than the contractual agreement specifies. This is clearly a paradigm shift from efficiency, cost effectiveness and value for money (VfM) to more accountable and effective collaboration between these two distinct sectors (Wisa, 2008). The meaning of PPPs, whether they are contractual or collaborative in nature, is questioned by many in the context of long-term infrastructure-type PPP projects (Johnston, 2010, Wettenhall, 2007, Hodge and Greve, 2010). Supporters of the ‘contractual’ view argue that PPPs are longterm infrastructure type contracts. Whatever view one takes in this debate, it is assumed that the state’s dependency on the market has taken on a new configuration, moving from dependency to collaboration in which both parties collaborate to achieve common goals. The necessity of collaboration is thus a prerequisite for a long-term contractual agreement and long-term achievements. The links between a governance structure and the determinants that influence the management of PPPs have been inadequately addressed.
GOVERNANCE OF PPPs
In recent years, there has been robust scholarly debate on governance of PPPs (Hodge, 2010, Patel and Robinson, 2010, Johnston and Gudergan, 2007). The literature has highlighted aspects of governance such as transparency, accountability, reporting and monitoring structure, and stakeholder involvement in the management of PPPs. The concept of governance has been variously defined, for example, ‘new public governance’, ‘responsive governance’ and, with 233
partnerships, ‘collaborative governance’ (Ansell and Gash, 2008, Osborne, 2006, UNDP, 2008). The adoption of the governance paradigm implies a very wide range of institutional preconditions, such as transparent, accountable and impartial public institutions, a democratically elected parliament, freedom of speech, people’s access to public information and so on.Cheung (2005: 261) argues that governance as a concept goes beyond the issue of public management to address the more fundamental question of how to strengthen government and other institutions in society to help solve problems and meet challenges, entailing government-market, governmentsociety, and intra-government relationships. It also includes the formal and informal rules, social norms, and structures that govern relationships between organizations (Milward et al., 2009, Lynn et al., 2000). Governance is a mechanism in which a relationship between the process and structural factors for collaboration is fundamental.
From a PPP perspective, Koch and Buser (2006: 553) define governance as coordination, steering and control mechanisms, encompassing both structural and procedural elements. This definition emphasises institutional pre-conditions. Levitt, Henisz and Settel (2009) argue that mutual trust between participating parties and building relationships is another way to enhance project governability for PPPs. The collaborative governance, as argued by Ansell and Gash, is ‘a governing arrangement where one or more public agencies directly or indirectly engage nonstate stakeholders in a collective decision making process that is formal, consensus oriented and deliberative and that aims to make or implement public policy or manage public programs or assets’ (Ansell & Gash, 2008: 545). This definition encompasses three key elements: first, it is an arrangement between the public and the private sectors where they take decisions jointly; second, this arrangement is based on mutual understanding to achieve common goals; and, third, the purpose of this involvement is to provide public services or assets. Emerson et al. (2010: 2), on the other hand, define collaborative governance as ‘the process and structure of public policy decision making and management that engage people constructively across the boundaries of public agencies, levels of government, and/or the public, private and civic spheres in order to carry out a public purpose that could not otherwise be accomplished’. They provide an integrated framework that can be used to examine the governance model for PPPs. In this framework, they primarily focus is on macro aspects, especially institutional arrangements for collaborative
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governance. The impacts of micro aspects such mutual trust, roles and responsibilities, and engaging stakeholders have been overlooked as key elements for collaborative governance.
For PPPs, we define ‘collaborative governance’ as the relationships between the structural and process factors in which both the public and the private sector share risks and benefits, on the basis of mutual understanding in a transparent and accountable manner , by involving multiple and multilayer stakeholders. Recent literature emphasises the major characteristics of good governance in the public sector: transparency, accountability, participation, responsiveness, inclusion, consensus building, in addition to the rule of law and three ‘Es’ (efficiency, effectiveness and equity) (Pan, 2008). Australian PPP projects in the infrastructure sector have also paid increasing attention towards governance issues(Hodge, 2005, English, 2005). Infrastructure Australia (2010) identifies nine challenges for infrastructure projects. Among them, ‘deliver better governance’ through infrastructure projects is one of the leading challenges. This clearly indicates that the recent focus of PPPs has been shifted from efficiency and cost savings towards a more citizen-centric collaborative approach, where transparency, accountability, and citizen involvement have become prominent.
The issue of transparency in PPP arrangements has been brought into discussion in the literature (Mohr, 2004), as well as more generally within the state, because of the emergence of private sector organisations which deliver public services. This is because the increased use of PPP models in procuring large infrastructure has a number of significant consequences for government accountability. While the issue of transparency as a key element of governance has been emphasised in the literature (Sands, 2006), the focus has been narrowly centred on the contractual documents of PPPs. Sands (2006) notes that the ‘commercial confidentiality’ clauses of PPP documents are loopholes in project governance and it provides a safeguard for government in declining to details of the contract. Bloomfield, Westerling and Cary (1998) and Walker & Walker (2000)have branded PPPs as, respectively, ‘misleading accounting trickery’ and ‘wasteful and risky’. Grimsey and Lewis (2002a) and Hurst and Reeves (2004) also argue that disclosure of information about cash flow budgeting, and restrictions on disclosure of information about evaluation criteria
for measuring VfM, can be treated as obstacles to
transparency of PPP contracts. These studies emphasise that the disclosure of contractual 235
documents may be an important criterion for measuring transparency in the governance of PPPs. While there is a general consensus that disclosure of information in relation to contracts would ensure transparency in PPPs, there is also a need to devise mechanisms for ensuring transparency at the implementation stages.
A transparent and accountable relationship between actors and a well-designed performance and monitoring system require a well-developed participatory structure (Weihe, 2008). Therefore the roles and responsibilities of actors in terms of performance measurement, monitoring and reporting need to be specified so that actors can be well informed about their own responsibilities. A performance measurement and monitoring system that entails clear requirements agreed upon by participating actors can strengthen transparency by enforcing contract provisions if targets are not met.
There is a wide body of literature on public accountability (Acar and Robertson, 2004, Acar et al., 2008, Bovens et al., 2008, Hodge and Coghill, 2007), yet it remains unclear what accountability actually means in the management of PPPs. In theory, accountability often refers to a ‘simple system’ with hierarchical control, elected officials and ministerial responsibility (Bovens et al., 2008). It is argued that the traditional notion of accountability is challenged with the emergence of PPPs, which is considered an extension of NPM (Acar and Robertson, 2004, Bloomfield, 2006, Hodge and Greve, 2007b). This is because NPM diffuses political accountability by creating a gap between political decisions and the means of delivering public services (Collins and Butler, 2002). We therefore observe that the collaborative nature of PPPs has further widened this gap and has made public accountability mechanisms unworkable under PPPs. This, too, has not been adequately investigated in the literature. While most of the literature on PPPs has examined the concept of accountability at the contract negotiation stage, little has explored mechanisms for strengthening accountability in the management of PPPs Hence PPPs require a different form of accountability framework.
Demirag, Dubnick and Khadaroo(2004), in an extensive review of literature on accountability, found a relationship between accountability and VfM. They suggest four accountability contexts for the governance of PPPs: contractual accountability, parliamentary accountability, managerial 236
accountability, and communal accountability. Contractual accountability refers to preimplementation phases; parliamentary accountability does not directly apply in PPP arrangements. Demirag et al. suggest that distribution of roles and responsibilities between partners during the implementation stage can ensure managerial accountability, and that requires consultation with key stakeholders. Yet it is unclear how accountability can be ensured in the management of monitoring and reporting where one party has no hierarchical authority over the other. Similarly, in relation to accountability for PPPs, Acar et al. (2008) propose three accountability mechanisms that can be used in order to hold project parties accountable: community accountability, partner accountability and moral accountability. Community accountability and partner accountability relate to communal and managerial accountability, which are also proposed by Demirag et al. (2004). The third accountability standard relates to moral accountability, which reflects individual commitment of partners to serving the public good. While these views of Acar et al. and Demirag et al. have value-adding significance for an accountability framework for PPPs, how these mechanisms would be operationalized has not been addressed in the literature. The external control mechanisms through community accountability, and the criteria for distribution of roles and responsibilities between partners for managerial/partner accountability, need a well-developed structure.
Agranoff and McGuire (2003) argue that, due to the large-scale nature of PPP projects, exchange of project-related information between parties, frequent discussion and meetings with key stakeholders always play a significant role in reducing risks compared to traditional investment projects. These factors can increase the potential legitimacy of governance and thus can strengthen accountability. However, this view is strongly disputed. Bloomfield 2006); Coghill& Woodward (2005); Flinders (2005); Hood, Fraser, &McGarvey, (2006); and Shaoul, 2005) argue that PPP arrangements are an obstacle to realising public accountability. These studies basically raise concerns about hierarchical accountability in PPP practice. Proponents of these views contend that the lines of accountability become increasingly fragmented and segmented in PPPs. Coghill and Woodward (2005), for example, argue that in PPPs the direct control capacity of ministers is severely diminished; ministers are thus more reluctant to accept responsibility for delegated functions. They further claim that in PPPs the public sector tends to shift most risks to the private sector, and governments therefore have a tendency to avoid their responsibilities, 237
assuming that they can hardly be blamed for any failures in performance and efficiency in such projects (Coghill and Woodward, 2005). It is recognised that the PPP model encourages private sector involvement in providing public services by taking responsibility for almost all aspects of service delivery, but the public sector still retains accountability for essential aspects of those services provided (Quiggin, 2005). The notion here is that government cannot shift their responsibility to the private sector, even within the PPP arrangement.
While the preceding literature emphasises traditional accountability mechanisms, it understates the fact that by establishing an appropriate monitoring and reporting structure accountability may be ensured in PPPs. How to ensure accountability under PPPs remains a difficult question to many authors (Morth, 2007, Acar and Robertson, 2004, Acar et al., 2008, O'Toole, 1997), because there is no hierarchical relationship between participating parties. A horizontal accountability mechanism is required for an appropriate monitoring mechanism that can ensure accountability in a partnership arrangement.
A well-developed organisational structure through an appropriate reporting and monitoring mechanisms can ensure a transparent and an accountable relationship between actors (Weihe, 2008). Therefore the roles and responsibilities of actors in terms of performance measurement, monitoring and reporting need to be specified and agreed upon by participating actors. This entails setting clear requirements of the partnership, monitoring the performance of all parties, reporting the results, and enforcing contract provisions. It can be noted that collaborative governance depends on organisational and institutional context. The relationship between contextual factors and process factors may lead to development of a framework for a collaborative governance model. Successful completion of PPP projects depends on meeting the expectations of stakeholders. The notion of fulfilling stakeholders’ expectations is that this will give them full confidence that their involvement in the project has been valued (Stanford, 2000). This view seems to be based on Freeman’s (1984) seminal work, which focused on stakeholder impact on managing decisionmaking processes. Hence it is important to note that stakeholders can also influence the implementation process.
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A common criticism of PPPs is that they overlook the involvement of stakeholders who ultimately are affected or affect project outcomes (Hui and Hayllar, 2010), but it is a challenging task to engage stakeholders in the project-implementation stage. A lack of trust between project parties and other key stakeholders is a common phenomenon when state, market and other nonmarket actors work together (El-Gohary et al., 2006). The reason is, as Toor and Ogunlana(2010) argue, that different stakeholders have different objectives, interests and perceptions about the success of the project. The processes of involving stakeholders at different stages of PPP arrangements need to be investigated.
While literature on PPPs in Australia and elsewhere has not emphasised aspects of PPPs such as VfM, risk management and governance, neither practitioners nor policy makers in Australia have paid much empirical attention to the factors that affect the management practices in achieving the key objectives of PPPs. The degree to which the management practices of PPP arrangements has impacted on the success or failure of infrastructure projects has been subject to little empirical study. This paper seeks to identify the determinants that affect the management practices and governance issues such as transparency, accountability and stakeholder participation in managing the infrastructure projects.
THE EAST LINK CASE East Link is the largest infrastructure project ever constructed in Victoria, at a cost of $2.5 billion. In 2004, after a highly competitive bid process, Connect East (the main concessionaire) was awarded the contract to design, build, own and operate East Link for 39 years (SEITA, 2008). Thiess John Holland (TJH) was the design and construction contractor (D & C) who had a back to back contract with Connect East to design and build the road. Victoria has a history of establishing special purpose authorities for large infrastructure projects. This is not necessarily followed across Australia but in Victoria it has been a common practice. The Victorian government established South Eastern Integrated Transport Authority (SEITA) for the East Link project. The purpose was to provide necessary administrative and regulatory support for the project. One of the key benefits of this type of single purpose authority was not only to provide proper administration of the project, but also to encourage a higher level of confidence
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within the private sector that they were dealing with a body that was created with expertise from both the public and the private sectors to provide necessary support to the project. SEITA had four separate units (engineering, planning, legal and commercial, and communications) each with experienced managers to facilitate the project. The uniqueness of the PPP contract in Victoria is that, unlike in other states in Australia, there was a provision in the contract for an Independent Reviewer (IR), who had a direct contractual relationship with the state and Connect East, but had no contractual obligation with the design and construction (D&C) company. The IR’s main responsibility was to certify whether the work had been completed in accordance with the specifications in the contract. There were also a proof engineer (PE) who was appointed by Connect East and the D & C contractor to supervise and monitor the progress of the project. East Link was intended to be an un-tolled road. However, at a later stage, the state government changed its policy. This created community outrage and controversy about the toll decision. Thus both the public and private parties had to take measures to convince community members and users to support or at least accept the project. Connect East designed and implemented a comprehensive project plan for fostering community involvement and provided feedback throughout the construction and operation phases. Under this plan, they regularly consulted with the community, developing links with councils, local members of the parliament, environmental groups and other important stakeholders. The project management team put all necessary information in the public domain to ensure transparency. During the construction phase, a number of consultative groups comprising both the public and the private sector were established to provide regular and up-to-date information to the community about progress on the delivery of the project and to obtain community feedback. East Link was completed on budget and five months ahead of schedule. It opened to traffic on 29 June 2008 (Partnerships Victoria, , 2009). This study used a case study method through a qualitative approach which allowed for a richer and more distinct account of respondents’ opinions, attitudes and experiences than other research methods(Merriam, 1998, Neuman, 2000). In addition, it allowed participants to speak of their experiences in their own terms and in their own words, which is common with qualitative approaches. This meant relying on rich, broad description and quotes from interview transcripts 240
(Hollinshead, 2007, Strauss and Corbin, 1998). In partnership research, it is important that we continue to hear multiple stakeholder voices through learning and listening to others’ views (Jamal and Getz, 1995, Selin and Chavez, 1995). A semi-structured interview guide (Minichiello et al., 2008) was used to help participants reflect on the benefits and challenges of the partnerships. The main source of data collection was through semi-structured interviews, but secondary materials such as published government documents and reports, reports by private consultants and newspaper articles were also used as important sources of data, as is appropriate in a qualitative research approach (Boyne, 2003:337). Data were gathered through face-to-face interviews, using semi-structured questions with important stakeholders such as senior policy makers from the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance, project managers from the public and the private sector, local council officials and community groups. The questions were devised to understand the key issues of collaborative management model and to identify a wide range of opinions about the various features of this model used in the implementation of the largest toll way in Victoria, Australia. Content analysis was used as the analytical technique for data analysis, using NVivo software. By analysing the transcribed data we have identified seven constructs as pillars of collaborative governance model.
DETERMINANTS OF COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE MODEL
Institutional arrangements Regulatory support through appropriate institutional arrangements is one of the key determinants that affect the management practices of PPPs in achieving common objectives. The necessity of an appropriate organisational structure through institutional arrangements was highlighted by senior managers of the East Link Project. The institutional arrangements of the East Link case reflect the fact that the government of Victoria recognised the significance of a single-focused government entity and took an early initiative to create SEITA under a separate Act to facilitate the project. Most interviewees stressed the significance of the state’s institutional support. The organisational structure of SEITA was such that it operated as a single point within the 241
Department of Transport but separate from the authoritative direction of the Department in order to facilitate the project. This assisted faster decision making when it was required.
The East Link case also reveals that the organisational structure and the role of SEITA as a ‘onestop service’ was of particular significance for improving the governance of collaborative activities by creating legitimate organisational units at the implementation level that helped overcome traditional bureaucratic obstacles. Proactive support from the government through a single-focused government agency assists the project management team to unlock traditional bureaucratic obsessions and helps speed up decision making processes, which is an essential element for collaboration in a PPP. Appropriate institutional arrangements through organisational structure play an important role in facilitating PPPs. Oliver (1992) argues that institutions focus more on legitimate process and procedures to increase organisational efficiency and legitimacy. In the East Link case the legitimate authority of SEITA assisted in solving many project-related issues which otherwise would not have been resolved. In particular, dealing with local government agencies like city councils and providing regulatory support to make land available for construction works on time were instrumental for early project completion. Private sector participants indicated there had been challenges in accommodating demands from local city councils and other service providers. There were local government agencies (12 city councils), water, electricity and gas provider companies and a large number of businesses within the project scope area. These agencies and community members had their own interests in the project. City councils wanted to ensure better facilities and benefits for their communities; utility providers were concerned about relocation of their service lines so that business was not hampered; and business communities were looking for suitable entry and exit points at different points along the route in order to transport goods. Hence this created risks of interruption in relation to constructing the 39 kilometre road facility. But the authority of SEITA ensured that such interruptions either did not often occur or, where they did, SEITA resolved them. In that context, project-specific legislation gave SEITA statutory authority to resolve such problems. P-13 from the private sector highlighted SEITA’s role in providing regulatory support in dealing with local government agencies: 242
I think we had to deal with some ten to twelve city councils to get various kinds of permission to start the construction work. So it was much easier for us to get that permission because of SEITA. So the state put in place legislation, an act and regulation so that Connect East as the owner of the facility could start the project on time.
The project management procedure that the East Link project team developed through organisational means suggests that SEITA was able to cut through much traditional bureaucratic red tape which otherwise the private parties would have had to confront. Public official P-3 commented: I think the structural model we used throughout the process helped move out a number of issues which would have otherwise been potential stumbling blocks through the delivery process.
To build East Link was a huge task. The interviewees indicated (section 5.4) that, in order to respond to the complexities of the construction works, various functional units were created under the organisational structure of SEITA, Connect East and TJH. The findings of the East Link case reveal that, at the very beginning of the project, SEITA divided its own functional responsibilities for facilitating the project by creating four separate units with relevant authority, and clearly specified the roles and responsibilities of each functional unit to supervise, monitor, and coordinate construction. According to the contract, SEITA did not have responsibility for dealing with external stakeholders, but organisational flexibilities allowed SEITA in fact to deal with stakeholders such as city councils, road users and other non-state organisations. This was a management technique that required organisational units to align with project goals, since possible ongoing community outrage was a concern because of the decision to build East Link as a toll road. In order to achieve their common goals, all project parties followed a similar strategy in designing the organisational structure and emphasising appropriate organisational arrangements. To design, build and monitor the construction the D&C Company established separate design,
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architectural, engineering and communication units within its organisational structure. Similarly, despite Connect East having a back-to-back contract with TJH to design and construct East Link, Connect East also created separate organisational units in design and engineering, finance, communications and legal and commercial to monitor and supervise the performance of the D&C contractor in relation to project completion. Commonality in designing organisational structure is helpful for taking a collaborative approach. Hence the organisational arrangements of all project parties helped develop a collaborative approach within and between organisations, which is essential for successful completion of PPP projects (Nisar, 2007). The creation of different functional units within the organisational structure of participating parties and distribution of tasks among functional units create a culture of sharing project-related information and promote stable interactions that reinforce collaboration between organisational units. A statement by a participant from the communication wing of SEITA, P-5, explained the benefits of interactions between organisational units: There were times when we had difficulties with the facility providers in relation to relocating their services. The communication unit in SEITA dealt with these stakeholders. But the problem was related to construction. So we discussed these issues with our engineering unit and then they coordinated these matters with the design and construction company and solved it. Continuous interactions between organisations and within organisational units offered a new perspective on shared problems in a collaborative way; this is not possible in a purely contractual relationship. The organisational structure, creation of several units within the organisation’s boundary, and the distribution of roles and responsibilities to respective units helped organise resources and capabilities to respond to challenges in the fastest possible time. This increased efficiency, strengthened coordination between different organisational units, and saved time. The findings of the East Link case study further extend the argument that these organisational arrangements also improve inter and intra-organisational collaboration and the problem-solving capacity of participating parties. Scott (1995) argues that the structure of an organisation is not only influenced by rules and regulations (regulative pillars), but is also influenced by the goals and objectives (normative pillars) that shape the structure of organisations. Williamson (1985), taking an economic view, considers that the impacts of institutions on governance structure 244
affect the efficiency of an organisation. Transaction cost theory and institutional theory lie on two ends of the continuum, because the former focuses on efficiency (Williamson, 1985), while the latter focuses on legitimacy (Oliver, 1992). The findings from East Link drew together the notions of legitimacy and efficiency and demonstrated the importance of both legitimacy and efficiency of institutional arrangement for PPPs. The institutional and organisational arrangements of all participating parties in East Link were aligned with the common objective of early completion. This clearly demonstrates that a combination of normative and regulative pillars has a significant impact on project success in terms of cost and timely delivery. Hence the findings of the current study provide an extended explanation of the institutional theory proposed by Scott (1995), who argues that the regulative and normative pillars can provide a framework in which social relations can develop. From a governance perspective, the findings of the EastLink case extend the arguments put forward by Robinson et al. and Wilson et al. Robinson, Carrillo, Anumba and Patel (2010) and Wilson, Pelham and Duffield (2010) emphasise the necessity of institutional arrangements that play a significant role in the context of PPP projects. Citing a case study on a PPP, Robinson et al. (2010) argue that the creation of an appropriate organisational structure, project units and project teams, together with control and monitoring mechanisms, assist the planning and implementation of such a project. Similarly, Wilson et al. (2010) argue that institutional arrangements provide flexibilities for participating parties for PPP project governance. Both Robinson et al. (2010) and Wilson et al. (2010) focus on the structural governance of PPP projects, suggesting that organisational structure through rules and regulations and control mechanisms can ensure project governance. But collaborative governance is a combination of structural and process factors (see Chapter 2). Robinson et al. and Wilson et al. have not shed light on the importance of process factors. The current study argues that, in order to encourage flexibilities, innovative ideas and relationship building, continuous coordination and exchange of information between organisations and within organisational units is required. There also needs to be the development of informality within the formal structural relationships between the various organisations. Both Robinson et al. and Wilson et al. highlight the structural aspect of governance and offer a partial view of what is required for a collaborative governance structure for PPPs. The East Link case demonstrates that all participating parties must not only create the necessary organisational structure with supporting functional units, but also encourage regular 245
formal and informal meetings between and within organisations, and openness in sharing information. These make the institutional arrangements collaborative, workable and effective. The evidence from the two cases reveals that establishing organisational arrangements is not sufficient for successful implementation of a PPP. Proactive government support, participating organisation responses to flexibility in organisational arrangements, and interaction and coordination between and within organisational units are equally important for ensuring that structural governance has been put in place as one of the important paradigms of a collaborative governance structure for PPPs.
