Kommentar af David Booth, Overseas Development Institute i London
Dybt rodfæstede antagelser i udviklingspolitikken synes uudryddelige. De kan ligesom science fiction uhyrer klare ethvert dræbende slag og gendanne sig med samme overjordiske kræfter. Det gælder også fem myter om god regeringsførelse og udvikling.
Capable researchers armed with overwhelming evidence are no threat to these monsters.
The importance of good governance for development is one such assumption.
Take last month’s enquiry report on Parliamentary Strengthening by the International Development Committee of the UK parliament.
It references the UN High Level Panel’s opinion that ‘good governance and effective institutions’ should be among the goals for ending global poverty by 2030.
It would have done better to reference the evidence in 2012’s rigorously researched UN publication Is Good Governance Good for Development?
Here are five governance myths about which the strong scientific consensus might – eventually – slay some monsters.
1. Good governance is important for development.
If this means that a large set of worthy ideals – including transparency in public affairs, accountability of power-holders to citizens, ability of citizens to make demands, absence of corruption, freedom of enterprise, secure property rights and rule of law – are necessary conditions for development success, the answer is clearly no.
The history of human progress, from 17th century England to 21st century China and Vietnam, is completely clear on this point: governance ideals are realised over time on the back of economic progress, not the other way round.
2. Governance-improvement is a good entry-point for developmental reform.
This corollary (logiske slutning) might appear more defensible, but it is not.
All experience tells us that institutions and social norms change slowly at best. Aid-supported institutional change has a well-documented tendency to produce either ‘capability traps’ or purely cosmetic improvements.
History, especially the last half-century in Asia, shows that very significant gains in economic transformation and human well-being can be achieved within highly dysfunctional (ineffektive) systems. Reform initiatives should surely aim to repeat those gains by whatever means are to hand.
Reforms should be problem-driven and oriented to finding appropriate solutions.
There is increasing evidence that problem-solving, adaptive (tilpassede) methods can work, even when governments are largely unwilling partners in change.
In contrast, donor ‘governance programmes’ contradict (modsiger) the idea of problem-driven reform almost by definition: even in the best of cases, their solutions are set out in advance.
That so many development reform efforts remain stuck in the governance ghetto is testimony to the ability of policy to ignore evidence.
The evidence continues to grow nonetheless:
* The synthesis report from Initiating and Sustaining Developmental Regimes in Africa (DRA) continues the myth-busting, drawing on new research.
* DRA’s predecessor, Tracking Development, showed conclusively that the reason Southeast Asian countries are so much better off these days than comparable African nations is not about better or worse governance but policy priorities, especially in regard to agriculture.
* Building on this, DRA’s synthesis tackles three meso-level (overordnede) governance myths.
3. High levels of transparency, accountability, participation and competition sustain economic development.
Læs videre på
http://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/five-myths-about-governance-and-development
DAVID BOOTH is Research Fellow, Overseas Development Institute (ODI), and he is currently director of the Africa Power and Politics Programme, a consortium research initiative supported by DFID (det britiske Danida) and Irish Aid.
He holds a PhD in sociology, has edited two multidisciplinary development studies journals and has undertaken research and commissioned work on several countries of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.
Before joining ODI (http://www.odi.org), he was Professor of Development Studies at the University of Wales Swansea. His current interests centre on institutional diversity in African governance and the implications for international development policies.
Hans blog blev primo april udnævnt til månedens blog i Verdensbankens debat-univers for marts 2015.
