Good governance and cheese... (What?)

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05/05/2014

Good governance and cheese... (What?)

The UK faces a threat.

China has cancelled its imports of UK cheese, because of food safety issues at one farm. The UK government is in response mode, showing how governance works when it is like an effective immune system...

As the UK farming minister says, "Food inspectors will now visit all factories exporting cheese to China to demonstrate their high standards, so these restrictions can be lifted as soon as possible." http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27280986

Let's see how long the government takes to get imports flowing again... I expect it will be quick, given that the UK has an immune-system-like-governance-regime in this area... Government has dealt with threats like Mad Cow disease before, and learned how to address the threats. As a Guardian article described this in 2012: "The crisis changed for ever official estimate of risk. Years of lax controls, poor oversight of slaughterhouse practices and political complacency, then secrecy, changed attitudes among civil servants and politicians. They are now more ready to consider worst-case scenarios..."

I will keep you posted on how long the cheese export threat lasts... and as I do I will ask you to think about how long it would last in poorer countries where governance systems don't work as well. In one example I know of, a country lost its export license for some seafood in 1999 and has not got it back to date...

What? 14 years?

That country's government needs to face up to the problem, solve it, and learn what the process of solving such a problem looked like so that it never happens again.

Or it will happen again, and keep holding the country back...

This is also known as building a good governance system (or an effective immune system).

Posted at 11:13 AM in Post 2015 indicators (my thoughts) | Permalink

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My course at Harvard: See the series of lecture materials here

Post 2015 governance indicators...past blog posts reflecting a variety of thoughts on this topic

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