Reporting and Monitoring Mechanisms A strong monitoring and reporting regime was established for ensuring quality and strengthening accountability in the management of East Link. In PPPs, though the contractual relationship is between the state and a concessionaire, there are other parties involved in the project: the D&C contractor, the operator, the financier and other sub-contractors. In the East Link case, all participating parties had their own resources and capabilities to monitor the progress and quality of construction works. On behalf of the state, SEITA had the authority to monitor the progress of construction. The private party had its own PE to monitor the quality of construction. Overall, the IR had the responsibility to monitor the design and progress of construction. A common assumption in PPP arrangements is that ensuring accountability is problematic, since there is no hierarchical relationship between project parties. Hodge and Greve (2010) state that long-term infrastructure projects encompass different accountability mechanisms; they also question whether accountability in a PPP improves in any real sense. Similarly, Forrer et al. (2010) argue that the structural nature of the PPP model creates difficulty for ensuring accountability. Unlike the traditional public management approach, ideally PPPs do not have a vertical accountability structure. The lines of accountability in PPPs are completely different from traditional public accountability procedures. While the literature on PPPs emphasises the difficulties of accountability practices, it has not yet proposed mechanisms for ensuring accountability during the implementation phase. Public sector interviewees indicated that the adoption of the public interest test in the PV policy was considered a mechanism for justifying PPP projects, to determine whether they achieved accountability, transparency and how they 246
impacted on communities. But there are no measurement tools to assess whether and how the public interest has been served after completion of a PPP project. We argue that accountability mechanisms that the East Link developed provided a clear chain of accountability which modified the traditional accountability mechanism for PPPs, but retained a strong position for the state in making the private parties accountable. This paper examines how proper distribution of roles and responsibility between partners can ensure managerial accountability. The East Link case provides an extended explanation of a managerial accountability structure developed for managing the project . The management style developed by the East Link project team is a unique example of a ‘3D monitoring’ mechanism that ensured the progress and quality of construction works. The progress of construction in the case of East Link was monitored by three different entities: SEITA, the IR and PE. SEITA had a separate wing to supervise and monitor construction despite its contract with the IR for this purpose. The D&C contractor and Connect East had a PE to monitor the quality of construction. Overall, the IR was responsible for monitoring the quality and progress of construction according to the specification in the contract. The monitoring procedure developed in the case of East Link was a systematic review of the integrity of the D&C contractor’s quality assurance checks. The 3D monitoring structure developed by East Link project management teams was an indirect accountability mechanism to make the D&C contractor accountable. This tri-dimensional management approach ensured better quality and strengthened accountability of each party. The notion of strengthening accountability in PPPs has been contested in the literature. Coghil and Woodward (2005) and Hood and Mcgarvey (2006) argue that, although governments are able to shift risk to a private party, they remain responsible for whatever consequences a project faces.. The East Link case clearly demonstrated that, through establishing proper monitoring mechanisms, accountability in terms of quality and timely delivery was ensured through a horizontal accountability structure. As the IR said:
We monitor the design to satisfy ourselves that it addresses all the project requirements, then we monitor construction for overall general reasonable checking and inevitably will be anything that are not right…. We monitored their review processes carefully and there were times when we had to take actions to make sure that they strengthened their review 247
processes, because ultimately we didn’t want to duplicate what they were doing, we didn’t want to delay the progress of construction, but at the same time wanted to maintain the quality and standard specified in the contract.
This clearly reflects the comprehensiveness of the monitoring procedure in the case of East Link. Connect East prepared a monthly report for SEITA on the basis of the IR’s and PE’s reports. The project manager of the main concessionaire stated that the D&C Company had to provide the updated and detailed program on the development of construction every month. The project team reviewed the latest available program and the IR’s and PE’s opinions to assess the progress. Apart from this, there were regular monthly meetings where the IR submitted regular monthly reports to the Senior project group (SPG) on the progress and quality of the project. These arrangements clearly demonstrated that through proper monitoring mechanisms a PPP can strengthen accountability.
The role of the IR was to make the D&C contractor quality assurance system accountable. Respondents indicated that there were differences of opinion between the D&C contractor and the IR on many issues but they all sat down together and resolved them. The IR highlighted any concern about the construction works. The D&C contractor would attend the meeting and it was obliged to respond to any concern raised by the IR. The IR further described the accountability mechanisms in obliging the D&C contractor to ensure quality of construction: [TJH] could disagree with what we had said, but in that case we invited them to prove that our reporting was wrong, if they could. It was very transparent. We could lay every evidence in front of them to support our point on any concern. It was an open and faceto-face discussion; there was lots of pressure exerted. We were very lucky that we had digital cameras so everything was photographed with the date and time and it clearly reflected what went wrong. So the evident was compelling.
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The following figure shows the reporting arrangements introduced by the project management team of East Link.
STATE
SEITA
SPG
IR
CONNEC T EAST PE
VE D&C
Figure: -1 Reporting structure of the East Link project The reporting structure (Figure1) of East Link project revealed that, although there was no hierarchical relationship between the IR and the PE, the PE was indirectly accountable to the IR. The reason was the payment of the PE depended on the IR’s report. On the other hand, the IR was accountable to SEITA and Connect East because the IR was appointed by them to monitor and supervise the progress and quality of the design and construction works, but the IR was also independent and the D&C contractor had no control over the IR’s report. There was no opportunity for the D&C contractor to influence the IR. This made a huge difference in terms of ensuring quality of construction and strengthening accountability of the management practices developed by the project team.
The reporting
structure also demonstrated that accountability can be ensured in PPPs even without hierarchical relationships between participating parties. The D&C contractor was accountable to SEITA through the IR and Connect East, despite the form of contractual relationships between them. The problem of hierarchical accountability is that it provides little incentive to participating 249
parties (Schillemans, 2011) in a complex arrangement like a PPP. The horizontal accountability mechanism developed in the case of East Link demonstrates effective remedies for the perceived accountability deficit in PPP arrangements and diffuse traditional accountability mechanisms, despite the lack of hierarchical relationships between parties. In line with a formal monitoring structure, the East Link case suggests that a streamlined reporting structure through regular formal and informal meetings strengthens the accountability mechanisms for PPPs. The transparency of responsibilities of each monitoring agency ensures that accountability can be strengthened in managing project implementation. The implications of the horizontal reporting and monitoring structure of the East Link case demonstrate how to overcome accountability deficit even without formal relationships. The East Link parties did not replace the existing accountability structure; rather they augmented, modified and enhanced it to fit with the PPP arrangement through a horizontal accountability structure. Therefore, instead of a hierarchical mechanism system, they introduced a horizontal accountability model. This strengthened accountability of participating parties and ensured better quality through extensive monitoring mechanisms. Co-creating capabilities The success of constructing infrastructure projects under PPP models depends on the capabilities of both the public and the private sector. In managing the East Link project all project parties recruited the best/skilled persons for various organisational units to manage the project. The importance of gathering required skill, knowledge and experience was highlighted by the interviewees. The management procedures of the East Link case demonstrated that the participating parties took initiatives to synergise required capabilities for completion of the project. The public sector participant’s commercial and legal capabilities were less available, despite the presence of technical and engineering skills within SEITA. But in order to have those skills to facilitate the project, SEITA hired external experts for its legal and financial wings. The findings of the East Link case revealed that the capabilities of most of the engineers and project managers derived from long experience working with PPP projects. Previous experience working on similar projects was an intangible capability for understanding the key aspects and issues involved in a road infrastructure project. Hence selecting and recruiting skilled and experienced people was a key factor that was instrumental for understanding the methodology of project 250
management. This gave the project managers an opportunity to transfer experience and knowledge from one project to another and to successfully apply that capability to deal with construction issues. The capabilities of project managers assisted in increasing efficiency and saved time in construction. Connect East followed a strategy to best equip itself with capable people. Therefore, for their organisational units, they selected ex-Vic Roads engineers who had working experience on other PPP projects. Most importantly, the IR, the PE and the VE were all former VicRoads engineers. The recruitment strategies followed by all project parties signify that the participating parties gave high priority to creating a pool of the best skilled persons for the project. Pooling managerial capabilities brings a wide range of expertise, knowledge and creative ideas to the management practices of PPPs. Hence this improves quality and enhances efficiency in construction, and this had a direct impact on project completion. Strong financial capabilities of the private sector are another important factor in achieving project objectives, especially in relation to early completion, because of private sector’s ability to marshal financial resources. One of the project directors of the D&C contractor stated that at some stages they were spending over a $100 million a month to speed up construction works, and there was no project that Vic Roads had ever undertaken in that timeframe. The operational value chain that the East Link project team devised was that, by having a capable private party (consortia), it was possible to marshal and logistically organise tangible and intangible resources for the completion of the project. In the case of East Link, building the tunnel under Mullum Mullum Valley was a complex task. The D&C Company invested a huge amount of capital to employ the best technical know-how and recruited people with experience who had been involved in building the City Link tunnel. The engineers used their previous experience and innovative ideas into construction, which assisted building the tunnel on time and without major complexities. The technical capabilities, along with financial resources, encouraged innovative ideas in public service delivery systems which also improved the efficiency level and quality of services. The capacity of parties to collaborate effectively does not depend on the financial and technical capabilities of participating parties. The evidence from the East Link project suggests that the dynamic capability that the management team had in acquiring and employing resources 251
synergistically was a key factor. The private sector invested financial resources to hire skilled persons from the market; the public sector, conversely, assembled experienced people from both the public and the private sectors to ensure that the state had the required capabilities available. The co-investment of managerial and technical skills, laid the foundation for successful project completion.
Risk Management through Task Distribution The underlying assumption is that the private sector is best able to manage risks due to its innovative technical and managerial capabilities as well as its financial resources. Quiggin (2004) argues that appropriate risk allocation between participating parties is one of the key elements for such projects. Cheung et al. (2009) similarly hold that transferring the design and construction risks from the public to the private sector offers certainty in timely completion. Identification of risks is a key factor in managing risks. Quiggin and Cheung et al. highlight the significance of contractual provisions for transferring and allocating risks from the public to the private sector, but they have not shed light on how to manage those allocated risks during the implementation stages. In the East Link case there was coherence between the identification and allocation of risks. The project management team sought to identify in advance the risks related to construction. The risk management strategy adopted in East Link was that all parties allocated project-related risks before the actual construction. The implication for such identification of risks before the construction was that major parties knew about risks that they would have to manage. The open and clear distribution of tasks assisted all participating parties to have an idea of the nature of risks and the capabilities required for mitigating those risks. While Gil and Beckman (2009) argue that mega-infrastructure projects are highly likely to suffer cost overruns because of unpredictable nature of risks, the findings from the East Link project suggest that the nature or size of the project does not lead to risk; rather this depends on the way risks are managed. This risk management strategy of early identification helped the East Link project management team to develop an appropriate strategy for managing risks.
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The project management team of East Link clearly identified risks, allocated them according to capabilities of participating parties, and managed them by effectively through distribution of roles, tasks and responsibilities between partners. All project parties knew their respective roles and responsibilities, because it was transparent and agreed upon as to who would take what type of responsibilities in managing the allocated risks. This risk management strategy increased efficiency in project management, saved time and cost, and built trust relationships between participating parties. The technique that the project management team for East Link incorporated into their strategy proved to be invaluable during the construction phase. The project management teams of East Link divided their tasks and responsibilities, and broke down different sections into different regions along the 39 kilometre road. There were five sections; each section was like a mini-project. There were project directors, on-site design teams, and project community groups – all coordinated by a central project group. This construction strategy and the management plans of dividing the whole construction area into smaller segments enhanced co-operation, increased information sharing and facilitated dispute resolution, and, more importantly, greatly saved time and cost. The strategy of risk management practices in the case of East Link demonstrated that challenges can successfully be addressed through distributing roles and responsibilities between participating parties. This collaboration between partners enables them to share resources to solve challenges or create opportunities that neither could address individually. The distribution of roles and responsibilities between projects had significant impacts on efficiency. The coordination between different segments increased mutual understanding about the complexities of the works, saved time, and reduced costs by co-creating value. A participant (P-13) from the D&C Company commented on the benefits of this risk management strategy: Although we had separate groups, there was lots of sharing of information between the smaller project teams. The design groups, the construction groups and the community groups had a number of meetings on different occasions. For example, how could they reduce noise level, how could they manage the huge amount of dust etc. There was one central design team, but when you get into construction, there will be a number of modifications and changes of design that would be done on-site and sent back to the 253
central design team. It was team effort. We divided up the work into obvious concerns we each had but shared what we were doing.
This synchronised risk management strategy through distribution of roles and responsibilities between parties helped the smooth functioning of the construction phase. This management strategy also provided a sense of belonging to the parties, and developed a strong commitment towards fulfilling each participant’s own responsibility, which is a key factor for collaboration. The evidence from the East Link case clearly demonstrates that there are many factors that assist in the management of risks. The East Link project team successfully applied the contractual terms to reality thorough developing a risk-watch list to identify risks prior to construction as an effective process for risk management. This is not to argue that private sector involvement through PPPs changes the fundamental risks involved in major infrastructure project delivery. Organisational arrangements with flexibilities and pro-active support from the government ensure private sector efficiency and innovative ideas that inject better management ideas, leading to project success which co-created value by proving solutions.
Sharing Knowledge and Information Knowledge and information management have become important factors in the management of PPPs. This is because the public and private sectors bring different ideas, experiences, and skills to PPP arrangements. Distribution of information and managing project-related knowledge between partners are keys to successful completion of a PPP project.. Most of the participants from East Link indicated that the process of sharing knowledge and information between project parties and also between project parties and the multi stakeholders played a key role for the successful delivery within time and budget. Formal-informal meetings between participating parties are the means of exchanging information at which project managers shared information. It gives both parties a share in any complex issue in relation to construction works. It is indeed a valid argument that the exchange of information between participating parties assists both parties in identifying possible risks. Information sharing within the organisational unit increases coordination between different organisational 254
units. Regular meetings, weekly and monthly, between the parties appeared to be the key tools for sharing ideas and information. In addition, there were informal meetings where all parties discussed construction-related issues and shared ideas. The exchange of ideas and information helped project managers to access new ideas for solving many problems which had emerged and this assisted timely project completion. The regular meetings were not just a formal forum of discussion issues. Most participants indicated that these meetings were common platforms where project parties exchanged construction related information, views and ideas. Hence both public and private sector managers improved their project management skills through sharing knowledge. Cross-sectoral knowledge sharing helps develop innovative ideas, fleshes out solutions to daily problems, and enhances learning across partners (O'Flynn, 2007). This also enhanced their managerial knowledge and skill base. A project manager from SEITA agreed: We are seeing evidence now that, because of the PPP approach, management practices in terms of planning, implementation, contract management in the traditional public management system have improved considerably. So public managers are learning from that experience. We are seeing the improvement in public service delivery. For example, some of the road works undertaken by VicRoads, the planning, construction methodologies and management of projects has significantly improved.
This comment highlights the fact that transfer of knowledge had a direct impact on the efficiency level in the public sector, which has encouraged the public sector to apply lessons learned through knowledge transfer. Hence the East Link case suggests that the exchange of projectrelated information between public and private sector organisations enhances the in-house knowledge base of public managers. The findings reveal that public sector managers transferred new skills and knowledge to deal with complex PPP project management issues. The prior experience of project managers and transfer of knowledge from one PPP project to another increased the managerial capabilities of the project managers. Most importantly, sharing information between major parties created a culture of working together with less bureaucratic procedural formalism and more outcome-focused negotiation and consultation, which significantly increased the efficiency at the implementation level. The collaborative governance 255
model requires relationship architecture to share knowledge and information through effective participation from all parties. Exchange of project-related information and sharing knowledge are the keys to the collaborative management model. While the literature mainly focuses on the benefits of transfer of knowledge and information only between project parties (Carlile, 2002, Weber and Khademian, 2008), exchange of information between project parties and key stakeholders also plays an important role in reducing risks. The East Link case demonstrated extensive interactions and information sharing as a mechanism for reducing risk of project implementation. The findings from East Link highlight the issue of community outrage that arose from the toll decision by the government. Therefore it was a challenge for the project parties to convince various stakeholders, including the community members. Distribution of information among multi-stakeholders appears to be a key tool for managing stakeholders. All participating parties provided information to the multi-stakeholders in relation to the construction, its impacts and benefits. This appears to be a strategy of convincing multi-stakeholders in favour of a toll road and a way to minimise any possible outrage that might arise from stakeholder dissatisfaction. The private parties allocated separate funds to provide necessary information by distributing leaflets, posters and other means of media to keep the community and other multi-stakeholders informed about the project. SEITA also provided their expertise to the private parties on how to deal with local councils and community groups. Hence it helped reduce risk of resistance from key stakeholders which would otherwise have been a threat to the project. Sharing project-related information in a transparent way built a trust worthy relationship between project parties and stakeholders. Hence it can be argued that sharing of knowledge and information always has a positive impact on the project outcome. The strategy of this management approach suggests that collaboration between partners was not just co-investment of capital; it was a co-investment of knowledge and experience to co-create value.
The benefits of information sharing that also help build strong relationships between parties. It can therefore be argued that the PPP unlocks the long-traditional dichotomy between the public and private sector through openness and fearless exchange of project-related knowledge and information and also builds trust between them. All parties applied their collective wisdom 256
through collaborative efforts and this collaborative partnership approach by both parties made the management system more intuitive and effective.
Informality in Relationships Government’s role and proactive support in managing PPPs always have a significant impact on project outcomes. Weihe (2008) argues that the recent trend in PPPs is more of a collaborative approach between the public and the private sector. The East Link case demonstrated that SEITA created a strong culture to ensure that it was not a regulatory body sitting up at the top and making criticisms like a watchdog. To facilitate faster decisions, SEITA introduced many informal meetings within the formal arrangements to ensure that the state retained a strong connection down to the D&C contractor as well as to the concessionaire. SEITA worked very much in collaboration with the participating parties, even though there was clearly quite a strong formal contractual agreement between the parties. The East Link case demonstrates that all participating parties were able to build a common platform, which was to complete the construction works within the timeframe and budget. This suggests that consensus on achieving common objectives of all participating parties helped to overcome conflict of interests, which is prevalent in principal-agent relationships. Hence the collaborative mind-set of both parties set examples of fostering a collaborative culture through developing informal relationships, which strengthened coordination and simplified the contractual relationship. A culture of trust and knowledge sharing evolved, facilitating the development of a collaborative governance structure. The management practices in the East Link case were such that they allowed all project parties to attend regular monthly meetings even without there being a contractual relationship between them. Vic Roads did not have contractual relationships with any of the project parties, they used to attend the formal and informal meetings regularly because saw the benefits of building relationships with Vic Roads. The reason, as highlighted by both the CEOs of SEITA and Connect East, was that two years after the completion of the project, Vic Roads would take over the role of SEITA. Therefore the relationship would be between Vic Roads and Connect East for the next 35 years. Hence the collaborative mind-set of both parties set examples of fostering a collaborative culture through developing informal relationships which strengthened coordination 257
and simplified the contractual relationship. A culture of trust and knowledge sharing evolved, facilitating the development of a collaborative governance model. The collaborative management approach that the East Link project management teams employed suggested that the proactive support of major parties, flexibilities, and sharing project-related information between parties and informal relationships within the formal contractual relationships made the contract more collaborative in nature and thus helped avoid many complexities which are common in contractual relationships. The informality in the relationship engendered trust and assisted in avoiding harmful conflict which helped faster decision-making. Pro-active support by the government and informal relationships between the public and the private sector facilitate and expedite construction. This was acknowledged by the Connect East CEO: although SEITA was established to facilitate and manage the project, its role was not that of a ‘watchdog’; rather, it was positive in responding to issues, and this created mutual respect and trust between the parties. The private consortia greatly appreciated the creation of this single purpose entity, which helped reduce bureaucratic complexities, saved time and ensured faster decision making on issues raised during the construction phase. A senior project manager from Connect East commented:
We would have [had] to seek approval from 200 separate government units if SEITA did not exist. SEITA was not a typical government bureaucracy; rather they had a commercial attitude as well. In relation to support, [what] SEITA had provided was outstanding.
The East Link project management teams developed a culture of informal meetings within the formal contractual relationship. This culture of informality created the ground for strengthening trustworthy relationships between parties. One of the significant findings of the East Link case demonstrated that mutual trust between participating parties is a key factor in building a collaborative relationship. This trust relationship allowed both parties to share risks and avoid unexpected project outcomes. A study of a PPP hospital project in Victoria by Sciulli(2008) raises concern about trust building. The empirical evidence and factors in relation to developing 258
trust relationships between partners presented in the current study proposes the mechanisms for trust building. The East Link case demonstrates a means of developing informal relationships between participating parties and this is a tool to develop trust. The project management teams had regular monthly meetings between partners in accordance with the contract, but also extensive weekly informal meetings involving key managers. As part of its coordinated feedback meetings and a live-line contact, East Link project team members introduced a culture of ‘coffee’ meetings every Monday morning throughout the construction period for all participating parties. This informal meeting built a strong relationship between them and helped solve many issues before these were placed on a formal agenda. Although the D&C company had no contractual relationship with SEITA, a company representative was also invited to the meetings so that they could understand both the concessionaire’s and the state’s expectations. This project management technique of allowing participation of parties outside the formal contractual boundary generated an informal relationship between the major contracting parties and other sub-contractors. Formal-informal meetings between project parties and stakeholders, weekly ‘coffee meetings’, and informal communication between major parties give better insights into how a trust relationship is built. Most respondents indicated that all participating parties felt comfortable when they had an issue to ring their counterparts and elicit their thoughts.
The significant finding of the East Link case is the importance of strong trust between participating parties and other key stakeholders that they developed together. This brings longterm tangible benefits to the project. It is not a co-investment of financial capital but rather of social capital. Trust is a function that generates a culture of co-investment in terms of ideas, sharing knowledge and building relationships. The East Link experience reveals that mutual trust between participating parties synthesises collaborative efforts, and this reduces the amount of formal relationship and harmful conflict between partners. The project management approach of East Link provides a new benchmark as to how a large project can be implemented on time and on budget through developing a trust relationship between project parties and key stakeholders.
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Managing Stakeholders For the East Link case we found that project managers from both sides were strongly committed to public involvement. While the literature highlights the impacts and challenges of involving stakeholders, it has not adequately signaled how the huge number of different stakeholders can be managed and involved during the implantation phases of PPPs. Jefferies and McGeorge (2009), in the context of an Australian infrastructure PPP project, suggests that involving stakeholders during the implementation phases for infrastructure projects is problematic due to unpredictable demands from various stakeholders. Jefferies and McGeorge argue that there is always a tendency for stakeholders to meet their own interests because there are diverse groups of multi-stakeholders in PPPs. Another study, by Qi, Ke and Wang (2009), raises the issue of opportunistic behaviour by diverse groups of stakeholders. Qi et al. find that resistance from stakeholders brings about failure of PPP projects if stakeholders’ interests are not met. Forrer et al. (2010) also argue that the differing perceptions of multi-stakeholders in PPP arrangements are a major threat if they are not properly managed. The East Link project management team adopted a collaborative approach to involving key stakeholders through early engagement in all consequential stages of project design, planning, execution and delivery. The management strategies of East Link indicated a new phase of a relationship based on mutual trust and respect between participating partners and key stakeholders which helped to achieve the target of early project completion. In East Link, the team identified and categorised key stakeholders according to their impact, power, interests and risks, from the team’s perspective. An integrated risk analysis model was overlaid onto a stakeholder engagement model to ensure that the risks associated with key stakeholders were identified early and dealt with through consultation and engagement strategies. This clearly supports the notion of stakeholder theory, arguing that managing stakeholders begins with their identification (Newcombe, 2003). Establishing the strategic importance of stakeholder groups assists determine the nature of management strategies in dealing with different stakeholders groups. Figure 2 shows the organisational arrangements of the participating parties and how they divided their roles and responsibilities to deal with different stakeholders.
