In most South Asian countries, the parliament, cabinet and
civil services are especially responsible for ensuring good governance. Unfortunately, they have declined in quality over the years.
The army and police, whether in Bangladesh, Pakistan or Sri-Lanka, pose grave problems for good governance. Police services are becoming more and more a unbelievable in most South Asian countries, where
affluent people can buy
political intervention and inaction. The poor thus see the police force as a source of insecurity rather than as an instrument to protect their rights and ensure security. Therefore, it is quite natural that the police are feared as much as criminals because most of this region''s people can never be sure what to expect from them. Since the police may connive with and protect criminals and be used by the ruling political party and the rich to promote their interests, the forces of law and order are seen to be part of the problem of crime of
society rather than its solution.
In south Asia, the once transparent mechanisms of recruitment have been undermined. Part of this process lies in the expansion in administration size and the need to accommodate backward areas, castes, tribes, women and other deprived interest groups. This lack has deteriorated the quality of administration in this region.
In this region, bureaucratic growth has encouraged political interference and abuse of the recruitment process as an instrument of political patronage and for politicization of administration. This process encourages political opportunism among bureaucrats instead of promoting independence of thought and action. Apart from this, it protects the incompetent and corrupt from being exposed to disciplinary action and finally undermines the integrity and efficiency of the administration. In all the countries of this region, the process of politicization of administration has been accelerated by encouragement of corruption and eroding the quality of governance.
Politics is essential for a country''s overall development. However, degeneration in the caliber and motivation of the leadership and political leaders in South Asia has caused negative impact on this region''s administration. Actually, a messy political culture cannot hope to extract good governance from its bureaucracy, which assumes the color and behavior of its political leaders.
In many South Asian local government organizations, high levels of absenteeism has been seen, especially among field staff associated with supply of variety of civic services. It has also been discovered that doctors, teachers and support staff deputed to rural areas of this region have been taking advantage of the absence of supervision from concerned officials. People of this region have been deprived of basic civic services.
A misgoverned polity and administration spreads to the private sector as well as civil society. Bad governance brings forth malfeasant entrepreneurship and eventually corrupts civil society.
The prerequisites for quality governance are that the system should be good and suited to the need, aspirations, background and ethos of the concerned people. Those selected for operating the system should be endowed with character and competence and motivated by the spirit of public service.
Good governance needs proper distribution of powers and functions based on rules, procedures and institutional norms. When political parties and governments violate such norms, politics becomes messy and uncertain. Such circumstances have been observed in India and Nepal in the wake of unprincipled equations being made for making and breaking governments.
Unluckily for South Asia, the priorities of emerging leadership in countries are different from the real needs of governance. Actually, these priorities have less to do with problems of governance and more with benefits that leaders can enjoy for individual or group or partisan gain.
Good governance is critical in reducing povertyromotes transparent use of public resource, improves public service delivery and supports effective implementation of laws and regulations. Recent events in this region have shown that poor governance is a threat to political and social stability, thus upsetting the development process. Also, good governance is fundamental for much needed private sector investment in South Asian countries.
Despite a well-placed structure of elected local bodies, legislation and policies for empowering them are lacking. Therefore, endeavors should be made to offer decentralization of power and authority in the local government so that integrated development plans are responsive to the local needs and voices of the people at large.
To ensure good governance in a country is not easy. One of the main problems afflicting South Asia countries, except Sri Lanka, is population growth. The population growth rates in Nepal and Pakistan even after they declined during the 1990s were higher than the South Asia average. However, Sri-Lanka''s population through the period was lower than that of our countries. Therefore, endeavors should be made to check population growth in this region.
Civil societies can play a significant role to ensure good governance in a country. The custodian of good governance remains the civil society, essentially the citizens. Actually, it is the responsibility of a country''s citizens to ensure that people exercise their rights of franchise in order to vote for people who are responsible for their needs. These citizens may be expected to keep their elected representatives accountable with regard to the quality of public services and the state of law and order.
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