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SEITA
Local city councils Facility providers
Connect East
Business communities Road users Journalists
TJH
Residents Community members
Figure 2 Engaging key stakeholders by the project parties
The strategies developed by the project management teams in the case of East Link demonstrated that as a government entity SEITA took responsibility for dealing with government departments, including local city councils. As a public agency, it was easier for SEITA to coordinate with local city councils so that they could understand project impacts and benefits. Connect East, from a commercial and business point of view, provided factual information about potential economic benefits for the business community, and, lastly, the D&C contractor dealt with community members and groups. D&C contractor provided necessary information about the impacts of construction and addressed issues that community members thought important. It is evident from the East Link case that the project management team put much effort and time into involving stakeholders. All participating parties held regular formal and informal meetings and interactions with all stakeholders, for example, weekly, monthly and bi-monthly meetings for various stakeholder groups. Also, they held a range of informal meetings, especially with local councils and community forums. Institutional arrangements through formal and informal meetings promotes addressing the perceptions of stakeholders (Scott, 1995). The level of engagement through organisational arrangements and the added value that came from the construction of East Link to the community was unprecedented.
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Ensuring stakeholders’ participation is an important factor in project implementation in PPPs since there are multi-stakeholders involved in large infrastructure projects. It has been a challenge to ensure stakeholder participation in PPP decision making and implementation (Alam and Kabir, 2010). Toor and Ogunlana(2010) also argue that failure to manage stakeholders negatively impacts on project outcomes. But the East Link project team demonstrated that such challenges can successfully be addressed by engaging key stakeholders at different stages of implementation through various tools of communication, such as displays of the project facility at a shopping centre, distribution of leaflets, and 24-hour online services to provide updated project information. The collaborative management practices that the East Link project management team developed through a well-devised framework highlighted that the extent of the relationships between the stakeholders and the project parties was a key driving factor for successful completion. The wider interaction with key stakeholders cemented the relationship between stakeholders and project parties. Project managers developed new skills to work in a context of a collaborative process. All project parties brought together their managerial skills, financial resources, and innovative ideas, focusing on future benefits. This strategy of involving stakeholders developed a strong confidence among the project parties, engendered trust, and established a long-term relationship between project parties and stakeholders. Continuous interactions with key stakeholders over a long period of time through meetings, displays, and leaflet distribution promoted the development of a strong social network and, most importantly, a long-term collaborative relationship. The management strategy to ensure stakeholder participation had positive impacts on the timely completion of the project, because successful completion of construction depends on the way stakeholder interests are addressed (Bryson, 1995).Hence the East Link case suggests that the mechanisms for collaboration developed by the East Link project team to involve stakeholders reduce project risks, increase efficiency and strengthen accountability. The strategies for engaging stakeholders in the East Link project clearly indicate that it was not just technical engineering but managerial engineering that is required for a collaborative governance structure.
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CONCLUSION
This paper extends the existing views on PPPs and the impacts of seven pillars that impact the management practices. The paper argues that for successful completion of a PPP project as, a collaborative governance structure with well devised management practices is essential. The seven pillars of such a collaborative governance structure are: institutional arrangements with a horizontal accountability structure, reporting and monitoring mechanisms, capability to co-create value;
risk management strategy; sharing knowledge and information;; informality in
relationships building; and managing stakeholders are instrumental in its success. We argue that a well-developed collaborative governance model can bring together different management techniques to deal with complex issues in which key factors such as proactive government support, mutual trust and respect between participating actors, sharing of knowledge and information between major players, and, most importantly, citizen engagement in the management of the project, build a strong relational architecture between project parties and key stakeholders. This relationship creates an intangible value network between the partners that helps the project team develop a trust relationship and establish a monitoring and quality control regime during the construction period. The key policy partners and project implementers in the East Link case clearly identified the importance of this value network, and this created an effective architecture in terms of a collaborative governance model. This paper argues that a collaborative governance model can ensure better quality in the public service delivery system through the private sector’s institutional arrangements, innovative managerial skills and expertise that are missing in the traditional public management model. The study indicates how a collaborative governance model can increase efficiency at the micromanagement level, engage key stakeholders in project implementation phases and develop management practices to provide quality services. The study also demonstrates how management practices can generate synergetic value activities within partner organisations to make the traditional contractual project management approach more effective, collaborative and value adding. It also reveals how failure to co-create value through collaboration can bring negative outcomes and hence affect the collaborative governance structure.
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DETAILS OF AUTHORS
Dr Quamrul Alam Monash University, Australia Dr. Quamrul Alam is the Course Director for the Master of Public Policy Program at Monash University, Australia. He has received his PhD in development administration from Flinders University in South Australia and an MA in economics from Manchester University in the United Kingdom. He teaches International Public Administration, Strategic Management and International Business Management at Monash University. His research interests include: internationalisation of Australian businesses; globalisation; FDI; strategic management, international public administration; public-private partnership; government and business; and corporate social responsibility and business strategy. He has published extensively on public management, public-private partnerships and local government and has been a consultant for public and private sector organisations in Australia and Bangladesh.
Md Humayun Kabir PhD, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia Deputy Director, Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission
Dr. Md Humayun Kabir is a Deputy Director at Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission. He has completed his PhD in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) from Monash University, Australia. His research interests are in the field of public management, public private partnership, and field administration. He has presented many conference papers in International Conferences and also has published article in Administration & Society.
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CAN MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGY LEAD THE WAY IN BRINGING FINANCIAL INCLUSION? EVIDENCE FROM INDIA
Sumanjeet & Minakshi Paliwal
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CAN MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGY LEAD THE WAY IN BRINGING FINANCIAL INCLUSION? EVIDENCE FROM INDIA
ABSTRACT: Technology is the key for financial inclusion because that is the only way to reduce the cost significantly and reach the masses. But all technologies are not suitable for financial inclusion due to affordability, accessibility, security and privacy. In the last decade, mobile phone technology has emerged as the most potential and well suited channel for financial inclusion. Use of mobile phone for inclusive finance is very popular in countries where most of the population is unbanked or under banked. The Indian government has also realized that mobile phone can be an important mode of propagation of financial inclusion in the country. As a result, Indian government has already taken many initiatives to promote mobile banking as a tool to expand the credit and financial services to the excluded populations. But, mobile phone, although a critical tool of financial inclusion, does not guarantee the adoption, it only indicates potential. There are many challenges in adoption and successful implementation of mobile technology especially in rural areas. In the present paper an attempt has been made to explore the potential of mobile phone technology in accelerating financial inclusion in India. The paper also highlights pitfalls of the mobile technology for financial inclusion. Further, paper makes an attempt to discuss the policy options, which needs to be done to ensure equitable access to financial services for all who want it.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: While bearing full responsibility for any mistakes/errors, authors wish to thank Prof. L. N. Dahiya; Prof. S. D. Vashishtha (M.D. University, Rohtak); Christopher Stroke (ICT Africa, South Africa) and Sudhandhu Kumar (Economist, NIPFP, Delhi) for their constructive criticisms and comments on the draft version of paper.
273
INTRODUCTION Across the developed world, access to financial services is largely ubiquitous; there is an abundance of cash and credit on demand, from multiple channels, any locations, and 24 hours a day. In the United Kingdom, about 5 per cent of the population do not have bank accounts. In Australia, about 7-8 per cent of the populations do not do banking. In mature economies, rate of exclusion tend to be low-for example only an estimated 4 per cent of the population in Germany and 9 per cent in the United States go without basic access to these services. But, this story is very different in the developing countries which house nearly 90 per cent of the world’s unbanked population. The situation is worse in least developing countries (LDCs); (Take the case of Uganda, approximately 95 per cent of Uganda’s citizens have limited or no access to financial services) where more than 90 per cent of the population is excluded from access to the formal financial system (United Nations, 2006). In many regions of the world including India, low income people do not have access to basic financial services (Table 1) like saving accounts (Richard et al, 2009), insurance, credit and even less to more advanced financial services that could help to improve security, predictability and opportunities for entrepreneurship. The limited access to finance severely reduces the choices citizens have in determining the way they work and live. Without broader access to finance, only the rich and connected people are able to take advantage of economic opportunities. Also, when a majority of the population is excluded from access to financial services, it can significantly and adversely affect the efficient allocation of financial and physical resources, economic growth, income and non-income inequalities, and the distribution of benefits in an economy. Therefore, the provisions of financial services to the poor and underprivileged sections of the society have always been in focus of various programmes initiated by the Governments of India since independence (Dasgupta, 2001). Undoubtedly, the government has formulated policies, put in place many rules and regulations, tried to mandate rural branches, leading to underprivileged, controlled money lenders. Despite encouraging policies and having a wide network of rural bank branches in India which implemented specific poverty alleviation programmes that sought creation of self-employment opportunities through bank credit, a very large number of the poorest of the poor continued to remain outside from the field of formal banking system.
274
Table 1: India Largely Financially Excluded
Country
IFI(3D)
Rank
Spain
0.737
1
Austria
0.667
2
Belgium
0.637
3
Denmark
0.614
4
Switzerland
0.59
5
India
0.166
29
Note: 3D includes banking penetration, availability and usage Source: ICRIER
The unbanked or under banked population is prevented from accessing financial services because of limited physical bank infrastructure and lack of access to electronic infrastructure such as debit cards, automated teller machines (ATMs), internet and mobile banking. Admission into the formal financial sector is further hampered by high banking fees; mostly cash based financial environment, and low rates of financial literacy. Based on 3-dimensional index, Spain ranks the highest, followed by Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Switzerland and Malta. These are the only five countries which belong to the high IFI group with IFI values of 0.5 or more. In one of the interesting observations in the report, most of the countries with high and medium IFI values are OECD countries. Among the 55 countries, India ranks 31st with an IFI value of 0.155. Madagascar ranks the lowest, 55th, with IFI value 0.011. India has been ranked poorly, even below African countries like Kenya and Morocco. In the group of 100 countries for which a 2dimensional IFI has been computed, nine OECD countries - Spain, Canada, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands and Denmark-led the pack. ICRIER’s first of its kind 275
Index of Financial Inclusion ranks India at 29 in a list of 55 countries based on the country’s performance in banking penetration, availability of the banking services, and the usage of the banking system. India’s ranking goes down to 50 (out of 100 countries) if one removes the banking penetration as one of the determinants from the Index. This shows that even though there is a higher banking penetration, there are inefficiencies in making these services available to the financially excluded population.
STATE OF FINANCIAL EXCLUSION IN INDIA It is well recognized that a formal financial sector has not been expanding rapidly enough where services to the masses are concerned. Evidently, large number of households and especially those in rural areas do not have bank accounts. According to Boston Consulting Group, India has 153 million households which lack access to formal financial services. A World Bank-NCAER Survey on ‘Rural Access to Finance’ indicates that 70 percent of the Indian rural poor do not have a bank account and 87 percent have no access to credit from a formal source. Informal sector lenders have a strong presence in rural India, delivering finance to the poor in frequently extra-ordinary terms. Most theoretical and empirical studies of rural credit markets assume that they are characterized by high lending costs and a high demand for credit, resulting in high interest rates being charged to the borrowers by lenders (Swain, 2002; Bell, 1990; Government of India, 1987; Reddy et al, 2006; Deshpande and Prabhu. 2005). Access to other financial services such as savings accounts, life, health and crop insurance (Crop insurance scheme has been going on since the time of Kharif 1985. This insurance offers financial assistance for risk management in agriculture ) also remains limited for the rural poor. As of today, as per government’s own admission, barely 27 per cent of rural households are able to access financial institutions (Economic Survey 2007-08). Further, the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), 59th round data reveals that, in the highest income quartile, 92.4 per cent have savings and 86 per cent have bank account. By contrast, only 34.3 per cent of the lowest income quartile has savings, and only 17.7 per cent have a bank account. In short, government has failed to deliver financial services to the majority of poor citizens. Reserve Bank of India data shows that as many as 139 districts suffer from massive financial exclusion in India, with the adult population per branch in these districts being above 20,000 and only 3 percent with borrowings 276
from banks. On the assumption that each adult has only one bank account (which does not hold good in practice, so that actual coverage is likely to be worse) on an all India basis, 59 percent of the adult population in the country has bank accounts. 41 percent of the population is, therefore, unbanked. In rural areas the coverage is 39 percent against 60 percent in urban areas. There are a total of Rs 310 million savings bank accounts, but given the number of multiple accounts, the number of people having savings bank accounts cannot be more than 200 million. This means around 85 per cent of India's population does not have access to financial services in a costeffective, transparent and fair manner. In countries with a large rural population like India, financial exclusion has a geographic dimension as well (Table 2). The unbanked population is higher in the North-Eastern and Eastern Regions as compared to other regions. For instance, in Manipur, only 17 of every 100 adults have a bank account. In Nagaland, the number is 21. Meghalaya has the maximum number of bank accounts, 44 per 100 adults. Eastern India is no better off, with just 33 out of every 100 adults in Bihar holding bank accounts and, 34 in Orissa. But, some states of the north and west India have a different picture. For instance, every 100 adults in Chandigarh have 221 bank accounts. The comparative figure for Goa is 187, New Delhi 166 and Punjab 105. These figures, however, talk about deposit accounts kept with banks. When it comes to accessing bank loans, the scene is worse. The credit market is very small with the number of loan accounts constituting only 14 per cent of the adult population in India. In rural areas, the coverage is 9.5 per cent. Regional differences are glaring with the credit coverage at 25 per cent for the southern region and as low as 7 per cent, 8 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively, in north-eastern, eastern and central India. Out of 203 million
277
Table 2: Coverage of Banking Services in India No. of Adult Population
Region/State/ Union
Current
Territory
Accounts
Savings
Total
Accounts
Population
No.
of acc.
acc.
Per Per
Total No. 100
of 100 of
(Above 19 of
populatio
adult
years)
n
pop.
accounts
NORTHERN REGION
4215701
52416125
132676462
67822312
56631826
43
84
Haryana
572660
8031472
21082989
11308025
8604132
41
76
134285
2433595
6077248
3566886
2567880
42
72
277529
3094790
10069917
5379594
3372319
33
63
1156137
13742201
24289296
14185190
14898338
61
105
689657
12139302
56473122
28473743
12828959
23
45
80607
1126696
900914
546171
1207303
134
221
1304826
11848069
13782976
7929589
13152895
95
166
476603
6891081
38495089
19708982
7367684
19
37
Pradesh
10538
209073
1091117
544582
219611
20
40
Assam
378729
5071058
26638407
14074393
5449787
20
39
Himachal Pradesh Jammu Kashmir Punjab Rajasthan Chandigarh Delhi
&
NorthEastern Region Arunachal
278
Manipur
12514
200593
2388634
1222107
213107
9
17
Meghalaya
24305
458779
2306069
1088165
483084
21
44
Mizoram
3441
117885
891058
476205
121326
14
25
Nagaland
13819
195452
1988636
995523
209271
11
21
Tripura
33257
638241
3191168
1784212
671498
21
38
Eastern Region
12213613 1814219
47876140
227613073
3
49690359
22
41
Bihar
464511
13225242
82878796
40934170
13689753
17
33
Jharkhand
166007
5834341
26909428
13737485
6000348
22
44
Orissa
228160
7030004
36706920
21065404
7258164
20
34
4097
125365
540493
288500
129462
24
45
942733
21544753
80221171
45896914
22487486
28
49
8711
116435
356265
213660
125146
35
59
Sikkim West Bengal Andaman & Nicobar Islands Central Region Chhattisgarh
12931667 2202217
64254189
255713495
7
66456406
26
51
192067
3346898
20795956
11209425
3538965
17
32
553381
11731918
60385118
31404990
12285299
20
39
1324509
45804350
166052859
82229748
47128859
28
57
132260
3371023
8479562
4472514
3503283
41
78
Madhya Pradesh Uttar Pradesh Uttaranchal
279
Western Region Goa Gujarat Maharashtra Dadra
49525101
149071747
86182206
52703203
35
61
81551
1584177
1343998
891411
1665728
124
187
955964
16220262
50596992
28863095
17176226
34
60
2127240
31568184
96752247
56207604
33695424
35
60
6076
69308
220451
122765
75384
34
61
7271
83170
158059
97331
90441
57
93
&
Nagar Haveli Daman
3178102
&
Diu
Southern Region
13557422 4666014
83386898
223445381
5
88052912
39
65
Pradesh
1156405
23974580
75727541
44231918
25130985
33
57
Karnataka
1086662
19147819
52733958
30623289
20234481
38
66
600065
17669723
31838619
20560323
18269788
57
89
1786514
22052812
62110839
39511038
23839326
38
60
491
22997
60595
33686
23488
39
70
35877
518967
973829
613971
554844
57
90
102701524
54103155
32090239
7
3
0
31
59
Andhra
Kerala Tamil Nadu Lakshadwee p Pondicherry
1655285 All-India
6
304349534
Source: Bulletin of RBI
280
Indian households, three-fourths, or 147 million, are in rural areas and 89 million are farmer households. In this segment, 51.4 per cent have no access to formal or informal sources of credit, while 73 per cent have no access to formal sources of credit. Similar data is not available for non-farm and urban households (Bandyopadhyay, 2007). The financially excluded sections largely comprise marginal farmers, landless labourers, self employed and unorganized sector enterprises, ethnic minorities, socially excluded groups, senior citizens and women. While there are pockets of large excluded population in all parts of the country, the North-East, Eastern and Central region contain most of the financially excluded population. The Farm households not accessing credit from formal sources as proportion to total farm households is especially high at 95.91 per cent, 81.26 per cent and 77.59 per cent in the North-Eastern, Eastern and Central Regions. The Southern and Western Regions, on the other hand, exhibit a relatively better level of access to formal/non-formal sources when compared with the all India level of 72.7 per cent. This is mainly on account of spread of banking habits and a more robust infrastructure.
POLICY INITIATIVES ADOPTED BY INDIAN GOVERNMENT
In this sense, financial inclusion poses policy challenges on a scale and with an urgency that is unique for developing countries like India (Financial exclusion can broadly be divided into three categories: (1) Core Exclusion-Who operate their financial affairs completely outside the regulated financial system (2) Limited Access- May have a basic bank account but poor financial habits and little advice and (3) Included but using inappropriate products) . Finding solutions to encourage greater financial inclusion has not typically been a core activity of central banks or other financial regulators. But, the widespread realization that financial inclusion is critical for poverty alleviation, balanced economic growth and economic stability has resulted in growing leadership and ownership of the issue by policymakers. In this direction, the Rangarajan Committee submitted its report in January 2008 mainly mooted a mission called National Rural Financial Inclusion Plan and recommended to establish Financial Inclusion Promotion and Development Fund and Financial Inclusion Technology Fund. It rightly stressed 281
the importance of looking at financial inclusion in a holistic manner and has emphasized on the need to look into insurance and remittance needs of the poor. It sets targets to increase financial inclusion in the country across regions and across institutions and has suggested measures to address both, supply and demand constraints in increasing financial inclusion. The Finance Minister in that year’s Budget decided to implement, immediately, two recommendations. The first was to establish a Financial Inclusion Fund with NABARD for meeting the cost of developmental and promotional interventions. The second was to establish a Financial Inclusion Technology Fund to meet the costs of technology adoption. Further the UID projects besides other objectives, also aims to bring in major financial inclusion by the facilitation opening of the bank accounts by hoi-poi of Indian society. To make inclusive finance a reality in India, Reserve Bank of India and Indian government has introduced number of devices which includes offer a basic banking ‘No Frills Account’ and zero bank account (Table 3) to low income group; easier credit facility up to 25,000; simplified know your customer (KYC) norms; use of ICTs smart cards system; EBT (electronic benefit transfer) through banks, promotion of business correspondent (BC) and business facilitators (BF) models and 100 per cent financial inclusion derive. As on December 2008, the bank has opened 40,726 zero balance accounts (no balance are required of customers) and 3,935 no frills accounts. These offer a free cheque book, access to over 25, 000 ATMs, free statements, a passbook facility and SMS alerts. These services are particularly aimed at market traders, artisans and micro entrepreneurs who might otherwise be excluding from financial services. In order to ensure that persons belonging to low income groups, both in urban and rural areas do not encounter difficulties in opening bank accounts, the know your customer (KYC) procedure for opening accounts was simplified for those accounts with balances not exceeding Rs.50,000 and credit limits not exceeding Rs.100,000 in a year. The simplified procedure allowed introduction by a customer on whom the full KYC drill had already been done. To support this development of ICT, in 2008 the Indian Finance Minister set up a Financial Inclusion Technology Fund of around US$125 million to meet the cost of technology adoption, including evolving industry-wide standards for IT solution.
282
To encourage banks to adopt Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions for enhancing their outreach, the RBI formulated a scheme to quicken the pace of adoption of the smart card-based Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) mechanism by banks and rolled out the EBT system in the States that are ready to adopt the scheme. As per the scheme, the RBI would reimburse the banks a part of the cost of opening accounts with bio-metric access/smart cards at the rate of Rs.50 per account through which payment of social security benefits, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) payments and payments under other Government benefit programmes would be routed to persons belonging to below poverty line (BPL) families. The scheme was implemented in Andhra Pradesh. So far, seven banks have been paid Rs.10.8 million for smart cards issued by banks in Andhra Pradesh during July-December 2008. The process is at different stages of implementation in other States such as Karnataka and Uttarakhand and the scheme of partial reimbursement by the Reserve Bank has been extended by one year up to June 30, 2010. Banks are advised to work in co-ordination with the respective government departments at the Central and State levels to ensure that all State benefits are delivered to individuals only through bank accounts within a specific timeframe. The BC Model ensures a closer relationship between poor people and the organized financial system. Reorganizing this, in 2006, RBI permitted banks to use the services of non-governmental organizations, micro-finance institutions, retired bank employees, ex-servicemen, retired government employees, Section 25 companies, and other civil society organizations as Business Correspondents in providing financial and banking services. In addition to the entities presently permitted, RBI has also permitted banks to appoint the following entities as BCs (i) Individual kirana/medical /fair price shop owners (ii) individual Public Call Office (PCO) operators (iii) Agents of Small Savings schemes of Government of India/Insurance Companies (iv) Individuals who own Petrol Pumps (v) Retired teachers and (vi) Authorised functionaries of well run Self Help Groups (SHGs) linked to banks. BF can undertake many activities on the behalf of banks which will enable reduction of transaction costs for banks, clients and also enable revenue sharing for BFs.
283
Table 3: Number of No Frills Account Banks
FY 06
FY 07
FY 08
Public Sector Bank
332,878
5,8565,419
13,925,674
Private Sector Bank
156,388
860,997
1,879,073
Foreign Banks
231
5,919
33,115
Total
489,497
6,732,335
1,5847,862
Source: Reserve Bank of India Banks have provided greater financial inclusion to large sections of the population by making available basic banking services. No-frills accounts, one such initiative taken by banks, especially public sector banks, have increased considerably in the last few years. A no-frill account typically has the facility of zero or very low balance and limited transaction facilities. During FY07, the number of such accounts in the public sector banks rose more than 16 times on a y-o-y basis and almost doubled in FY08. Private banks’ no-frills account increased more than four times in FY07 and their growth almost doubled in the subsequent fiscal. Foreign banks also reported a significant rise in the number of no-frills accounts opened. The number of no-frills accounts with foreign banks went up from 231 in FY06 to 5,919 in FY07 and further increased more than four times to 33,115 in FY08. Despite persistent policy initiatives and endeavours of the RBI since 2004, and despite financial inclusion being a buzzword for almost six years, comprehensive financial inclusion still appears as far away from the reality. The reasons are many. In India, financial inclusion is pervasive given the low geographical outreach of financial service providers, as a large segment of the population is based in rural areas whereas the majority of bank branches are located in urban or peri-urban areas. Out of the 600,000 habitations in the country, only about 30,000 have a commercial bank branch. Just about 40 per cent of the population across the country have bank accounts, and this ratio is much lower in the north-east of the country. The proportion of people having any kind of life insurance cover is as low as 10 per cent and proportion having non-life insurance coverage is an abysmally low 0.6 per cent. People having debit cards comprises only 284
13 per cent and those having credit cards only a marginal 2 per cent. Similarly, lack of enabling environment due to the weak enforcement of contracts and commercial bank’s reliance on traditional banking products also act as barriers to access. In addition, a large number of people have a low literacy level and face social and cultural barriers to access to finance. Equally important, the cost of running a branch bank has historically been high. Numerous attempts at evolving a low cost business model for rural banking have not been totally successful. Lack of physical and social infrastructure, lack of understanding and knowledge, lack of technology, lack of support, and lack of confidence, are among others. Overcoming these barriers is, in a nutshell, the challenge of financial inclusion in India.
MOBILE PHONE AS AN OPTION FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION
From the above discussion it is clear that the objective of inclusive finance cannot be achieved in India in the existing structure due to both demand and supply side constraints, which limit the access to financial services especially in the poor and marginalized group. But, the real question is how to promote inclusive finance in India as many initiatives have failed. Some experts argued that technology is the answer (Gangopadhayay, 2009; IBA, 2007). But all technologies are not suitable for the inclusive finance due to affordability, accessibility, security and privacy (Sumanjeet, 2008). For example, if a person want to buy something, first he/she will go to the ATM, withdraw cash, go to the mall and pay the cash to buy the things. The mall then deposits the money into the bank and the bank puts the money same cash in the ATM machine. Thus, use of ATM involves a cost, so it is not a technology that brings down the cost. Mobile phones fit into the picture so well, as they could take the financial inclusion initiative to the next level. Mobile banking raises the prospect that financial services provided via mobile phones can overcome almost all the barriers to entry in the traditional banking system. Barclays’ Hello Money initiative works on Unstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD) technology, which makes it secure and safe. It allows people to bank using their mobile phones without needing access to branches. The technology is operational on all GSM networks. Customers can make account enquiries, transfer money quickly to a VISA debit or credit card and make bill payments at a very low cost. Turnaround response times for interactive applications are shorter for USSD than SMS/GPRS solutions because of the session-based feature of USSD and since it 285
is not a “store and forward” service. Users do not need to download a particular phone menu to access services with this technology; they can enter the USSD command direct from the initial mobile phone screen. Use of mobile phone for inclusive finance is very popular in countries (Leasi, 2010) where most of the population is unbanked. In most of these places banks can only be found in big cities and customers have to travel hundreds of miles to the nearest bank (Prakesh, 2010). The Philippines is pioneer in enabling financial services through mobile phones. According to the 2010 annual report entitled “The Mobile Money for Unbanked Programme”, the Philippines is among the most advanced mobile money markets in the world. Not only the extent, but also the ways in which Filipinos have adopted mobile have been key enablers of mobile money success. The country is the texting capital of the world and Filipino mobile users are highly SMS literate, which made the proposition of conducting financial transactions on a handset somewhat more intuitive. Further, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) enable mobile operators to offer e-money, empowering non-banks to perform cash in/out and providing legal certainty to formalize rules have all contributed to success in the market (Calapati, 2010). Countries like Sudan, Ghana and South Africa have also adopted mobile technology for inclusive finance. Latin American countries like Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala and recently Mexico started with a huge success. In Iran, banks like Parsian, Tejarat. Mallet, Saderat, Sepah offers this service. Kenya’s Safaricom (Part of Vodafone Group) started the popular M. PESA service-mainly used to transfer the limited amounts of money and pay utility bills. Safaricom has 80% of Kenyan Mobile Market; rolled out with M-Pesa (Figure 1). (First mooted in March 2008, the launch was delayed by regulatory hurdles which were resolved following negotiations-including those relating to foreign exchange issues between the Bank of England and the Central Bank of Kenya. The M-Pesa remittance service functions on the same short message service (SMS) platform used domestically in Kenya, providing an almost real-time service. Recipients of a cash transfer receive an SMS notifying them of the transaction details, including receipt number, the amount in Kenyan shillings, the account balance, the time the transfer was sent and the sender’s name and location. The sender is also sent a confirmation SMS. M-Pesa account holders can then withdraw the cash at an M-Pesa agent or use it to make other payments. For Safaricom and Vodafone, the UK-Kenya remittance corridor represents a potentially significant market, with the Central Bank of Kenya reporting remittances from abroad 286
to Kenya of $611 million in 2008, up from $573 million in 2007. Inbound remittances in the first 10 months of 2009 totalled $505 million. Safaricom and Vodafone have indicated that once the UK-Kenya service has bedded down similar services are likely to be launched from other countries, including neighbouring countries in East Africa. In a further sign of the rapid growth of the M-Pesa service in Kenya itself, Safaricom says that the number of agents on its distribution network grew from 4,230 in September 2008 to 13,326 agents in September 2009 – an increase of over 200 percent.) As a result, several systems have already emerged-Tigo Cash in Paraguay, Smart Money & GCash in Philippines, WIZZIT in South African Celpay in Zambia, Pago Movi in Peru, Nipper n Mexico and Oi in Brazil are few. In India, where an estimated 670 million (out of these 200 million do not have a bank account) people own mobile phones, mobile banking have huge prospective to include the financially excluded (India has 670 million mobile users at the end of September 2010. Of which 210 million mobile users have accessed data service aka the Internet. The mobile social networking users in India will reach 72 million by 2014. India currently has 33 million social networking users, including mobile users. Look at the surge of the subscribers to data services from Dec 2009 to Jun 2010. More than 60 million new subscribers were added in 6 months. This is in spite of the limited apps available on the existing platforms.) Financial inclusion would be an automatic outcome if delivery costs of financial/transactional services are low enough. Mobile banking has potential to increase the efficiency of payment systems, reduce reliance on cash, and broaden access to financial services by increasing the accessibility (Peha and Kahmitov, 2004) and most important lowering the cost of offering formal financial services. For example, transactions cost involved in mobile banking as it can be observed from the mobile services of Kenya and Philippines, where a typical transaction through a bank branch costs the bank US$2. 5; and it would cost only US$0. 50, if it were automated by using a mobile phone. A solution based on mobile phones can therefore substantially reduce the cost of spreading financial services over many retail environments, at least in areas with relatively high mobile phone penetration. Transferring money via mobile phones can save days of travel for workers in cities who send money home to families in rural villages. Mobile payments are also more secure than relying on informal brokers or carrying cash personally, and 287
they have the potential to change markets by making small business-to-business transactions immediate and more reliable (Akula, 2009). Further, mobile technology is best suited for rural India where an overwhelming 61 per cent of the rural population is unbanked. Mobiles are cheaper, more portal and their extended battery life is suited to regions where access to electricity is lacking or non-existent. The infrastructure needed to connect wireless devices to the Internet is easier and less expensive to build. There are also no learning curve, no literacy barrier and no technical support challenges to overcome. There are no costly and burdensome applications to load maintain and updates. Table 4: Indian Wireless Connections as on August 2010 Circles
July 2010
August 2010
Additions
Change
Andhra Pradesh
50,507,427
51,619,385
1,111,958
2.20%
Assam
9,808,446
10,030,194
221,748
2.26%
Bihar
41,898,468
43,304,678
1,406,210
3.36%
Delhi
32,043,140
32,745,787
702,647
2.19%
Gujarat
36,097,163
37,639,635
1,542,472
4.27%
Himachal
5,622,827
5,859,790
236,963
4.21%
Haryana
15,991,379
16,603,750
612,371
3.83%
J&K
4,748,196
4,681,578
-66,618
-1.40%
Karnataka
41,804,172
42,518,107
713,935
1.71%
Kerala
26,517,782
27,206,758
688,976
2.60%
Kolkata
17,936,604
18,610,593
673,989
3.76%
Madhya
35,391441
36,350,543
959,102
2.71%
Maharashtra
48,177,831
49,536,428
1,358,597
3.82%
Mumbai
29,8430,20
30,463,450
620,430
2.08%
North East
5,878,900
6,011,004
132,104
2.25%
Orrisa
17,531,258
18,129,832
598,574
3.41%
Punjab
22,492,354
23,169,818
677,464
3.01%
Pradesh
Pradesh
288
Rajasthan
36,083,720
36,923,558
839,838
2.33%
Tamil Nadu
59,709,708
61,085,744
1,376,036
2.30%
U.P. (East)
50,479,861
51,878,046
1,398,185
2.77%
U.P. (West)
34,705,446
36,031,218
1,325,772
3.82%
West Bengal
29,151,655
30,205,595
1,053,940
3.62%
All Circles
652,420,798 670,605,491
18,184,693 2.79%
Source: TRAI
The government is planning to carry out a pilot project to find the actual number of mobile telephone users in the country, which according to the operators stands at 670 million now. The decision comes amid reports that the subscriber numbers reported by the operators were incorrect and does not give a true picture of the number of actual mobile users in the country. In a the meeting of Telecom Commission, held last week, it was decided that "...an exercise should be done on pilot basis in a representative area to know the actual number of active users as against the number of active SIMs in that area." At present TRAI releases subscriber figures as recorded in the Home Location Register (HLR) of the telecom service providers. It gives record of total number of SIMs sold and not active subscribers. A HLR is a database of user (subscriber) information, customer profiles, used in mobile (cellular) networks. HLR counts multiple SIM issued to an individual as a separate connections. Based on HLR record, TRAI stated that the total number of wireless subscribers in the country reached 670.60 million in the country in August. The (Visitor Location Register) VLR data gives the details of active customers at a given point of time. VLR is more authentic in knowing the active subscriber numbers. Although no official figures are available for non-active subscribers, some estimates show that actual number of subscribers may not be more than 500 million. This, however, could not be ascertained either from the government or operators. Further, mobile technology gives the bank's ability to cross-sell their other complex banking products and services such as vehicle loans, credit cards etc. Mobile technology also facilitates transfer of funds of various government schemes like social security pensions and wages paid under NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), to a mobile linked account. [Scheme aims at enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing
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hundred days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.] Added to these, rural India is a huge and challenging market insofar as banking is concerned. The country has close to 600,000 villages, making it difficult to establish brick-and-mortar banks everywhere. But, mobile banking is the cheapest way to reach the rural customer, where it costs just US$523 to US$837.5 (25,000 to 40,000 rupees) to set up a micro-banking outlet. It is expected that soon the cost will bring down to US$209 (10,000 rupees). Yet another benefit is anywhere/anytime characteristics of banking which is very important for rural people. A mobile is almost always with the customer. As such it can be used over a vast geographical area. The customer does not have to visit the bank branch or ATM to avail the bank’s services. Research indicates that the number of footfalls at a bank branch has fallen down drastically after the installation of ATMs. As such with mobile services, a bank will need to hire even less employees as people will no longer need to visit bank branches apart from certain occasions. Last but not the least, the bank could remind customers of outstanding loan repayment dates, dates for payment of monthly instalments, electricity, and water bill or simply tell them that a bill has made on the card. The way the owner is always informed when their card is used and how much money was taken for each transaction. Government of India has understood the potential of mobile phones in financial inclusion and working very aggressively towards enabling this system as penetrative as possible. RBI has issued a detailed set of guidelines for the mobile banking (RBI, 2008). This is an initial step towards recognizing mobile phones in financial inclusion and the big push for financial inclusion. Also, this is a move for retail payment from cash and cheque based transactions to mobile based transactions, which means greater convenience and reduces the costs. As a result of the strong will of government, several public sector banks have set up or are in the process of setting up mobile phone-based micro banks (In a mobile-based micro bank, the mobile phone acts as a bank branch by storing the customer database. It also has a smartcard, which biometrically stores the identity of the customer including name, address, photograph, fingerprint templates and relevant details of savings or loan accounts held by the issuing bank. Customers are given an account number, while agents handle deposits and dispense cash.)
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Major players include State Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Axis Bank, Andhra Bank, State Bank of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh Grameen Vikas Bank and Punjab National Bank
( State-
run Punjab National Bank has introduced mobile banking service for the residents of Daringibadi, a tribal area in Kandhamal district of Orissa. With the launch of this pilot project, the bank intends to reach out to people who reside in backward areas and have not been facilitated with banking services. PNB will cover such population in the fold by opening no-frills account in the name of the customer. This project is a part of financial inclusion programme and is the eleventh initiative of its kind by PNB. Under this initiative the bank aims to cover 30,000 villages, 15 million households and 75 million people by 2010.)
Even telecom service providers such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, have tied up with banks to extend their mobile remittance services to rural areas (Singh, 2009). Several technology firms such as Ekgaon Technologies and Spanco Systems have also stepped up to offer mobile banking tools. NXP Technologies have done pilot projects for micro banking in areas such as Aizwal (Mizoram), Medak (Andhra Pradesh) and Pithoragarh (Uttarakhand). Most micro banks use Nokia’s NFC-enabled 6212C handset, which allows consumers to share content, access services and information, and conduct payments (Sumanjeet, 2009) and ticketing by tapping the device. Thus, the government of India has realized the potential of mobile technology and trying their best to implement this technology with the help of banks to achieve the target of inclusive finance which is the basic condition for inclusive growth.
IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES IN INDIA
However, there is a need to understand that the mobile phone, although a critical tool of financial inclusion, does not guarantee the adoption, it only indicates potential. There are many challenges in adoption and successful implementation of mobile technology especially in rural areas. An estimated 8 million rural Indians who own mobile phones do not have access to banks. In spite of efforts from different organizations, mobile banking has not succeeded in taking banking in the rural areas the way it is expected to (Richard et al, 2009). There are many reasons for this: (1) It is not feasible for all banks as the volume and value of transactions are very low; (2) It is not only enough to have simplified offerings but also educate the prospective customers on the same
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and this is lacking and; (3) The banking agents have to be aware of products and services and also have enough incentives to get more customers. The important aspect here is that the concerned organizations are aware of the challenges and are working towards solutions. Once customers’ concerns are addressed through education, and they are assured that their money is in safe hands and they get good service, there will be no looking back for mobile banking in rural India. Few important areas of concern that are common for banks and mobile service providers are: (1) Network Security (2) Customer Privacy and Informed Consent (3) Liability (4) Fraud Prevention/Authentication (5)
Interoperability/Standardization (6) Data Access and Use (7)
Parental Controls and (8) Financial Risks/Rewards. With Internet security concerns like Trojans and malware migrating to the mobile phone, banks are expected to use their experiences with such threats in online banking to help ensure the safety of this new mobile channel (.Despite 59% of global consumers stating that online banking on their mobile phone is important to them, they are not willing to pay for it, KPMG's third annual Global Consumers & Convergence survey reveals. In order to understand the future for the mobile banking market KPMG surveyed over 4,000 consumers in 19 countries worldwide. The resulting survey presents some startling regional differences and delivers a clear picture to banks of consumers' future expectations. There is however, a huge potential for banks to grow their market with mobile phone users, as globally 53% of consumers say they are comfortable with the idea of using a mobile phone for financial transactions and 54% state that they are 'at least somewhat likely' to conduct banking through a mobile device in the next 12 months.) There are also no clear regulations-or even industry guidelines-to consult for anyone interested in offering mobile banking services to their customers. The release of the final Mobile Payment Guidelines by the RBI is also extremely disturbing because the unbanked population of India is excluded. The guidelines define 'mobile payments' as 'information exchange between a bank and its customers for financial transactions through the use of mobile phones' (Mobile banking has picked up in India after the RBI issued operating guidelines for mobile banking in India in September 2008. The fact came into light in an industry research on M-commerce, to determine consumer perception, usage pattern, share of wallet etc. The research was conducted jointly by AC Nielsen and PayMate, market leader in Mcommerce. India has currently around 5 mn M-Commerce users. According to the study, RBI guidelines have proved to be an enabler for people accepting mobile payments as around 57 per cent of the people surveyed have registered for the same in the last five months. The RBI 292
guidelines were issued on September 29, last year. As many as 1,320 people were surveyed for the research in five cities-Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad.) The guidelines allow only banks that are licensed, supervised and have a physical presence in India to offer mobile banking services, as well as restrict the service to only those with bank accounts or credit card accounts in India. This last restriction makes it absolutely crystal clear that financial inclusion is not a goal of these guidelines; since the unbanked population of India is being ignored. The other issue bank face in providing mobile banking is that they are required to tie up with individual service providers for enabling such services. Banks face difficulties in entering into such partnerships. Again, mobile service providers do not open up channels for facilitating mobile banking services by banks. Further, requirement of end-to-end encryption makes implementation costly. They feel low ticket transactions do not require end-to end encryption. Bankers also point out that transactions limit of mobile banking need to be revised. For mobile banking services, the users face many problems right from the telecom operator to banks, the handset to software application support for using services. First is lack of knowledge and trust in mobile banking (Misra and Wickamsainghe, 2004). Research shows that people require not only knowledge about the services on offer, but also trust in the safety and reliability of the services. According to bankers, many business correspondents do not enjoy the confidence of villagers. As a result they do not hand over their savings to such correspondent and that in turn is hampering the speed of financial inclusion. Although mobile banking is free of cost, the customer still has to bear some other costs. To avail mobile banking services, one has to have a mobile phone and pay the service charges to maintain an active subscription with the service provider. These charges need not be monthly amounts for a pre-paid card but then these are more costly than those post-paid charges. Another problem, mobile banking does not provide facilities like ‘stop payment’ as banks are unable to cancel the transaction after approving the same. Rural India has more than 70 per cent of Indian population. 75 percent of the poor are in rural areas, most of them are daily wages, self employed householders and landless labourers. Most of them do not even have food for them; they cannot think about buying mobile and using it for banking purpose. This problem is multiplied with the fact that the literacy rate is low in rural areas and very few people can write and understand English or Hindi language. Added to this, India is a multicultural and multilingual country; thus there is the problem of content and applications in 293
local or regional language. Network connectivity is also a big problem in rural India. The reason companies are investing more and more money where they can get more customers. They are not thinking about the noble idea of financial inclusion. Last but not the least, there are many psychological barriers in rural India regarding security and privacy. They are also not convinced with the benefit of using mobile for banking purpose. Insufficient funds, affordability and delay in the implementation of government policies will be key issues in promoting financial inclusion through mobile technology. These challenges are in fact somehow different from the challenges posed by urban people. There are two main reasons for the low acceptance among urban users. First, these subscribers have accessibility to various alternative modes of transaction and payment such as Internet banking, ATMs and credit cards. Second, security remains a concern. POLICY OPTIONS FOR INDIA Mobile phone technology ensures potential, not a guarantee of adoption. Potential can be realized only after adoption of technology. The Indian government has already taken some initiatives in this direction. But, financial inclusion initiative of government through mobile phone will have to overcome a range of challenges from technical to administrative and regulatory ones before it becomes reality. There are many issues and challenges which are necessary to be dealt with for successful implementation of mobile technology in financial inclusion. The first component that must be provided is an effective payment system that can be deployed by means of mobile technology. This payment system must be secure, easy to use and enable payment over a distance (money remittance). The system should support the needs of the subscriber to such a degree that a large percentage of the cash can be taken up into the system. This is then a logical transition to savings. With the cash having been turned into electronic value, it will be easier to start offering saving products based on regular payments. These products should typically be targeted saving products with a monthly instalment. Credit risk does not exist as it is a saving product, but the discipline of the subscriber to meet his/her monthly instalments will be important. The behaviour of a subscriber with regards to payments and savings will provide mechanisms to start scoring credit, making an introduction of lending products easier. As of now, no one single model has been found internationally that can serve all the requirements of the poor. However, there are many ongoing experiments, and greatest successes are likely to come from some model that has digital payments at the core. While 294
mobile density is rising at an unprecedented pace in India, payment systems that use this growing network will be in the position to reach the masses that have so far been excluded from the formal banking system. It is also important for the retailers to connect with payment systems in such a way that allows the spread of the services amongst the low income unbanked consumers. For instance, the Indian Railways allow purchase of the tickets through kiosks or through the internet using a variety of methods. For this to become a reality, it is important to create an environment that will enable greater numbers of such service providers and greater range of services for digital payments. There is also need to ensure entry by ensuring a high degree of inclusiveness in types of services providers, ensuring a level playing field, and also ensure that both large and small players can enter the industry. Although mobile banking is especially valuable for rural regions because of the lack of alternatives, delivery depends on overcoming several impediments. The most pressing of these is meeting the prerequisite of mobile network and electricity coverage. Also, physical security concerns are more acute in rural areas, especially with branchless banking models that use agents. Oversight mechanisms need to be installed at the kiosks where physical transactions take place, due to problems associated with crime and bribery. Although many transactions can be cashless, hard cash still needs to be available for customers. As a result, the security and logistics of the transportation channels used by providers need to take priority. This will be particularly difficult in more remote areas. The textual and technical illiteracy problem in rural India elicits a need for multilingual support and perhaps voice-based services to carry out transactions. Of the mobile banking technologies discussed above, none have been tested for scalability and reliability. The government thus needs to play a more active role in building support and encouraging research, perhaps by making use of the Financial Inclusion Technology fund to subsidize these projects. In sum, it appears that while there is a huge unmet need for mobile banking in rural India (Gandhi, 2010), the region is definitely not yet equipped for large-scale deployment of this technology. To promote financial inclusion through mobile, low cost mobile phone base in the country need to be targeted with innovative and business and technology solutions. There is a need to put in place unified technical standards to make it possible for banks, telecom service providers and companies to jointly use the mobile platform for payments. The solution that is offered to 295
promote financial inclusion will have to be voice based as many of the ‘unbanked’ are illiterate, and many not be able to type on their phones. There is a strong need to introduce separate laws for mobile banking in India. In India, there is Information Technology Act, 2000 which deals with issues relating to e-commerce and mobile commerce. But very few provisions of the Act are dealt with mobile banking. Further, there is need to create a regulatory regime that enables operators to extend formal financial services to the poor and is appropriate for the level of risk created. In helping to create an appropriate regulatory framework, mobile operators should ally with an industry that many might consider their natural rivals: banks and other financial institutions. Both industries are adept at working with governments to craft regulations, however, and since using mobile devices to bring financial services to the unbanked is new territory, there is little existing turf for either industry to protect and far more common ground. Indeed, successful models will probably require partnerships between companies in both industries. A first step would be to jointly develop a clear view of the full set of regulatory innovations that would support mobile banking while addressing legitimate risks and to articulate the social and commercial benefits of adopting those rules. Mobile banking introduces new challenges in fraud prevention that must be addressed before it too can be widely adopted. Mobile banking touch points are easier for criminals to gain access to, as they do not have the security layers that Internet sites do. Because fraudsters are able to mimic the appearance of a mobile device as easily as they can a PC or a laptop, they are capable of infiltrating an unsuspecting bystander's mobile banking account. Client device identification (CDI) is an extremely valuable antifraud tool that helps identify suspicious transactions. By capturing and identifying device characteristics during the login process, CDI goes beyond simple user names and passwords to detect suspect mobile transactions at the device level. It is designed to differentiate individual devices visiting a site regardless of past registration, the credentials presented or the connection (telecom carrier or IP address). Trust is another important issue in mobile banking. There are several methods to obtain user trust. In specific mobile banking research user trust is related with the design of the user interface Design of the elements in the interface can produce a feeling of trustworthiness. People have to trust the interface. Financial-services capabilities are also required across the mobile-money value chain, from designing products to managing the flow of funds to handling clearing and settlement. To offer mobile money, mobile operators must acquire these skills quickly. 296
CONCLUDING REMARKS Given the abysmal spread of formal credit facilities in the country, and more so in villages, it is hardly surprising that both the government as well as the Reserve Bank of India are talking of financial inclusion. In order to reach out to the around 72,315 villages, with a population of over 2000 (as per the 2001 census), that are yet unbanked and which need to be brought under the banking net, it is a fore gone conclusion that the solution lies in making effective and creative use of technology. The time is now to put mobile phone technology into action. India is the world's fastest-growing mobile market with more than 670 million customers. Many of these users are in remote parts of the country where banks and even microfinance institutions do not reach. Harnessing the power of mobile phone to make payments and disburse loans instead of risky, labour-intensive manual collection could help transform the lives of millions more needy Indians. Further, it is also an opportunity for the banks to serve the customer, who has low amount of savings or transactions. At brick and mortar branch, it is not economical. Mobile phone with their wider reach depth and low cost would definitely play a very big role in the financial inclusion process provided there is a regulatory framework that can allow safe and secure transaction. There is also need to devise clear guidelines for banks, mobile operators and end-users. Banks using mobile technology first time need to tread the path cautiously. The biggest decision that banks need to make is the channel they will support their services on. It is also important to understand that technology is one element. If technology is aligned with business models, probably dividend would be far better. Last but not the least, mobile technology can accelerate financial inclusion in India only when the policymakers have a clear vision about the challenges and opportunities posed by mobile technology and what they want to achieve. A key success factor is the level of political backup central bank and regulators receives. The level of political awareness and support is directly proportional to the level of development of financial inclusion strategy and policy. REFERENCES Akula, V. (August 07, 2009). The Time for Mobile Banking for Financial Inclusion is Now, Hindustan Times.
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Bandyopadhyay, T. (October 8, 2011). “Targeting the Unbanked in India Will be Lucrative”, Livemint. Bell, C. (1990), “Interactions between Institutional and Informal Credit Agencies in Rural India”. The World Bank Economic Review, Vol. 4( 3), 297-327. Calapati, J. (October, 2010). “Mobile Banking Takes the Lead”, The Malaya Business Insight. Deshpande, R. S. & Prabhu, N. (2005). “Farmers’ Distress: Proof Beyond Question”. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XL, No. 44-45, pp 4663-65. Gandhi, (July, 2010) “Calling on Mobile Banking: Financial Inclusion in Rural India”. South Asia Monitor. Center for Strategic and International Studies,143. Gangopadhayay, S. (2009). “How Can Technology Facilitate Financial Inclusion in India? A Discussion Paper”. Review of Market Integration, Vol. 1(2), pp 223-256. Government of India. (1987). All India Report on Agricultural Census, 1980-81. Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture and Co-operation. Agricultural Census Division. IBA. (2007). Approach Paper on IT Enabled Financial Inclusion: How to Leverage Technology for Broad Basing Financial Inclusion Initiatives. IBS-Sub Committee on IT Enabled Financial Inclusion, Department of Social Banking. Leasi, P. (2010). “Financial Inclusion and Mobile Banking in Samoa”. BIS Review 9/2010. Misra, S. K. & Wickamasinghe, N. (2004). “Security of Mobile Transaction: A Trust Model”. Electronic Commerce Research, Vol. 4 (4), pp 359-372. Peha, J. M. & Khamitov, I. M. (2004). “PayCash: a secure and efficient internet Payment System”. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Vol 3(4), pp 381-388. Prakesh, N. (April 10, 2009). Financial Inclusion with Mobile Banking, Computer Express. Reddy, V. R., & Galab, S. (2006). “Agrarian Crisis: Looking Beyond the Debt Trap”. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLI(19), pp 1838-41.
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Reserve Bank of India. (2008). Mobile Payments in India: Operative Guidelines for Banks, Retrieved from http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/Content/PDFs/84978.pdf Richard, N., Arora , J. S., Sumanjeet. (2009). “The Evolution of E-Banking: A Study of Indian and Kenyan Technology Awareness”. International Journal of Electronic Finance, Vol. 3(2), pp 149-165. Singh, S. (2009). Mobile Remittances: Design for Financial Inclusion, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer: Berlin. Sumanjeet, (2008). “Securing Payment Systems in the Age of Electronic Commerce”. International Journal of Management Research and Technology, vol. 2(1), pp 19-32. Sumanjeet, (2009). “Emergence of Electronic Payment System in the Age of Electronic Commerce: The State of Art”. Global Journal of International Business Research, Vol. 2(2), pp 17-26. Swain, B. R. (2002). “Credit Rationing in Rural India”. Journal of Economic Development, Vol. 27(2), pp 1-19.
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DETAILS OF AUTHORS Sumanjeet Singh Ramjas College, University of Delhi Delhi-7, INDIA Dr. Sumanjeet, is M.Com; MBA; M.Phil; PG Diploma in Cyber Law and Ph.D. Dr. Sumanjeet is presently working as Assistant Professor at Department of Commerce, Ramjas College, University of Delhi, India. He has authored more than 100 research papers for various national and international journals of repute and presented papers at many national and international conferences. He is active editorial member/assistant editor of many international journals. He is associate editor of International Journal of Innovation and Digital Economy and Asia Pacific Journal of Management. He is the former editor of International Journal of Business and Engineering Research. He has widely travelled India and abroad. His work has been accepted for presentation in many countries: USA, Romania, Germany, Italy, France, Kenya, Canada, Pakistan, Nepal, China, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, Netherland, UK and many others. He has been awarded with “Rashtriya Vidhya Sarswati” Award and “Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award”, 2008 for his outstanding contribution in the field of application of ICTs and E-Commerce. His paper on IPRs and Competition Policy has been ranked at Ist (most downloaded) by SSRN under the top ten journals of intellectual property rights. His name has been included in NIC World Who is Who. His areas of teaching and research are: IPRs, Law and Economics and E-commerce. E-mail:
[email protected]
Minakshi Paliwal Ramjas College, University of Delhi Delhi-7 INDIA
Dr. Minakshi Paliwal is also working as Assistant Professor at the Department of Commerce, Ramjas College, University of Delhi, Delhi, INDIA. She is M.Com; MBA; CFA and Ph.D. in Applied Finance. She has authored many research papers and presented papers in many national and international conferences. Her areas of teaching and research are: Finance and Economics.
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Theme 4 Leadership and Capacity for Efficient Public Service Management
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COLLABORATIVE PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY IN BANGLADESH: DOES IT REALLY BOOST ALL- INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT?
Mohammad Mohabbat Khan & Md. Shahriar Islam
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COLLABORATIVE PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY IN BANGLADESH: DOES IT REALLY BOOST ALL- INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT?
ABSTRACT
Where public organisations engage private and civil society organisations in the process of delivery of services to the citizens it is termed as collaborative public service delivery. Collaborative public service delivery is mushrooming quite rapidly in Bangladesh as formal mechanisms for delivering public services have been found to be inadequate and inefficient and consequently severely criticized. It is believed that for ensuring an all-inclusive development, people’s active participation in all phases of public service delivery system is crucial. Collaboration between public sector, private sector and civil society organisations has been theorized as the mechanism for people’s participation which consequently ensures allinclusiveness in the process of development. Hence, it is worth analyzing whether collaboration between public, private and civil society organisations to deliver public services are adequate to ensure all-inclusive development. This paper, considering the changing patterns of public service delivery examines the context, extent and prospect of collaborative public service delivery in Bangladesh. It is felt that the present state of governance in Bangladesh is not satisfactory. It is assumed that operating within such a governance system it would be extremely difficult to build the required platform on which both central and local governments can depend to effectively and efficiently collaborate with private and civil society organisations. By considering the current state and crystal balling future prospect of collaborative public service delivery in Bangladesh this study analyses whether this novel approach of public service delivery, advocated by both national and international policy actors, can guarantee the fruits of development for all the citizens in the country.
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INTRODUCTION In Bangladesh formal mechanisms for delivering public services have been severely criticized over the years. These criticisms often raise question as to what extent people have been able to take part in the service delivery system. It is believed that for ensuring an all-inclusive development, people’s active participation in all phases of public service delivery system is crucial. Pressures from both internal and external actors are being exerted for a novel style of public service delivery as the traditional channels of service delivery have been adversely affected by some undesirable politico-bureaucratic practices. In recent times private and civil society organisations have been welcomed by many to bolster the public sector’s moves for an efficient service delivery. Collaborative public service delivery (CPSD) refers to public management innovations that engage private actors in delivering public services, such as contracting out, vouchers, and public–private partnerships. By combining the relative advantages of both the public and private sectors, CPSD is expected to produce value for the money, customer
choice,
managerial
flexibility
and
accountability,
and
market/community
empowerment (Jing and Savas 2009). This collaboration between public sector, private sector and civil society organisations has been subsequently theorized as the mechanism for people’s participation and all-inclusiveness in the process of development.
It is felt by many that the present state of governance in Bangladesh is not satisfactory. It is assumed that operating within such governance system would be extremely difficult to build the platform from which both central and local governments can effectively and efficiently collaborate with private and civil society organisations (Khan, 2002; 2009). Public sector in Bangladesh provides personnel, money and logistic support to public service delivery. Politicians over the years by giving priority to narrow political considerations have been trying to manipulate the practices in public service and subsequently the public servants consider themselves as the clients of their political masters rather than servants to the citizens. That means the civil service performs in a very adverse condition which does not allow satisfactory public service delivery (Khan, 2012). This is the basic rationale why national and international actors prefer collaboration among public-private and NGO/CVO (Non-Governmental/Community Voluntary Organisations). The proponents of people’s participation and public service quality (Mayne and Rieper, 2003) also argue in favour of collaborative public service delivery. 304
Bangladesh has been trying to institutionalize new public management (NPM) system and meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Both NPM and MDGs call for such development which includes all in its process and outcome to ensure participation and quality. Hence, this paper seeks to analyse the collaborative public service delivery as one of the new ideas in the field of public administration and governance to find out to what extent this phenomenon encourages all-inclusive development in present governance scenario of Bangladesh. Considering the changing patterns of public service delivery it also examines the context, extent and prospect of collaborative public service delivery in Bangladesh. The paper begins with conceptual discussions of key issues. The paper delineates the present context, extent, and future prospect of collaborative public service delivery followed by discussion of changing patterns of public service delivery in Bangladesh and usefulness of CPSD to ensure allinclusive development.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Governance Governance is a comprehensive term with extensive implications (Khan, 2002: 63). Governance is “many things, including a buzzword, a fad, a framing device, abridging concept, an umbrella concept, a descriptive concept, an empty signifier, a weasel word, a fetish, a field, an approach, a theory and a perspective” (Levi-Faur, 2012: 3).No country can afford an out-dated concept of governance (Khan, 2003a). That is why governance is now viewed as an interdisciplinary research agenda that encompasses within its reach matters within the state and beyond. Governance is rapidly becoming a broad concept that is at the heart to the study of political, economic, spatial and social order to the understanding of the dynamics of change of capitalist democracies in particular (Levi-Faur, 2012:3). Good governance, a derivative from the term governance, is coined, introduced and popularized by international development agencies and financial institutions sometimes as preconditions for technical assistance and development project financing (Khan, 2003a). Over the years some of the key characteristics of good governance have emerged. Kaufmann and Kraay (2002), in order to determine the nature and extent of good governance in a country, developed indicators of governance which have received acceptance all over the word as those indicators provided the countries of the world with a clear 305
understanding of good governance. Thus, the indicators of good governance are: voice and accountability, political stability and lack of violence, government effectiveness, and regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption. In recent times notion of governance has seen a new shift from good governance to collaborative governance. Recently the new studies see governance as the engagement of single or multiple organisations outside the public sector in any stage of the policy process, including problem identification, identification of preferences, prioritizing among policy preferences, selecting a policy approach, adopting, implementing, and enforcing policy (Blomgren, 2008). This sort of governance is termed as collaborative governance and researchers believe that through collaboration the traditional characteristics of good governance may be achieved.
Collaborative Practice of Public Service Delivery Over the last two decades, a new strategy of governing called ‘‘collaborative governance’’ has come into prominence. This mode of governance brings multiple stakeholders together in common forums with public agencies to engage in consensus-oriented decision making (Ansell and Gash, 2008). Scholars of public administration and other policy fields have developed rich materials exploring the multiple ways the public, private, and non-profit sectors work together to implement public policies and deliver services to the citizens. In line with the notion of collaborative governance the term ‘collaborative public service delivery’ has also emerged. The notion of collaborative public service delivery includes multiple stakeholders. Hence, collaborative public service delivery denotes the system of public service delivery that includes public, private and third sector in the delivery process and formulating decisions regarding that delivery. Collaboration occurs in various ways. Sometimes governments contract with private entities and buy staff, services, or expertise through ‘purchase-of services’ contracts (DeHoog and Salamon 2002; VanSlyke 2003). Sometimes, governments support business innovation by sponsoring research or providing infrastructure through public–private partnerships (Link, 2006). At other times, the public sector works collaboratively with all other sectors, drawing resources and expertise across organisational boundaries as a partner rather than a purchaser or supporter.
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All-inclusive Development Many people are excluded from the benefits of development because of their gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, disability and poverty. The effects of such exclusion are staggering, and resulting in deepening inequality across the world. The richest ten percent of people in the world own 85 percent of all assets, while the poorest 50 percent own only one percent. Development can be all-inclusive only if all groups of people and all citizens in a country contribute to creating opportunities, share the benefits of development and participate in decision-making (Conceicao, Gibson, Heitor and Sirilli, 2001). All-inclusive development follows UNDP's human development approach and integrates the standards and principles of human rights: participation, non-discrimination and accountability (Rauniyar and Kanbur, 2010; Ali and Zhuang, 2007; Chatterjee, 2005). There are many options for a country to consider in pursuing all-inclusive development. A vital one is how to create productive and gainful employment. This should be paired with effective and efficient social safety nets to protect those who cannot work or who earn too little. To reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), many developing countries will also need to enhance public services by building schools and hospitals, training teachers and doctors, and providing access to water, sanitation and transportation, all of which requires public spending. Well-designed fiscal policies - the way a government collects and spends public resources - can play a major role in stimulating growth and reducing poverty (Ali and Son, 2007).
CHANGING PATTERNS OF PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY Collaborative arrangement may involve administrative culture change to deliver public services. This change has been seen in most of the developed countries since 1980s when new public management (NPM) started to take hold on the administrative and managerial affairs of a country. Over the last 40 years, dramatic changes have occurred in how government carries out public policies. Scholars have characterized this change as the ‘hollowing of the state’ (Milward and Provan, 1993), a ‘revolution that no one noticed’ (Salamon, 2002). Many governments around the world, including New Zealand, Great Britain, China and United States have shifted their focus from merely public sector to private and non-profit organisations to deal with the 307
public service delivery provisions. This is typically called as the new public management revolution where the state has limited roles. There are several reasons for tremendous interest in collaboration to deliver public services include the search for greater productivity; more reliance on private markets to achieve public ends; a stronger orientation towards service; more decentralization from national to sub-national governments; increased ability to conceive and monitor public policy; and increased tactics to enhance accountability for results (Kettl, 2005). Quality of public service delivered by traditional public sector has been another issue for most of the public administration practitioners and scholars. Traditional public sector has been, most of the time, failing to meet the standard while delivering public service (Mayne and Rieper, 2003).
The term ‘Collaboration’ is used extremely loosely in current policy discourse. Lowndes and Skelcher identify three different rationales for such use (1998: 314–16). First, by drawing on the contributions of different agencies according to their specific resources and competencies, governments hope that partnership will deliver goals more effectively and efficiently – as Lowndes and Skelcher put it, they will deliver ‘more with less’. Secondly, by encouraging network like contacts between public agencies, partnership promises to plug holes in statutory mandates and tackle ‘wicked issues ‘through “joined up” governance. Third, by including different groups and sectors in policy and strategy-making, the new partnerships promise more inclusive forms of government than can be realized through the traditional institutions of representative democracy (see also Sullivan and Skelcher,2003; Lowndes and Sullivan, 2004).In the age of globalization and steady advancement of information technology it is difficult for single organisation with traditional bureaucratic setup to deliver the public services (Agranoff and McGuire, 2003). Thus, network between organisations beyond their respective boundaries are now very much crucial to ensure quality and efficient public service. Here network means collaborating with each other for the achievement of predefined purpose or goal (Agranoff and McGuire, 2003).
Due to multifaceted problems in governance of Bangladesh, many internal and external actors have been proposing a new mode of public service delivery to meet the needs of the citizens. Those actors also stated that effectiveness of public sector as a traditional machinery to deal with the public service delivery is not in such position that gives core competencies over private and 308
non-profit organisations working on same social issues. Kaufmann and Kraay(2002) developed governance indicators to identify the condition of governance within a polity. The present state of governance in Bangladesh can be understood by evaluating each governance indicator. In terms of voice and accountability, the first indicator, Bangladesh is well behind the standard mark because of the highly dysfunctional formal accountability mechanism i.e. parliament and its standing committees (Ahmed, 2011; DFID, 2008).People’s voices are unheard over the years and their aspirations are neglected by the legislature and the government while formulating and executing policies and strategies. In recent years the third sector organisations especially nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and Community Based Organisations (CBOs) have assisted and encouraged the citizens to raise their voice on important issues that affect them (citizens). Initiatives by these organisations and their success in this regard have made a door wide open for new pattern of public service delivery in which public sector does not have the sole right to operate. Furthermore, the government’s efficiency and effectiveness is highly suspicious because of bureaucracy’s involvement in partisan politics and this adversely affects policy implementation and service delivery (Khan, 2003, and IGS, 2008). Rampant public sector corruption in Bangladesh (Khan, 2009; Alam, Mian and Smith, 2006) has opened the corridor of opportunity for others to collaborate with public sector for enhancing the quality of public service delivery. The deteriorating state of governance in Bangladesh along with increased inefficiency of the public sector have made it imperative to bring about change in the pattern of conventional way of delivering public services. Bureaucracy in Bangladesh remains rigid remaining true to its past colonial heritage. Citizens are constantly clamouring for efficient and effective public service delivery while many civil society and international agencies are advocating for a change in the pattern as well. The recent trend of changing patterns of public service delivery all over the world is more or less caused by the factors cited in the case of Bangladesh’s governance and public sector. The proponents of change believe that their involvement into public service delivery system can lead to collaboration with the public sector and enable them to co-produce the service to meet citizens’ demands maintaining efficiency and quality.
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COLLABORATIVE PUBLIC SERVICE DELIVERY IN BANGLADESH: CONTEXT, EXTENT AND PROSPECT
Both international donor agencies and national level NGOs/private sector dominant organisations have been doing some social service in many different names and capacities. These efforts are not always publicized to give the people ideas what other sectors are doing related to services supposed to be delivered to citizens by public sector. Recently, persistent criticisms have put significant pressure on public sector to invite private and third sector for collaborative public service delivery. Hence, there are some glimpses of privatization, corporatisation, deregulation, and outsourcing of public services. Recently, citizen’s charter has also been introduced (Sarker, 2009). Tanner (2007) notes that third sector with their knowledge and expertise can include the people, who are hard to reach by public sector, within the framework of service outcome. Haque (2004) notes that in Bangladesh the third sector organisations have collaborated with government organisations (GOs) basically through either projects or programmes. He further shows that such collaborations are not marked as full-fledged engagement in the service delivery stream. At present, most cases of GO-third sector collaboration are restricted to third sector organisations only providing financial support and technical assistance as the agents of international donor agencies. There are many strategies present in the literature of collaborative practice of public service delivery. Unfortunately, none of them have been successfully utilized in Bangladesh to include people regardless of caste, wealth, group, sex and other socio-economic distinction in the milieu of development outcome. Few private sector organisations undertake social service in the name of corporate social responsibility which does not fit in within the formal public service delivery system. Despite having all the attributes private sector organisations have not been involved in a large scale into public service delivery stream. Both the private and the third sector organisations in Bangladesh have established a “sturdy”!connection with central government as they often receive funds from both the central government and international donors via central government’s agencies (Gauri and Galef, 2005). Having these core competencies, private and third sectors are more than eligible and qualified to be actively involved in local service delivery. Third sector with skilled manpower, finance, political linkage and latest technologies and research backup can make difference in the process of public service delivery. Public sector in Bangladesh has been mostly successful to deliver basic health care service through collaboration 310
with private and third sectors. The other area of public service delivery is education which has been successfully done through such collaboration. Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) in the primary education is one of the most significant names in recent years as it has attempted to enhance the reach of primary education through its innovative programmes.
Context and extent of collaborative public service delivery in Bangladesh do not show any kind of sign of long- term collaboration between public, private and third sectors. Current scenario indicates short- term project oriented collaboration in such areas as health, sanitation, infrastructure, water and primary education. Although the private and third sector organisations possess new technologies and expertise to deal with present and future social issues that might arise, government in Bangladesh does not feel comfortable to collaborate with them to deliver public service. With the help of international donor agencies NGOs and private organisations have been making themselves more capable to handle the pressure of public service delivery. All these positives about private and third sectors do not really portray a hopeful scenario of collaborative public service delivery in Bangladesh in the coming years because public sector is still apprehensive that the collaboration would lower their status and end monopoly in running the administration. Public bureaucrats always prefer status quo rather than change in working pattern to adopt new styles of public service delivery (Poulson, 2006). Collaborative public service delivery has the potential to bring people irrespective of group, race, caste, sex in the sphere of development as this novel way of delivering services ensure stakeholder participation. Full-fledged long term collaboration may bring the public sector closer to the people where people can access to the service deliverers easily to get their demands fulfilled. In Bangladesh’s public sector a patron-client relationship (Kochenak, 1993) exists and this type of relationship grows between public bureaucrats and political leaders. Collaborative public service delivery normatively does not appreciate this type of relationship in delivering public services. It rather points out to a wider participation of all stakeholders’ i.e. private sector, third sector, community, and civil society organisations in every phase of service delivery. Notwithstanding, in Bangladesh there are a few instances of successful collaboration to deal with education, health and sanitation through projects. But it would be hard to find instances of collaborative public service delivery for large government projects with longer time horizons.
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COLLABORATIVE
PUBLIC
SERVICE
DELIVERY
FOR
ALL-INCLUSIVE
DEVELOPMENT: THE DEBATE Despite making considerable progress in some important areas of social development, poverty is still persistent and inequality is rising and becoming more diversified in Bangladesh. Afsar (2010) points out that inequality is a severe problem which comes along with poverty and does not allow people to take part in social, economic and political activities. A steady growth of civil society and third sector organisations in last two decades has been giving hope to the people in terms of participation in the development process through various channels. Collaborative public service delivery is one of the mechanisms through which all people can be brought into the scenario where they reap the fruit of development. Although CPSD is a good channel of ensuring all-inclusive development in Bangladesh, many governance problems (Khan, 2009) do not lend them to be solved through utilization of this channel to ensure such development. There is no doubt that private and third sectors have all the potentials, skills and expertise to collaborate with public sector to ensure a top class public service delivery through which all people would be treated equally. Unfortunately, there is a divide between large NGOs and other third sector organisations which are smaller in terms of size and function (Haque, 2004) in Bangladesh. Whenever the public sector collaborates with other sectors the big NGOs do get the preference over smaller ones. This is not the way to ensure all-inclusive development.
Furthermore, patron-client relationship is being observed in the available instances of collaboration. NGOs and private sector organisations in order to establish partnership contracts with the government use their lobbying power (Khan, 2003b; Ebrahim, 2003). Political leaders feel that these organisations are crucial to meet their future election prospects because leaders of such organisations have good relationship with international donor agencies which could be used to assume power (Zaman, 2003). If any third sector organisation does not maintain such relationship then political parties usually vehemently criticize those to tarnish their reputation. This leads to hostility and lack of meaningful cooperative relationship between public and other sectors. Naturally, this way people’s participation in the delivery of public services cannot be ensured as third and private sectors would be reluctant to represent people as stakeholders. There is abundance of third and private sector organisations in Bangladesh who can cover people from all regions having different caste, sex, religion, social and economic background. All the third 312
and private sectors need is an effective and more interactive platform to bring the diverse groups for mutually beneficial action (Afsar, 2010). Ullah and others (2006) point out that NGOs and other such organisations can raise awareness about different health related issues by lobbying with the public sector. They see collaborative public service delivery opens up the door for such organisations to represent the voice of underprivileged people to the government. Whereas, Haque (2004) argues that under the framework of partnership and such link, some major NGOs in Bangladesh have expanded collaboration with government agencies, foreign donors, and private enterprises; have become more interested in gaining funds, business contracts, and profitmaking ventures from these partners; and, thus, moved away from their original development agenda of improving the socio-economic conditions of the poor through representing them in various forums.
Despite having praised by many national and international agencies private and third sector organisations pursuing for national development through the channel of collaborative public service delivery they are also being criticized. Already accountability of public sector to people has been a major concern for governance in Bangladesh (Khan, 2009). Collaborative public service delivery provides citizens with another challenge of holding private and third sector accountable. This could be a burden for the people as they are already confused in holding public bureaucrats accountable for their actions. Further confusion may lead to bigger problems for the nascent collaborative system surging for all-inclusive development. More significantly, while the government is publicly accountable through committees in the legislature, judicial rulings, the NGOs are not elected, their incumbents are not publicly appointed, and they do not hold any public mandates. Hence, they are not answerable to the general public (Paul, 2000). The accountability of NGOs becomes more problematic due to the growing monopoly of a few large NGOs in terms of membership, loans, revenues, and funds. Haque (2002) points out that selfeconomic motive of the third and private sector organisations have faded the activities of reducing poverty and basic service delivery through the channel of collaboration. White (1999) points out that few large NGOs and other third sector organisations do have the mechanism to ensure bottom-up approach of decision- making by inviting the staffs at the end of the echelon to give opinion. But Gauri and Galef (2005) argue that most NGOs as third sector organisation practice very little democracy within the organisation. Mostly the smaller NGOs try 313
to keep the link up with the larger ones while the larger ones try to control all the affairs from headquarters situated in Dhaka. These large NGOs and other private sector organisations who seek to take part in the national development manage the interaction with donors from their headquarters. It is usually claimed that a top-down approach is being followed within these organisations. These organisations also may raise questions as to what extent they would be successful to include all people in the participatory development framework by collaborating with public sector to provide service. Both internal and external accountability of private and non-profit organisations is important to extract the all-inclusive development through collaborative public service delivery. Going beyond the accountability discourse Ahmad (2006) notes that in Bangladesh larger NGOs have created a somewhat monopoly over the smaller ones. Although government prefers a competitive environment while making partnership with other sectors there should be some clear directions for creating a consortia so that the smaller NGOs can equally take part to ensure their inclusion otherwise it could be difficult to realize the goal of all-inclusive development. All-inclusive development is preconditioned by the inclusion of all groups of people in the process of decision making which may affect their status and prospect. Collaborative public service delivery in the present governance context and power relation of the NGOs and private organisations does not appear to be the platform to include all people in the decision making phase of development policy implementation. Organisations outside public sector are somewhat tend to bend their back to get the private financial gains rather looking at the voluntarism for the development of people. Politics is getting into the sphere of NGOs and other non-profit organisations which cannot facilitate the people’s participation and subsequently the all-inclusive development.
CONCLUSION Governance scenario in Bangladesh clearly denotes the absence of pro-poor stipulation. Politicsbureaucracy nexus and mal-institutionalization of democracy have been the key features of governance in Bangladesh which ultimately hampered the capability of the public sector to deliver the services to citizens. Meanwhile, globalization and rapid pace of technological 314
advancement made the way for new thoughts to come into the polity of Bangladesh to play a significant part. In this way new patterns of public service delivery have been gaining momentum to usher the changes in traditional setting led by public sector with inherent colonial legacy. Amid this kind of politico-administrative setting Bangladesh has been crawling to achieve an equal and just society. In the meantime the country has got a clear vision, as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), to guide its development priorities to right direction. Right after the inception of MDGs in 2000 countries around the globe have been striving for the achievement of all-inclusive development in which people from every corner of society can take part in the process of development and enjoy the outcomes of the development efforts. Poverty and inequality are two major targets of development advocates and practitioners within the framework of MDG. Public service is an important step of the ladder which leads towards an equal and just society where all-inclusive development within the framework of MDG is possible. Thus, public service delivery has got enough illumination from national and international actors due to the failure of public sector as a prime agent to look after the public service delivery. Earlier it has been pointed out that novel strategies of public service delivery are being advocated quite regularly in recent times and collaborative public service delivery is one of them. Normatively, collaboration between public, private and third sectors to deliver public service is capable of being the tool which can ensure all-inclusive development through stakeholders’ participation. Unfortunately, in the case of Bangladesh politics and private gains are gobbling both public and private/non-profit sectors. Motives of political and private gain establish corruption as a regular phenomenon in the society. Knox (2009) studied service sector corruption in Bangladesh and identified that bribery as the apex type of corruption in each of the service provided by the central and local government. He also argued that the NGOs are also involved in corruption in delivering those services due to lack of regulatory mechanism in the procedure of GO-NGO partnership. Patron-client relationship and thirst for funds are damaging the expertise of the private and third sectors which could have been important actors of the partnership. Lack of proper guidelines and strategies for longer period collaboration are not present in Bangladesh through which other sectors can collaborate with public sector organisations. Collaboration through projects and programmes always tend to increase the importance of both parties in the partnership. Projects and programmes have very little built-in accountability 315
mechanisms in place causing suffering to people. Attempts for quick fix are needed to include all segments of people who rely more on private and non-profit sectors than on public sector because of rigid mechanism followed by public bureaucrats. NGOs and other such types of organisations design their day- to- day programmes, to some extent, based on the demands of the people. That means these organisations know about the people and they can uphold their voice in formal occasions like collaborative public service delivery. By devising an efficient mechanism to check the activities of both parties in partnership people can be included into the process of development. Through collaborative public service delivery including public, private and nonprofit sectors the country can move one step forward in achieving a society in which equity is ensured, and fruit of development is shared by all.
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Ali, I., & Son, H. (2007). “Defining and Measuring Inclusive Growth: Application to the Philippines”. ERD Working Paper Series No. 98. Manila: ADB. Ali, I. & Zhuang J. (2007). “Inclusive Growth toward a Prosperous Asia: Policy Implications”. ERD Working Paper No. 97.Manila: ADB. Ansell, C. & Gash, A. (2008).“Collaborative Governance in Theory and Practice”, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 18(4): 543-571. Chatterjee, S. (2005). “Poverty Reduction Strategies-Lessons from the Asian and Pacific Region on Inclusive Development”. Asian Development Review, 22(1): 12-44. Conceicao, P.; Gibson, D. V.; Heitor, M. V. & Sirilli, G. (2001).“Knowledge for Inclusive Development: The Challenge of Globally Integrated Learning and Implications for Science and Technology Policy”. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 66(1): 1-29. DeHoog, R. H. & Salamon, L. (2002). “Purchase-of-Service Contracting”. In Salamon (ed.), The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. DFID. (2008). Bangladesh: Country Governance Analysis, DFID, London. Ebrahim, A. (2003). “Accountability in Practice: Mechanisms for NGOs”. World Development, 31(5): 813–829. Gauri, V. & Galef, J. (2005). “NGOs in Bangladesh: Activities, Resources, and Governance”. World Development, 33(12): 2045–2065. Haque, M. S. (2004). “Governance based on partnership with NGOs: Implications for Development and Empowerment in Rural Bangladesh”. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 70(2):271–290. IGS (2008). State of Governance in Bangladesh, Institute of Governance Studies, BRAC University, Dhaka. Jing, Y. & Savas, E. S. (2009).“Managing Collaborative Service Delivery: Comparing Chinaand the United States, ”Public Administration Review, 69(1): 101-107. Kaufmann, D. & Kraay, A. (2002). “Growth without Governance,”World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 2928, Washington D.C.: World Bank. Kettl, D. (2005). The Global Public Management Revolution, 2nd edition. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
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Rauniyar, G. & Kanbur, R. (2010). Inclusive Development: Two Papers on Conceptualization, Application, and the ADB Perspective. Manila: ADB Compendium, Salamon, L. (2002). The Tools of Government Action: A Guide to the New Governance. New York: Oxford University Press. Sarker, A. E. (2009). “The New Mode of Public Governance and Public Accountability in Developing Countries: An Analysis with Particular Reference to Bangladesh”. International Journal of Public Administration, 32: 1101–1123. Sullivan, H. & Skelcher.C. (2003). Working across Organisational Boundaries: Collaboration in Public Services.Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Tanner, S. (2007). Common Themes on Commissioning the VCS in Selected Local Authorities in Greater London.London: London Council. Ullah, A. N. Z.; Newell, J. N.; Ahmed, J. U.; Hyder, M. K. A. & Islam, A.(2006). “Government– NGO Collaboration: The Case of Tuberculosis Control in Bangladesh”. Health Policy Planning, 21(2): 143-155 Van Slyke, & David, M. (2003). “The Mythology of Privatization in Contracting for Social Services”. Public Administration Review, 63(3): 296–315. White, S. C. (1999). “NGOs, Civil Society and the State in Bangladesh: The Politics of Representing the Poor”. Development and Change, 30: 307-326. Zaman, I. (5–7 September, 2003). Bangladesh, paper presented at Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium’s Conference on Governance, Organisational Effectiveness, and the Non-Profit Sector, Makati City, Philippines.
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DETAILS OF AUTHORs Mohammad Mohabbat Khan, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Public Administration University of Dhaka Dhaka, Bangladesh Tel: 88-02-8181632 (Work); 88-02-967-7616 (Home) Fax: 88-02- 812-2948, 88-02-812-28175 (Work) Cell: 01917757999 Mohammad Mohabbat Khan is a Member of University Grants Commission of Bangladesh and Professor, Department of Public Administration, University of Dhaka. He obtained his MPA from Syracuse University and MPA and Ph.D. in Public Administration from University of Southern California. He did his post-doctoral research at Cornell University and University of Texas at Austin. He has taught at universities in USA, Nigeria, Jordan and Bangladesh. He has published eighteen books and one hundred ninety articles in refereed journals at home and abroad. He has been a Member of Editorial board of several international journals. He was a Member of Bangladesh Public Service Commission. Email:
[email protected]
Md. Shahriar Islam Lecturer, Department of Public Administration, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi, Bangladesh Email:
[email protected] Cell: 01556315452 Md. Shahriar Islam is Lecturer in the Department of Public Administration at University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh. He obtained BSS (Hons.) degree in Public Administration from University of Dhaka. After having this degree he has received Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from London Metropolitan University, UK. He has done two internships, one in London Borough of Islington, UK and other in The Asia Foundation, Bangladesh consecutively. He has published articles both in national and international journals and collaborated with Professor Dr. Mohammad Mohabbat Khan in producing international conference papers and book chapter.
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MEASURING AND MANAGING PERFORMANCE IN GOVERNMENT – CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF INDIA’S PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND EVALUATION SYSTEM (PMES)
Ashish Vachhani
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MEASURING AND MANAGING PERFORMANCE IN GOVERNMENT – CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF INDIA’S PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND EVALUATION SYSTEM (PMES)
ABSTRACT: This study is prompted by growing global interest in the use of performance measures in government and efforts by nations to put in place workable results-based performance management systems. The study examines the performance management framework, particularly use of performance agreements in government, in New Zealand and India. With New Zealand’s experience in the backdrop, it critically appraises ‘India’s Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES)’ to assess whether its aims, methodology and implementation results thus far, can be correlated in theory and practice. At a generic plane, this study finds that in both countries, the elusive nature of ‘performance’ – problems in defining and measuring it – brings to fore difficulties in institutionalizing an effective results-based performance management system. At a specific level, this study concludes that India’s PMES is patchy and exhibits characteristics of a loosely woven framework. It needs to be better integrated with other management systems and practices in government to improve its efficacy in realizing the intended objectives.
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INTRODUCTION “Performance is a deceptively simple idea: simple because it is easy to express key concepts and objectives; deceptive because it is hard to apply these ideas in government.” Allen Schick (2003), OECD Journal on Budgeting, Volume 3, No. 2, p.73 Any discussion on performance in government evokes mixed reactions. For the cynical few, the words ‘performance’ and ‘government’ constitute an oxymoron – never the twain can meet. For others, performance matters in democratic governance. As Schick (2003:73) succinctly puts it, “the modern state has primacy only to the extent it performs”. 1.1
The Study: Its Context and Objectives
This study is prompted by growing global interest in the use of performance measures in government and efforts by nations to put in place workable results-based performance management systems. One key component of such a system is ‘performance agreement’. Performance agreements – also known as results agreements, performance contracts, framework agreements, etc. –are usually in the nature of a contract between the elected Minister and the administrative head of ministries/ departments. They outline the agreed policy objectives, programmes, projects of the ministries/ departments and resources available along with explicit performance measures or success indicators. It is argued that performance agreements are effective management tools for providing direction, enabling evaluation, strengthening monitoring and enforcing accountability in government. This study examines the performance management framework, particularly use of performance agreements in government, in New Zealand and India. Both countries share a common historical legacy of British colonial rule and the ‘Westminster-Whitehall’ model of government and governance. While New Zealand is globally acknowledged as a pioneer in institutionalizing systems for measuring and managing government performance, India’s results-based performance management framework – also called the Performance Evaluation and Monitoring System (PMES) – is relatively new and merits detailed research. The PMES requires federal government departments to execute a performance agreement – known as Results Framework Document (RFD) – which serves as a tool for measuring and comparing the actual with expected performance. 323
With the New Zealand experience in the backdrop, this study critically appraises India’s resultsbased performance management system to assess whether its aims, methodology and implementation thus far, can be correlated in theory and practice. In doing so, it seeks answers to the following research questions: 1) How has ‘performance’ been defined and measured in the RFDs of departments studied? 2) How well is India’s performance management system integrated with other management frameworks in the government? 3) By whom, to what extent, and for what ends is the RFD performance data being used in India? 1.2
Scope of the Study
This study analyses the RFDs formulated by two federal departments in the financial year 20102011 to find answers to the research questions. They are the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and the Department of Rural Development (DoRD). These departments exhibit diverse performance dynamics, budget size and political sensitivities, as can be gleaned from the following table Department (of)
Functions
Budget Size
Personnel and Training
Mostly
personnel Small
management
functions 0.5 percent of the though it is headed
at the federal level
Political Sensitivity
- less than Low
total federal budget
by
to
the
medium
Prime
Minister Rural Development
Concurrent development Large – more than Very high – headed functions between the 15 percent of the by a cabinet minister federal, provincial and total federal budget local levels
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1.3
Research Methodology
The research methodology includes the following: 1) Literature review: This study is based on extensive literature review to understand the theoretical underpinnings, formal system design and actual functioning of the performance management frameworks in New Zealand and India. Data collection and analysis: research data on India’s pmes have been sourced from semistructured interviews and open-ended questionnaire-based survey of policy planners and those responsible for policy implementation. This study draws from eleven semi-structured interviews conducted with officials engaged in policy formulation in the government in India. In addition, a survey form was circulated amongst 107 officials responsible for policy implementation in different provinces of the country. Total of 43 responses were received and analyzed, which form part of the research findings.
2. MANAGING FOR PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN GOVERNMENT: THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS For much of the 20th century, improving government performance has been a recurrent theme in administrative reform efforts across countries. Reducing ‘agency costs’ and avoiding ‘public choice’ problems by restructuring State institutions and reforming public processes were their main objectives (Van Dooren and Van de Walle 2008, Curristine 2005, Scott 2001). ‘Agency costs’ refer to costs of establishing, monitoring and enforcing contracts. They arise on account of lack of goal clarity, misalignment of incentives and contractual imperfections in public organizations. ‘Public choice’ problems emerge when costs of procuring information and influencing policy decisions, result in outcomes that are at the expense of wider public interest.
In the initial phase, notions of performance and public accountability in government were centered on concepts such as ‘input usage’ and ‘process compliance’ – how much money has been expended by government, its purposes, whether the spending was as per rules and 325
procedures, etc. Success or failure of public actions was gauged in the context of resources consumed and process compliance. In recent decades, the correlation between performance and accountability has acquired much wider import. Growing public disaffection with quality of government services and rise of ‘New Public Management (NPM)’ reforms, have caused a paradigmatic shift in focus that emphasizes funding outputs and outcomes (and not just inputs) of government activity. Consequently, the ambit of performance has widened to include outputs and outcomes of policy actions. And, accountability is now interpreted as ‘responsibility for results’ (Gill 2011, Pollitt, 2006, Behn 2003, Schick 2003, Hood 1995b, Obsorne and Plastrik 1997). Theoretical constructs and practical precepts on performance in government draw from an oftrepeated but appealing phrase “what gets measured gets done”. Contemporary performance management frameworks employ performance measures – quantitative and qualitative variables – that are gleaned from inputs, outputs and outcomes of policy actions. These are used to evaluate whether public organizations have expended their resources with economy, efficiency and effectiveness (Value for Money). The main performance concepts are diagrammatically depicted below.
Figure I: Key Performance Concepts Other Influences Public Organization Short-term results Outputs
Inputs
Money
Outcomes
Medium term results End results
Economy
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Source: Adapted from Ellis and Mitchell, 2002; 128. ‘Value for money’ (VfM) assessments examine whether public agencies have spent resources with economy, efficiency and effectiveness. ‘Economy’ examines whether resources have been 326
acquired at least cost. ‘Efficiency’ assess whether higher levels of outputs can be achieved from the same quantity of inputs. ‘Effectiveness’ seeks to assess whether programme goals have been achieved. VfM is said to have been achieved when costs are low, productivity is high and programme goals have been attained.
2.2
Performance Information and Measures: Pivot or Achilles’ heel?
In the past three decades, results-based performance management frameworks employing performance agreements in government have become a familiar global trend. However, what appears to be very appealing in theory has proved difficult to implement in practice. For its staunchest proponents, performance measurement is a good way for institutionalizing performance-based management and accountability in government. Behn (2003) says that it enables public managers to evaluate, control, budget, motivate, promote, celebrate, learn, and improve. Henri (2006) believes that performance information and measures have four vital functions – monitoring, strategic decision-making, legitimization and attention focusing within public organizations. Van Dooren et al (2010: 98) enumerate 44 potential uses of performance information for varied list of stakeholders. Notwithstanding the potential, there are problems associated in defining, measuring and managing performance information in the public realm. Following broad themes are discernable from literature review: a) At the conceptual level, opinions differ on what constitutes performance in public organizations and on ways of measuring them. Behn (2003) concedes that performance is not a real or stable phenomenon but needs to be interpreted in specific contexts. Its elusive and subjective nature brings to fore difficulties in developing measures that comprehensively reflect all aspects of policy goals. A ‘golden thread of performance’ traversing across contexts does not seem to exist – this makes the concept
incommensurate when
applied
to compare performance amongst
governments, between organizations and amongst employees within organizations (Micheli and Neely 2010, Bouckaert 2006, Christensen and Yoshimi 2001). 327
b) Performance measures can – depending on how they are aligned with formal and informal incentive systems – cause behavioral distortions and goal displacement within public organizations (Besley, Bevan and Burchardi 2009, Talbot 2008, Bevan and Hood 2005, Bouckaert and Peters 2002). Overriding emphasis on measureable aspects of performance tends to create perverse incentives for ‘creaming’ and ‘parking’. There is an emerging debate on whether the same set of performance measures can be used to support internal management and external accountability. Micheli and Nealy (2010) contend that a consistent chain of national standards and performance measures can serve the twin purposes. There are others who argue that the two objectives are mutually exclusive and therefore need different sets of performance measures. For external accountability, the pertinent question to ask is ‘was it done right’? Enforcing accountability in this context implies penalizing deviations. For internal management, the relevant question is ‘was the right thing done’? Here, punitive accountability is replaced by remedial accountability that permits organizations and individuals to reflect upon, learn, and improve their performance. Literature review shows that use of performance data by stakeholders to improve government performance is rather limited across countries. [Important research studies on uses of performance management information by stakeholders include: OECD –Johnson and Talbot (2008); UK – Johnson and Talbot (2007); Australia – Halligan et al (2007); United States – Joyce (2005), etc.] As is evident, notions of ‘performance’ in government draw from multiple strands and perspectives situated across disciplines. Subjective interpretations of performance and challenges in generating appropriate measures pose problems in institutionalizing ‘effective’ performance management systems in government.
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3.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN NEW ZEALAND: THE FORMAL AND REAL SYSTEM COMPARED
This chapter explores the theoretical foundations of New Zealand’s performance management system and compares the formal system design with the way it has evolved over the years.
3.1
The New Zealand Model: Formal System
Performance management reforms in New Zealand evolved as part of an overall programme of structural adjustment initiated in the early 1990s. Its main objectives were to institutionalize effective accountability systems within the government and improve efficiency and effectiveness of the State in delivering public programmes. The following table summarizes the key features of New Zealand’s pre-reform performance management framework and the reform objectives (Schick 1996, New Zealand Treasury, 1984, 1989, 2008). Table -1 S.No. Pre-reform formal system – Features
Reform Objectives
1.
Clarity in departmental objectives
2.
Lack of clarity in departmental goals Limited
review
mechanisms
control/
review
of
for Freedom to public managers; enabling
departmental
Accountability through incentives and
performance Over-riding 3.
4.
them to manage
emphasis
on
input
sanctions that encourage goal attainment
controls; limited operational flexibility Effective performance appraisal for public managers to choose input- Proper performance-related information mix
flow for improving managerial decision-
Inadequate incentives/ sanctions for
making
improving performance
accountability.
and
strengthening
external
To attain the aforesaid objectives, comprehensive design changes were introduced – they aimed at restructuring accountability relationships within the executive, and between the executive and 329
the legislature. The formal system of performance management in New Zealand rests on legislative enactments – Official Information Act 1982, State-owned Enterprises Act, 1986, State Sector Act 1988, The Public Finance Act 1989, Public Audit Act 2001, Crown Entities Act 2004 and codified conventions drawing from the Standing Orders or rules set by the Parliament and in the Cabinet Manual. Within the executive, the reformed performance management framework envisions a tripartite accountability arrangement between Ministers, departmental heads/ chief executives and state services commissioners. The elected Ministers have the peoples’ mandate, hence the responsibility to outline the department’s strategic vision, priorities, interventions, resource allocation and specific deliverables. All departments prepare an ‘output plan’ (The ‘output plan’ specifies the deliverables that the department intends to achieve from the appropriation granted by the Parliament.) based on the ministerial vision and present it to the Parliament along with the annual budget. New Zealand’s performance management framework is anchored in an integrated system of employment contracts, purchase agreements and performance agreements. An ‘employment contract’ is a fixed term employment agreement signed between the chief executive and the state services commissioner. The ‘purchase agreement’ is negotiated between the Minister and the chief executive – it incorporates deliverables specified in the departmental ‘output plan’. The ‘performance agreement’ is formalized between the chief executive and the state services commissioner. It includes deliverables specified in the ‘purchase agreement’ and enables the state services commissioner to monitor and evaluate the performance of the chief executive. The accountability framework within the executive is diagrammatically explained below (Source: Adapted from Gill 2011 and New Zealand Treasury 1989, 1996 and 2008).
330
Figure II Accountability Arrangements within the Executive
Performance reviews
State Services Commissioner
Minister
Employment and performance agreements
Policy direction and performance
Chief Executive
This tripartite accountability arrangement is very different from the traditional conception of principal-agent relationship – here the chief executive is ‘employed by’ the state services commissioner but ‘works for’ an elected Minister. This system aims at reducing ministerial interference in day-to-day operations of the department through considerable autonomy for the chief executives to choose appropriate input mix to deliver specific programme outputs. The accountability relationship between the executive and the legislature has been reinforced with the introduction of accrual accounting in government. It is supported by independent assurance through value for money (VfM) audit conducted by the Office of Auditor-General (OAG). Flow of performance information across various organs is diagrammatically shown below (Source: Adapted from Gill, 2011, Schick 1996 and New Zealand Treasury 1989, 1996 and 2008).
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Figure III Flow of Performance Information within various organs of the Government
Electorate
Parliament
OAG
Ministers
Treasury
Chief Executives/ Government Departments
State Service Commissioners
Public Service
3.2
The New Zealand Model: The Actual Practice
Over past two decades, use of performance information and measures has become ubiquitous in almost all aspects of governance in New Zealand. However, research and empirical studies on the functioning of the ‘real system’ shows that implementation of performance management reforms have been much more complex than originally anticipated.
a) Goal Clarity and Role Distinction: According to Norman (2003: 152), performance management reforms have enabled goal clarity within public organizations. However, role distinction has been more difficult to achieve. This is attributed to problems of segregating politics from administration (Boston 1996:7). The 332
purchaser-seller relationship between the Minister and the chief executive remains blurred, characterized by asymmetry in information, arbitrary pricing and monopoly in supply (Upton 1999: 11). Presence of state services commissioners has enabled greater objectivity in performance appraisal of the chief executives.
b) Performance information, measurement and management: In the 1990s, the Treasury and OAG promoted a simple conception of performance measures defined in terms of quantity, quality, timeliness and cost. Recent research reveals that there is a growing proclivity amongst departments to emphasize ‘easy to measure’ and ‘easy to achieve’ aspects of performance (Gill 2011: 94-97). While proper financial performance information reporting systems have been established, nonfinancial performance reporting still remains uneven. Interpretation of ‘outcomes’ of public policy by departments are diverse and Ministers exhibit reluctance in specifying expected outcomes (Murwanto et al, 2010: 21). The distinction between outputs and outcomes has been critiqued as a ‘rhetorical fiction’ by scholars. It is argued that outcomes are broader and subjective performance metrics that are often hard to measure (Hitchiner 2000). Schick (1998) says that performance contracts have limitations as they do not reckon exogenous and environmental influences on organizational performance.
a) Uses of performance information for internal management and external accountability: New Zealand’s performance management system rests on the premise that a consistent hierarchy of performance information would support twin requirements of internal management and external accountability. In practice, there are significant variations in the nature and clarity of performance reporting by organizations. There is little systematic and institutionalized use of
333
performance data within the government – it is mostly used as an alarm to signal major performance failures (Gill 2011: 131-135). Public Management reforms in New Zealand have fundamentally altered the way in which performance information is presented to the parliament. Budget information now includes accrual-based estimates, departmental statements of intents outlining strategic issues in terms of performance and capability, medium term forecasts, among others. However, debates on public spending decisions still appear to retain focus on inputs usage and process compliance.
4.
THE PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND EVALUATION SYSTEM (PMES) IN INDIA – A Critical Appraisal
India’s results-based performance management system – also known as the ‘Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System (PMES)’ – is similar, yet different, from the New Zealand model.
4.1
India’s Performance Management Model: Formal System
In India, the idea and use of measures to evaluate performance in the public realm is not new. The traditional focus of performance management in the country was on input control and process compliance – ‘how inputs should be aligned and how things ought to be done’. Recognizing these limitations, India’s Second Administrative Reforms Commission (2005) recommended the adoption of a results-based performance management framework or the PMES to manage and account for performance in government. Unlike in New Zealand where the performance management framework is anchored in legislative enactments, the PMES was introduced through an Executive Order. [The Government of India approved the introduction of PMES in all federal government departments vide PMO I.D. No. 1331721/PMO/2009-Pol dated 11th September 2009.] A legislation-based framework tends to be more stable than those introduced through executive decisions – this is so because such frameworks incorporate discussions, engagement and consensus across the political 334
spectrum, thus ensuring that they have a life beyond the tenure of the government that introduces it. The PMES provides a framework for monitoring and evaluating performance of federal government departments. According to the Cabinet Secretary to Government of India, the PMES marks a shift from reactive to proactive governance. It is a management tool that uses performance data and incentives to drive performance improvements and quality of public service delivery. The objectives are to strengthen internal decision-making and external accountability. The key components of India’s PMES are explained in the following chart (Figure 4 - Source: Government of India, Performance Management Division, 2009):
Figure IV Performance Monitoring and Evaluation System
Performance Information System (or) Results Framework Management System (RFMS)
Performance Agreements (or) Results Framework Documents (RFDs)
Performance Incentives (or) Performance-related incentive system (PRIS)
The fulcrum of the PMES is the Results Framework Document (RFD) – essentially a performance agreement negotiated between the political head and the administrative head of a ministry/department. It encapsulates outcomes or results expected from the government department and incorporate operational autonomy required for attainment of policy goals. Other pillars of the PMES include a management information system called the RFMS and the PRIS to incentivize performance improvements in the State sector. How is the RFD of a department structured? A departmental RFD seeks answers to three basic questions: (a) what are the main goals of the department? (b) How are they proposed to be achieved? (c) What are the success indicators or performance measures that describe the progress made in achieving the goals? 335
The following table summarizes the structure of an RFD (Source: Adapted from Government of India, Performance Management Division, 2009: 28): Table 2 Part(s)
Part I
Nature of Information
Remarks
Summary of department’s These draw from the medium/ long term strategic goals vision, mission, objectives of the department and functions
Priority-wise listing of the It enumerates key departmental goals and inter se Part II
main objectives including priorities amongst them and the key policy actions; it targets/ success indicators
also requires the department to identify indicators for evaluating progress made in attainment of the goals
Trend values for success This is an innovation not found in the New Zealand indicators
model. It requires the department to provide actual performance data for past two years. It, thus, sets out a
Part III
bottom line reference point that links the past, present and the future during performance evaluation
Definition Part IV
indicators
of
success This part requires the department to explain the choice and of success indicators including the methodology adopted
measurement methodology
Specific Part V
for measuring them
performance This is another innovation that addresses issues arising
requirements from other from departments
functional
overlaps
between
departments.
Performance expectations from other departments are detailed in this part to facilitate coordination
336
To ensure quality and consistency in performance metrics, the RFD targets proposed by each department is scrutinized by an Independent Task Force comprising domain experts such as retired civil servants, distinguished academics and civil society activists. At the end of the financial year, the performance of a department is reviewed and rated by a High Power Committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary to Government of India. Other members of this committee include Secretaries to Government of India from the departments within the Ministry of Finance, Performance Management Division in the Cabinet Secretariat, and the concerned departmental Secretary apart from the Member Secretary of the Union Planning Commission.
4.2
India’s PMES: Evolution of the Formal System and Actual Practice
Introduction of PMES in India marks a definitive shift towards managing for outcomes in government. All 80 departments in the federal government are required to prepare and execute annual performance agreements. The PMES is fully operational in 74 departments. The remaining six departments – Financial Services, Economic Affairs, Expenditure, Revenue, External Affairs and Home – are required to execute performance agreements only in respect of their subordinate offices. This section critically examines performance agreements (RFDs) of two federal government departments – DoPT and DoRD – for the year 2010-2011 to answer research questions posed in this study.
1) How has ‘performance’ been defined and measured in the RFDs of DoPT and DoRD? The RFD guidelines require departments to specify one or more success indicators against each policy action detailed in the performance agreement (Government of India, Performance Management Division, 2009). Also known as key performance indicators (KPI) or key result areas (KRA), the success indicators can be both quantitative and qualitative and should exhibit an unambiguous link with outputs and outcomes proposed to be achieved by the department.
337
How have ‘success indicators’ been interpreted and measured in the RFDs of DoPT and DoRD? This can be gleaned from the following table. Table 3
Objectives (Number) Number
of
DoPT
DoRD
10
8
Policy
Actions per Objective 4
4
(average) Number
of
success
indicator(s) per policy 1
1
action (average) Input/ oriented
Processsuccess 74%
68%
indicators (percent) Examples of Input/
Issue of instructions for
Release of funds for specific
Process-
filling up of vacant posts
programmes
Obtaining Standing Finance
Conducting evaluation study
oriented
success indicators
Committee approval
Preparation
of
Detailed
Obtaining Cabinet approval Number
Project Plan
convened
Submission of proposals to
Number
Cabinet
conducted with
Consultation stakeholders
Preparing
of
and
meetings
inspections
approving
detailed project plans
Constitution of Committees
Holding seminars
Output-oriented success
of
indictors 26%
32%
(percent)
338
Examples of Outputoriented
success
indicators
Notification of schemes
Updating of rules
Publication of handbooks/ manuals
Number of man days of employment generated
Number
of kilometres
of
roads laid
Number
of
rural
houses
constructed
Number
of
beneficiaries
assisted Outcome-oriented success
indicators -Nil-
-Nil-
(percent)
The aforesaid analysis reveals the following: a) Introduction of performance agreement has enabled some degree of goal clarity for departments. b) However, the choices of success indicators used to define and evaluate performance in the two departments are diverse and retain their earlier emphasis on inputs and processes. c) The survey shows proclivity in both the departments to adopt ‘easy to achieve’ performance measures – such as submitting proposals, number of meetings, reviews, inspections conducted, books/ manuals published, rules updated, etc. – rather than emphasizing those aspects which are difficult to measure.
2) How well is India’s performance management framework integrated with other management frameworks within the government? The PMES draws theoretical support from the principal-agent accountability framework where the Minister defines ‘expected performance’ and evaluates achievements of administrative secretaries against targets stipulated in departmental RFDs. (The Indian system is very different from the New Zealand model which envisions a triumvirate accountability arrangement between 339
Ministers, departmental heads and state services commissioners so as to foster greater role distinction. ) Though the PMES envisages operational autonomy for departmental heads through performance agreements, this has been very difficult to achieve in practice. All respondents interviewed and surveyed are of the unanimous opinion that the Indian system has been ineffective in controlling political interference in day-to-day operations of the department. Constitution of an independent civil services board – similar to the institution of state services commissioners in New Zealand – with powers to post, transfer and evaluate performance of civil servants, could facilitate role clarity and insulate the bureaucracy from arbitrary political actions. An effective performance management framework needs to recognize issues arising from functional overlaps between departments and provide mechanisms to facilitate coordination. Similarly, it also needs to be integrated with other management systems within government such as performance appraisal of civil servants, performance-based incentives, state budget and external audit. How does the Indian system fare in this regard? a) Inter-departmental Coordination: Section V of the RFD mandates all departments to delineate specific performance requirements expected from other departments. The DoPT and DoRD have listed specific performance expectations from 10 and 8 other departments and agencies, respectively. Beyond this, the PMES does not outline mechanisms to facilitate coordinated action between departments and other institutions across the federal administrative set-up in India. One way of solving this problem is by getting each department to incorporate the performance expectations listed by others in their own RFD. For instance, the performance agreement of DoRD requires DoPT to ensure that all nodal vacancies are filled-up in a time bound manner. This performance requirement should be incorporated as a target in DoPT’s RFD and the department’s performance evaluated against it. Such a provision could ensure that each department takes a holistic view of governance and collaborates with others in attaining overall development goals.
340
b) Performance Appraisal of Individual Civil Servants: To
ensure
goal
alignment
within
government
departments,
the
performance
benchmarksstipulated in the RFD need to form an integral part of ‘annual work plans’ of civil servants responsible for policy planning and implementation. This study finds that ‘annual work plans’ of civil servants engaged in policy formulation in the DoPT and DoRD are aligned with the success indicators enumerated in the departmental RFDs. According to a Joint Secretary in Government of India, DoPT, “our annual work plans draw from the department’s RFD and this enables goal clarity and imparts a measure of objectivity to our performance appraisal”. However, the ‘annual work plans’ of civil servants entrusted with policy implementation do not bear any correlation with the department’s RFD. Among 43 field officers surveyed, 33 of them were not aware of the contents of DoRD’s performance agreement. Consequently, their ‘annual work plans’ did not show a link with performance priorities and targets outlined in the department’s RFD. According to a nodal field level officer, “we have the responsibility to coordinate and implement development programmes of several federal level departments. Therefore, integration of performance targets of all departments in my ‘annual work plan’ is not easy”. c) Performance-related incentive system (PRIS):
The PRIS envisions performance-based cash payout to employees upon achievement of targets outlined in the department’s performance agreements. To fund PRIS costs, all departments are required to earmark at least 15 percent of budgetary savings that may arise from successful implementation of performance agreements. “This assumption is rather simplistic. Finding budgetary savings in departments with regulatory functions is very difficult,” says a Joint Secretary to Government of India, DoPT.
341
d) The PMES, Federal Budget and External Audit:
The link between the PMES, federal budget and external audit remains rather tenuous in India. Unlike in New Zealand, where accrual accounting, outcome budgeting and VfM audit were introduced as part of performance management reforms, India follows the cash-based budgeting system, and concepts such as outcome budgeting or VfM audit are still in their infancy. Compounding the problems further is the fact that Finance Department, which makes resources available to all departments, is outside the purview of the PMES.
3) By whom, to what extent, and for what ends is the RFD performance data being used in India? The stated objectives of PMES are two-fold: improving internal decision-making and enforcing performance-based accountability in government. All federal departments in India use a standard format prepared by the Performance Management Division in the Cabinet Secretariat to draft their respective annual performance agreements. Does ‘one standard format’ fit the needs of ‘all departments and end-users’? According to the Secretary to Government of India, Performance Management Division, a standardized format helps in maintaining consistency and quality of information provided in the RFDs. However, one visible limitation in the RFD format is that it does not clearly integrate performance requirements of departments with information on resource availability. Another point to note is that the standardized RFD format is not easily understandable by non-official users. This study finds that the RFD data is primarily used by decision-makers to review progress in implementation of departmental programmes. Though Ministers actively engage in formulation of the department’s RFDs and also use it for review purposes, they exhibit remarkable reluctance in sharing its contents including the ratings with the Parliament, media or even the general public. India’s parliamentarians display similar reticence in calling for and engaging with the executive on performance ratings of departments. There has also not been any request for information from civil society institutions and ordinary citizens so far, on how the departments
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performed in the preceding financial year. It needs to be noted that departmental performance ratings for the financial year 2010-2011 are yet to be put into public domain. Pollitt (2006) says that research paints a negative picture of how performance information is used within and outside government. This raises questions on whether the entire exercise of generating performance data is worth the effort. However, Pollitt (2006: 47) reminds us that having such information in public domain is vital for democratic governance and accountability.
5.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The formal performance management system design in New Zealand and India are rooted in theories of institutional economics and private sector management practices. Performance agreements are the core of the framework in the two countries, serving as tools for ex ante performance specification and ex post performance evaluation. Combined with operational autonomy for departmental heads and performance-linked incentives, they seek to usher in a new culture of performance and accountability in the government. While comparing the formal system and actual practice in the two countries, this study finds that both face similar problems in defining performance and generating measures that comprehensively reflect all aspects of policy goals. The state undertakes diverse functions where clear measures of outputs and outcomes are often difficult to obtain. The problem is compounded by the fact that all public organizations function in dynamic environment where ex ante performance specifications can change on account of shifting governance and operational priorities. In the absence of precise performance measures, public managers in both countries exhibit proclivity to choose input-based and process-oriented indicators to explain and show performance. Over-emphasis on measurable aspects of performance as against those which are more difficult to quantify have the potential to induce behavioural distortions and cause goal displacement in organizations.
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The uses of performance data varies in the two countries. While in New Zealand, it is extensively used for internal management functions and to some extent as a tool to enforce executive accountability to the legislature, their use has been rather limited in the Indian context. At a specific plane, the New Zealand model of performance management stands out as a comprehensive, coherent and integrated system with mutually reinforcing components. India’s PMES, however, is patchy and exhibits characteristics of a loosely woven framework with design limitations. Coherence in performance management reforms is vital for India with its federal administrative set up. This means that all aspects of public sector management reforms need to be addressed in a consistent, comprehensive and conceptually clear fashion. The unfinished performance management reform agenda for India includes the following: a) Providing a legislative basis to the performance management framework to ensure sustainability and extending its application to all levels of government b) Introduction of accrual accounting in government and strengthening VfM audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India c) Integrating the PMES with the government budgetary system, performance appraisal of civil servants and aligning it with a proper system of performance incentives. d) Redrafting the performance agreement format to facilitate internal management functions within government and external accountability. Institutionalizing an effective performance management system in the state sector is a challenging task and there are no quick fixes to it. For India, with a population of 1.2 billion and rising, choosing not to reform is no longer an option. Given the pressures facing the government, the political leadership and reform managers have a task cut out for them.
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DETAILS OF AUTHOR
Ashish Vachhani, IAS Deputy Director (Sr) Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie – 248179 (Uttarakhand), India
Ashish Vachhani was educated at Vidya Niketan, Birla Public School, Pilani, and completed his graduation from Delhi University and post graduation, M.Phil in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He completed MSc in Public Management and Governance from Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) as British Chevening and HSBC scholar in 2011. He was selected for IAS in 1997 and was allocated to Tamil Nadu cadre. He has worked as Sub-Collector, Sivakasi, Under/ Deputy Secretary to Government (Budget) and Joint Secretary in Finance Department, Government of Tamil Nadu. He has been the Collector of Dharmapuri District and Tiruchirappalli District. He joined the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in 2008. His areas of interest include Public Financial Management and governance issues. He is an ardent writer and has several publications to his credit. He loves trekking and badminton. He is the Officer of the Indian Administrative Service (Batch 1997: TN Cadre); presently on central deputation and working as Deputy Director (Senior)) at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) – Government of India’s apex training institution for higher civil services. Email:
[email protected]
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PRIMAL LEADERSHIP: AN IMPERATIVE FOR EFFECTIVE PUBLIC SERVICE MANAGEMENT
Radha R. Sharma
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PRIMAL LEADERSHIP: AN IMPERATIVE FOR EFFECTIVE PUBLIC SERVICE MANAGEMENT
ABSTRACT Primal Leadership, an emergent leadership typology, is based on the premise that a leader, with empathy and emotional connection with people, drives collective emotion in the positive direction which results in enthusiasm and high performance. Emotional intelligence (EI) competencies, as the vehicle of primal leadership, play a key role in leadership and facilitate one’s advancement in the organizational hierarchy (Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee, 2002) and also in transformational leadership for bringing about change in the organization (Sharma, 2007). Researches reveal that emotional intelligence is a prerequisite for successful leadership and it contributes to the effectiveness of a leader by helping in the development of collective goals, appreciating the importance of the work being done, generating enthusiasm, optimism, trust and encouraging flexibility in decision and change processes and in establishing a meaningful identity for the organization (George, 2000). Public service officials require greater degree of emotional intelligence as they are required to deal with policy issues relating to citizens; a large portion of which belongs to socially and economically disadvantaged sections of the society. Primal leadership comprises of EI competencies which have been found to have positive and predictive relationship with transformational leadership styles. Based on an empirical study on a sample of 400 from India the paper identifies self confidence, developing others, optimism and inspirational leadership to be the most significant EI competencies. How these EI competencies contribute to the various leadership dimensions has been determined. The findings of the study have significance for leadership development among public service officials for accelerating the process of achievement of millennium development goals (MDG).
3
3
Acknowledgements:
Radha R. Sharma wishes to acknowledge McClelland Center for Research and Innovation, Hay group, USA for their permission to use ECI-2 reliability and validity of which was determined by the author on the Indian sample (Sharma, 2012).
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PRIMAL LEADERSHIP: AN INTRODUCTION Primal leadership refers to the emotional dimension of leadership. A leader’s emotions are the first form of influence that employees experience and are arguably the most important element in creating a typical kind of climate in the organisation. Thus the prime task of a leader is to emotionally connect with the people through a communication articulating a sense of purpose, generating positive energy and providing a positive direction. This positive influence creates ‘resonance’ and removes the negative effects of toxic emotions called dissonance (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2002). In a climate of uncertainty where fear and anxiety prevail, primal leadership assumes great significance as the effectiveness of the organization, to a large extent, depends on primal leadership. In such a scenario a leader is expected to communicate a positive goal, remain optimistic, enthusiastic and motivated as the emotions are contagious, particularly from the top down, from leader to followers. Recent researches yield that there is neurological basis of EI competencies. The scientists call it open loop limbic system (emotional centres) in the design of the human brain which allows individuals to come to another’s emotional rescue or otherwise (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2002). This ripple effect of leaders’ mood on group behaviour is supported by studies (Pescosolido, 2000) in medical (Lewis, Amini & Lannon (2000) and industrial contexts (Bartel & Saavedra, 2000). Thus the moods of the leader affect the emotional climate of the organization. Understanding the powerful role of emotions at the workplace sets the best leaders apart from the rest, not just in terms of better results and the retention of talent, but also in terms of higher morale, motivation and commitment and achievement of organizational goals. Primal leadership is built on the foundation of emotional intelligence where the leader is expected to be emotionally self aware and socially aware, and also be authentic in his relationship with others. He needs to manage his emotions well to motivate himself and remain motivated; and also needs to manage his relationship with others well in order to motivate others and have social relationships (Goleman, 1998). Emotional intelligence is considered to be a prerequisite for successful leadership as it contributes to the effectiveness of a leader by helping in the development of collective goals, appreciation of the importance of the work being done, generating enthusiasm, optimism and trust, encouraging flexibility in decision and change 351
processes and in establishing a meaningful identity for the organization (George, 2000). The higher a person advances in an organizational hierarchy, the greater degree of emotional intelligence is required for effectiveness (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002). This proposition was tested at the highest levels of organizational hierarchy in the United Kingdom by Dulewicz and Higgs (2003). Dulewicz & Gay (1997) identified 38 competencies required for success in corporate leadership in the roles of Chairman, CEO, Executive Director and Non-Executive Director. Ten of the original 38 competencies– integrity, listening, motivating others, influence and persuasiveness, achievement motivation, resilience, decisiveness and intuitiveness, determination, sensitivity and energy - were related to emotional intelligence. Further, they analyzed the personal competencies of 90 Directors of companies of whom 24 were Chairmen/ CEOs, 66 were Executive and Non-Executive Directors. The study revealed that the group of Chairmen/CEOs had higher levels of emotional intelligence as compared to other Directors. In the third part of the study Dulewicz and Herbert (1999) investigated the prediction of advancement to senior management, from data on competencies and personality of 100 managers. The sample comprised of 46 percent Board Directors and 64 percent managers. A comparison of the two groups revealed that the group comprising the Directors had higher emotional intelligence than the group of managers. This confirmed the proposition that the importance of emotional intelligence increases as one advances on the corporate ladder. In another study the effectiveness of an organization was found to be dependent upon the emotional intelligence of the managers (Cooper, 1997; Morris & Feldman, 1996). Langhorn (2004) studied the relationship between the emotional competence of the general managers and their performance and found positive relationship between emotional intelligence and performance appraisal rating of the managers: satisfaction of the team, the profit output of the units under their control and the satisfaction of the customers. SIGNIFICANCE OF PRIMAL LEADERSHIP IN PUBLIC SERVICE While central government formulates policies and plays a catalytic role, the responsibility for modifying the policy framework for changes at the district level lies with the state Govt. which may design/redesign administrative machinery for initiation or implementation of programmes focused at improving the life of citizens in general and from socially and economically disadvantaged sections of the society, in particular. Therefore, emotional intelligence 352
competencies are essential for these officials to reengineer the existing processes or to bring about change to accelerate the process of achievement of millennium development goals. Changes in the environment, the expansion of public service programmes, and inclusive process of governance call for the role of a district level functionary as a leader rather than just an administrator. His role has become challenging as he has to perform the twin functions- i) to establish systems, rules and routines, ensure adherence to law and deal with crises ii) manage uncertainty, work with multiple stakeholders, partner with multiple agencies
and face
accountability. Thus he is expected to adopt balanced perspective, positive attitude and service orientation and lead change with flexibility adaptability and transparency which require EI competencies. As emotional intelligence fosters emotional relationship between the leader and his subordinates, it can be leveraged to bring about change through an appropriate leadership style. The ability to provide inspirational motivation, idealized influence-behaviours, idealized influence- attributes, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration are the defining characteristics of transformational leadership (Bass, 1998). Especially significant for transformational leadership is the self-awareness aspect of emotional intelligence (Megerian and Sosik, 1996). The moderating effects of the self-awareness aspect between transformational leadership and performance were shown in a study by Atwater & Yammarino (1992) among the students of the U.S. Naval Academy. The validity of these findings was tested to extend these to social or business context. Relationship among emotional intelligence, transformational leadership and managerial performance was investigated by Sosik and Megerian (1999). It was postulated that a self-aware leader would be purposive and would have conviction in his farsighted beliefs; and being sensitive to the needs of others, he would be good at emotional management. Thus, he would evoke positive feelings in his followers and make them own his expectations of them as their inner convictions resulting in better performance. Another study found significant correlations between emotional intelligence and idealized influence, inspirational motivation and individualized consideration aspects of transformational leadership (Palmer et al., 2000). Idealised influence is emotional aspect of leadership (Antonakis, 2012). Hartfield (2003) broadened transformational leadership beyond (the four is – idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration) to determine the internal
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driving forces at work in the transformational leader. Hartsfield measured the effect of three predictor variables – spirituality, emotional intelligence and self-efficacy on a sample of 124 leaders in a large US corporation and found that emotional intelligence was the strongest predictor variable followed by self-efficacy and spirituality. A more comprehensive study was conducted by Wong and Law (2002) on a sample of supervisor-subordinate dyads on the influence of the emotional intelligence of both the leaders and the followers on job outcomes. The analysis revealed that emotional intelligence is significantly related to job performance and job satisfaction, but has no relation with organizational commitment or turnover intention. Further, the emotional intelligence of the leader was significantly related to job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviour of the subordinates. Palmer and Stough (2000) carried out a study on emotional intelligence and leadership on a sample of 110 respondents 69 percent of the respondents were senior level managers with the average age being around 42.7 years. The results evidenced a strong relationship between all the dimensions of transformational leadership and overall emotional intelligence. Like emotional self awareness, emotional management also is essential for leaders to manage positive and negative emotions in themselves and in their followers and to manage the highs and the lows of their team to maintain organisational effectiveness. In the organisational context some leadership styles have a closer relationship with emotional intelligence like primal leadership which can be observed in the manner the leader deals with his members and the way he handles organisational functions. The EI competencies required for primal leadership in public service organizations are discussed below. The Emotional Intelligence Leadership Competencies Emotional intelligence is the key to effective leading and managing in the current context. It comprises of four clusters viz., self awareness, self management, social awareness and relationship management, as core contributors to effective leadership (Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2002). These four clusters and the competencies constituting these clusters have been explained in the following paragraphs.
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Figure 1: Emotional Intelligence Domains and Associated Competencies
Self-Awareness
Social Awareness
Emotional self-awareness
- Empathy
Accurate self-assessment
- Organizational awareness
Self-confidence
- Service
Self-Management
Relationship Management
- Emotional Self-control
Inspirational leadership
- Transparency
- Influence
- Adaptability
- Developing others
- Achievement drive
- Change catalyst
- Initiative
- Conflict Management
- Optimism
- Building bonds - Teamwork & collaboration
Source: Adapted from Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. and McKee, A.2002. Primal Leadership. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, p.39.
SELF-AWARENESS Emotional Self Awareness Leaders with high emotional self-awareness are in tune with their inner feelings; have the ability to sense how their feelings affect them and their job performance. They are governed by their value system and take a call when a complex situation arises. Such leaders are genuine and candid and can share their authentic emotions with others based on their value system. 355
Accurate Self Assessment Emotionally self-aware leaders are aware of their strong and weak points. They are graceful and seek feedback/comments and help for their areas of improvement and to acquire new leadership capability. Self Confidence Building on the strength of accurate self assessment these leaders leverage on their strengths. They welcome difficult and challenging assignments. With their exuberating confidence and a sense of “presence” they stand out in a group. SELF-MANAGEMENT Self control Leaders with emotional self-control know the art of managing and channelizing their negative emotions in meaningful ways without any repercussions. They also possess the ability to keep their cool under stressful and trying conditions. They have clarity of thoughts in challenging situations and keep calm. Transparency Transparency refers to authenticity and openness to others about one’s feelings, beliefs and actions. Transparent leaders live their values, not just in words, but in their action and behaviour. Such leaders are ethical and also confront unethical behaviour in others. They are not shy of admitting their mistakes or faults in public. Adaptability Adaptability refers to flexibility and adjustment to new and fluid situations. Leaders with this competency can cope with multiple demands without losing their focus or energy. They are at ease with unavoidable and ambiguous organizational situations/ data and realities. Achievement Achievement oriented leaders set high standards which are pragmatic and challenging and constantly strive for performance improvement for self and others, they lead. They are risk takers 356
and set attainable and measurable goals. They are always in learning and teaching mode to explore ways to improve. Initiative Leaders with initiative competency are action oriented, have high personal efficacy and carve out a path and a goal to excel. Instead of waiting, they create or seize opportunities. They take initiative to cut through the red tape and do not mind bending rules, if necessary, to create better future possibilities. Optimism Optimistic leaders have positive outlook to life in general and hope that changes in the future would be for the betterment. They do not get demoralized by a setback and bounce back seeing an opportunity. Such leaders have positive mindset for others and expect the best of them.
SOCIAL AWARENESS
Empathy Leaders with empathy are able to grasp the emotional cues from others and communicate their understanding of these. Thus they are able to reach out to a person or a group and are able to gel well with people from diverse background and cultures. They pay attention to what others have to say and appreciate their perspective. Organisational Awareness A high degree of organisational awareness makes leaders politically astute, who can figure out power dynamics, important social networks, unwritten rules, guiding values and political forces that are prevalent in the organization.
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Service Leaders high in the service competence focus on customer or client satisfaction and monitor the process and provide support. They facilitate a conducive climate where people can keep in touch with customers/ clients to have a healthy relationship. RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Inspiration Inspiration comes from leader’s walking the talk. The leaders, who inspire, communicate a compelling vision or shared mission, a sense of common purpose which generate resonance and make the task exciting. Influence Influence is a behavioural competency of a leader which manifests in persuasiveness and emotional engagement with the group. Leaders who possess this competency have appeal for an individual/group and know how to get the buy in of the important people or a network for a specific task/initiative. Developing Others This competency of leaders can take the form of providing constructive feedback, coaching or mentoring people. The leaders with this competency show genuine interest in nurturing people’s capabilities by understanding their strengths and limitations for a goal/task and provide support. Change Catalyst Leaders with this competency recognize, mobilize and advocate the need for change. Change catalysts challenge the status quo. They strongly support and champion the cause even if it is opposed and find ways to overcome the obstacles. Conflict Management Leaders adept in this competency are able to bring all the involved parties together, gain an insight into the problem, understand their perspective and find a common solution to the 358
satisfaction of all concerned. They acknowledge and appreciate the cause of the conflict, differing perspectives and resolve the issue by channelling the energy of the involved parties. Teamwork and Collaboration This competency helps leaders create friendly and cordial atmosphere of mutual respect, cooperation and support. They work for positive synergy through enthusiasm and commitment and forge close relationship with colleagues beyond the work relationship. Having described the EI competencies required in primal leaders it was decided to empirically test the relationship between EI competencies and a leadership style aimed at bringing about positive change in the organization in the Indian context. The Rationale for the study The literature review presented above yields that effective leaders possess EI competencies of empathy and sensitivity to people’s feelings. They are self-aware, able to control their negative emotions like impatience or anger and are able to communicate effectively and foster good personal and professional relationship and team spirit. Since almost all the researches reported above have been done in the Western context it was considered worthwhile to study if emotional intelligence competencies were related to leadership in the Indian context. Also, if these could predict transformational leadership style needed for bringing about change for achievement of millennium goals in public service organizations.
Operational definition of variables All the Emotional intelligence (EI) competencies have been explained above. The other variable of the study has been transformational leadership which is described below. Transformational Leadership factors defined by Bass and Avolio (1994) are as follows: Idealized Influence: These leaders have high ethical standards, are respected by followers, serve as their role model and hold their trust. They provide followers a vision and a sense of mission.
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Inspirational Motivation: These leaders communicate high expectations, use appropriate symbols and emotional appeal to help followers achieve more than they would; try to make them feel that their work is significant which helps in mobilizing the team. Intellectual stimulation: These leaders encourage followers to be creative at work, find new and innovative ways to deal with work/organizational issues, create an environment that is tolerant of seemingly extreme positions; and nurture people to question their own values and beliefs and those of the leaders and the organization. Individualized consideration: Such leaders show interest in followers’ growth, coach them to optimize their potential, delegate tasks, assign challenging projects for personal growth, provide supportive climate and pay attention to the followers’ needs. Contingent Reward: This is a kind of transactional leadership where the leaders communicate to the followers what to do in order to get reward emphasize what they expect from them and recognize their accomplishments.
Management- by- exception: In this style leaders provide negative feedback, criticism and negative reinforcement and monitor mistakes and violations. Some leaders like to set standards and intervene when these are not met. Laissez-faire: This style indicates absence of leadership. Whether one requires little help of others, is content to let things ride and let others do their own things.
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Objectives i)
To study the relationship between EI competencies and transformational leadership styles
viz., Idealized Influence; Inspirational Motivation; Intellectual stimulation; Individualized consideration; Contingent reward; Management- by- exception and Laissez faire leadership;
ii)
To determine the predictive role of EI competencies for the abovementioned
transformational leadership styles among middle level managers from public and private sectors.
Hypotheses
Hypothesis1: EI competencies and transformational leadership styles have positive relationship.
Hypothesis 2: EI competencies can predict various styles of transformational leadership. Sample Major companies having all India presence were identified from both public and private sectors and a list of executives was sought for the middle level. From the list 400 executives were selected randomly. Thus a representative sample, 200 each from public and private sectors was drawn by stratified random sampling method from across the country. The average age of the sample was 39.35 years with SD of 8.18. Their average work experience was 16.07 years with SD of 8.16.
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Research Tools The following research tools were used to collect data from the sample of executives:
a) Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI-2):
ECI-2 (by Boyatzis, Goleman and Rhee, 2000), consisting of 18 competencies was used to collect data on EI competencies. Chronbach alpha of the scale on the study sample of middle level executives for the overall scale is .93 (Sharma, 2006, 2012), which indicates high reliability of the scale on the study sample. The validity of ECI-2 on the study sample was established through two methods by I) divergent validity with stress scale (RS Eliot) which has high statistically significant coefficients in all the four clusters of ECI-2 and ii) through factor analysis using Principal Component method (Sharma, 2006, 2011, 2012). The structure of EI has been found by the author and it is similar to that of the test developers (Boyatzis and Sala, 2004).
b) Adapted form of Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) of Bass and Avolio (1994) It was used which consists of 21 items covering 7 factors of transformational leadership. Its Chronbach alpha on the study sample have been Idealized Influence .62; Inspirational Motivation .66; Intellectual stimulation .69; Individualized consideration .64; Contingent reward .63; Management by exception .42; Laissez faire leadership .43 (Sharma, 2007)
Results With the help of the tools discussed above data were collected through personal survey (in face to face situation) on the representative sample of middle level managers from both public and
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private sectors. The results of descriptive statistics on 18 EI competencies and transformational leadership styles (7 MLQ factors) and their inter correlations have been presented in table 1.
1 Ac cu ra te Se lf As ses sm en t 2 E m oti on al Se lf A wa re ne ss 3 Se lf Co nfi de nc e 4 Ac hi ev e m en
M e a n 3 . 9 7 7
S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 D 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
3 . 9 1 3
0 . 6 9 3
. 5 2 8 ( * * )
4 . 3 6
0 . 6 8 5
3 . 9 5 4
0 . 6 6
. 5 9 6 ( * * ) . 5 4 4 ( *
0 . 6 8 6
. 5 4 7 ( * * ) . 5 0 4 ( *
. 6 1 1 ( * 363
t Or ie nt ati on 5 A da pt ab ilit y
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3 . 8 1 3
0 . 6 8 1
6 E m oti on al Se lfco nt rol 7 Ini tia tiv e
4 . 0 0 6
0 . 7 2 4
3 . 6 3 3
0 . 6 8 6
8 O pti mi sm (C on sci en tio us ne ss) 9 Tr an
4 . 1 3 7
0 . 6 7 3
. 4 9 5 ( * * ) . 4 8 7 ( * * )
. 4 9 3 ( * * ) . 4 2 4 ( * * )
. 5 7 6 ( * * ) . 5 4 7 ( * * )
. 5 8 6 ( * * ) . 4 2 1 ( * * )
. 3 9 5 ( * * )
. 4 0 1 ( * * ) . 5 8 5 ( * * )
. 4 0 0 ( * * ) . 5 6 8 ( * * )
. 4 8 0 ( * * ) . 6 6 2 ( * * )
. 5 1 2 ( * * ) . 6 8 6 ( * * )
. 5 2 5 ( * * ) . 6 0 3 ( * * )
. 3 0 2 ( * * ) . 4 8 7 ( * * )
. 5 0 7 ( * * )
4 0 . . . . . . . . . . 4 5 6 6 5 3 4 6 364
sp ar en cy (tr us tw or thi ne ss) 1 E 0 m pa th y
0 6 8 8 0 9 7 8 2 5 ( ( * * * * ) )
1 0 ( * * )
0 1 ( * * )
2 3 ( * * )
7 2 ( * * )
8 3 ( * * )
0 8 ( * * )
3 . 9 6 6
0 . 7 0 3
1 Or 3 1 ga . ni 8 za 7 tio 4 na l A wa re ne ss 1 Se 4 2 rvi . ce 2 Or 3 ie 2 nt ati on 1 C 3 3 ha . ng 9 e 0 Ca 5 tal yst
0 . 7 4 7
0 . 7 9
0 . 8 0 9
. 5 4 9 ( * * ) . 4 2 1 ( * * )
. 6 2 4 ( * * ) . 4 1 1 ( * * )
. 6 2 3 ( * * ) . 5 3 9 ( * * )
. 5 6 6 ( * * ) . 4 4 9 ( * * )
. 5 2 7 ( * * ) . 4 3 8 ( * * )
. 5 3 9 ( * * ) . 3 5 1 ( * * )
. 4 2 9 ( * * ) . 4 0 0 ( * * )
. 6 2 7 ( * * ) . 4 4 1 ( * * )
. 5 9 8 ( * * ) . 4 9 0 ( * * )
. 4 4 4 ( * * )
. 4 8 7 ( * * ) . 5 1 6 ( * *
. 5 1 0 ( * * ) . 4 5 1 ( * *
. 6 0 6 ( * * ) . 5 2 8 ( * *
. 5 7 4 ( * * ) . 5 0 1 ( * *
. 4 9 3 ( * * ) . 5 3 6 ( * *
. 3 7 2 ( * * ) . 3 8 0 ( * *
. 4 2 7 ( * * ) . 4 2 6 ( * *
. 6 0 8 ( * * ) . 5 2 8 ( * *
. 5 8 9 ( * * ) . 5 5 1 ( * *
. 5 3 1 ( * * ) . 4 9 7 ( * *
. 4 3 9 ( * * ) . 3 7 0 ( * * 365
. 4 5 7 ( * *
1 Co 3 4 nfl . ict 2 M 5 an 4 ag e m en t 1 De 4 5 vel . op 1 in 0 g 2 Ot he rs 1 In 3 6 flu . en 6 ce 4 2
0 . 7 6 6
1 In 7 spi ra tio na l Le ad er shi p 1 Te 8 a m wo rk an d Co
3 . 9 0 4
0 . 7 6 3
4 . 4 2 2
0 . 6 8 2
0 . 6 9 6
0 . 7 1 7
) . 2 8 4 ( * * )
) . 3 7 8 ( * * )
) . 2 1 1 ( * * )
) . 2 9 3 ( * * )
) . 3 6 9 ( * * )
) . 1 8 3 ( * * )
) . 3 6 3 ( * * )
) . 3 0 8 ( * * )
) . 3 5 4 ( * * )
) . 3 8 1 ( * * )
) . 2 3 2 ( * * )
) . 2 4 0 ( * * )
. 3 5 1 ( * * )
. 5 6 9 ( * * ) . 4 1 3 ( * * ) . 5 4 3 ( * * )
. 5 4 2 ( * * ) . 5 0 7 ( * * ) . 5 2 3 ( * * )
. 5 9 6 ( * * ) . 4 9 4 ( * * ) . 6 0 6 ( * * )
. 5 6 2 ( * * ) . 4 4 5 ( * * ) . 5 6 5 ( * * )
. 5 3 9 ( * * ) . 5 0 0 ( * * ) . 5 7 3 ( * * )
. 4 6 8 ( * * ) . 3 2 3 ( * * ) . 4 3 7 ( * * )
. 4 3 7 ( * * ) . 4 9 6 ( * * ) . 5 1 9 ( * * )
. 6 5 4 ( * * ) . 4 8 0 ( * * ) . 6 2 6 ( * * )
. 5 6 7 ( * * ) . 4 9 2 ( * * ) . 5 6 2 ( * * )
. 6 0 3 ( * * ) . 5 3 2 ( * * ) . 5 6 8 ( * * )
. 4 0 7 ( * * ) . 4 7 8 ( * * ) . 4 8 1 ( * * )
. 5 7 5 ( * * ) . 5 2 8 ( * * ) . 5 2 1 ( * * )
. 4 8 9 ( * * ) . 4 1 8 ( * * ) . 5 2 0 ( * * )
. 2 9 4 ( * * ) . 3 9 5 ( * * ) . 3 7 7 ( * * )
. 4 9 4 ( * * ) . 6 1 6 ( * * )
. 5 6 3 ( * * )
. 6 1 4 ( * * )
. 6 0 4 ( * * )
. 6 6 7 ( * * )
. 6 2 5 ( * * )
. 5 4 6 ( * * )
. 5 6 6 ( * * )
. 4 3 4 ( * * )
. 6 6 2 ( * * )
. 5 7 3 ( * * )
. 6 8 4 ( * * )
. 4 9 0 ( * * )
. 5 8 9 ( * * )
. 5 2 1 ( * * )
. 3 2 2 ( * * )
. 6 3 2 ( * * )
. 5 0 5 ( * * )
366
. 6 1 5 ( * * )
1 9
2 0
2 1
2 2
lla bo ra tio n Id eal ize d In flu en ce In spi ra tio na l M oti va tio n In tel lec tu al sti m ul ati on In di vi du ali ze d co nsi de ra tio
3 . 0 4 2
0 . 6 7 3
. 2 6 1 ( * * ) . 3 2 1 ( * * )
. 2 9 0 ( * * ) . 3 2 7 ( * * )
. 3 8 3 ( * * ) . 4 6 3 ( * * )
. 3 0 8 ( * * ) . 3 4 2 ( * * )
. 2 4 7 ( * * ) . 3 8 9 ( * * )
. 2 1 3 ( * * ) . 2 4 5 ( * * )
. 2 7 0 ( * * ) . 3 0 6 ( * * )
. 3 3 3 ( * * ) . 4 1 5 ( * * )
. 3 3 6 ( * * ) . 3 7 2 ( * * )
. 3 9 1 ( * * ) . 3 9 6 ( * * )
. 1 8 1 ( * * ) . 2 4 7 ( * * )
. 2 5 7 ( * * ) . 3 4 3 ( * * )
. 2 8 2 ( * * ) . 3 5 4 ( * * )
0 . 0 9 2
2 . 9 1 6
0 . 6 8 9
2 . 6 6 8
2 . 8 9
0 . 7 0 2
. 2 9 2 ( * * )
. 2 9 5 ( * * )
. 3 6 6 ( * * )
. 3 6 1 ( * * )
. 3 2 9 ( * * )
. 2 2 2 ( * * )
. 2 7 3 ( * * )
. 3 9 5 ( * * )
. 3 5 4 ( * * )
. 3 0 0 ( * * )
. 1 9 8 ( * * )
. 3 1 9 ( * * )
. 3 6 9 ( * * )
0 . 6 9 5
. 3 9 0 ( * * )
. 3 4 8 ( * * )
. 4 7 2 ( * * )
. 3 5 5 ( * * )
. 3 5 8 ( * * )
. 2 5 3 ( * * )
. 3 2 9 ( * * )
. 4 1 2 ( * * )
. 3 9 3 ( * * )
. 3 8 5 ( * * )
. 2 7 5 ( * * )
. 4 0 1 ( * * )
. 4 2 2 ( * * )
367
. 2 8 8 ( * * ) . 4 2 5 ( * * )
. 2 4 7 ( * * ) . 2 9 3 ( * * )
. 3 2 1 ( * * ) . 4 1 6 ( * * )
. 3 4 3 ( * * ) . 3 9 2 ( * * )
. 5 6 8 ( * * )
. 1 2 6 ( * )
. 4 2 0 ( * * )
. 2 8 5 ( * * )
. 3 6 1 ( * * )
. 3 3 8 ( * * )
. 4 0 9 ( * * )
. 6 4 2 ( * * )
. 2 2 2 ( * * )
. 4 4 5 ( * * )
. 3 2 6 ( * * )
. 4 6 8 ( * * )
. 4 1 5 ( * * )
. 4 9 8 ( * * )
. 6 8 4 ( * * )
. 1 9 1 ( * * )
. 6 4 3 ( * * )
n 2 Co 2 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 nti . . 3 3 4 4 3 2 3 4 3 3 2 3 3 1 3 2 4 3 4 6 6 6 ng 8 7 5 4 0 0 2 1 0 3 9 3 2 4 5 8 9 5 2 5 2 2 1 5 en 7 2 8 7 9 7 9 1 4 4 7 7 9 1 4 0 6 6 2 2 1 6 7 9 t 6 5 ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( re * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * wa * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * rd ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Table 1: Descriptive Statistics and Inter correlations for Various Factors of Emotional Competencies and Various Styles of Transformational Leadership
Table 1 reveals that when I8 EI Competencies viz., Accurate Self Assessment; Emotional Self Awareness; Self Confidence; Achievement Orientation; Adaptability; Emotional Self-control; Initiative;
Optimism
(Conscientiousness);
Transparency
(trustworthiness);
Empathy;
Organizational Awareness; Service Orientation; Change Catalyst; Conflict Management; Developing Others; Influence; Inspirational Leadership; Teamwork and Collaboration were correlated with the 7 transformational Leadership styles the six styles viz., Idealized Influence; Inspirational Motivation; Intellectual stimulation; Individualized consideration; Contingent reward; Management by exception, their correlation coefficients were statistically significant (p < .01) for all the EI competencies. Only one style of leadership (Laissez faire leadership) was found to have negative correlation with the EI competency of Change Catalyst (.114, p< .01).and positive correlation with Emotional Self Awareness (.102, p
