Good governance = Having a functional immune system

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05/05/2014

Good governance = Having a functional immune system

Problems. Everyone has them.

Sometimes we can't solve them alone. So we need to work together. Or give authority to governments to ensure we work together effectively, for common interests, with combined resources.

Think about traffic issues in India... a problem of many that cannot be solved by one...

Good governance, in my opinion, is what happens when governments exercise this authority well--to do the things that citizens need but cannot do alone and to do the things that solve the problems citizens cannot solve on their own.

We take it for granted when we see it ... like traffic control in most OECD countries, which just works... not like that we see above... Consider the traffic crossing in my hometown of Lexington, where a mix of traffic regulations, policing, well structured roads, rule enforcement and adherence, town planning, and much much more means that things... work. Problem solved. My kids can cross the road and expect to live another day...and I as a citizen don't even have to wonder how the product was created (I just take it for granted).

Good governance like this is similar to having a functional immune system, designed to respond effectively to threats and to ensure that the same threat never bothers one again. In some places the system has faced issues and solve them (see the picture of Lexington above) and there is no way you will see the same issue again. In other places (maybe India at the top), the governance immune system is not responding very well to threats, and the problems of crazy and dangerous traffic just persist.

Building effective governance systems is hard, and risky... just like building an effective immune system. These systems emerge from consistent and repeated responses to threats...where the body learns to respond and builds the learning into an automatic response system. It cannot be done by just adopting the solution some other body adopted for its problems... IT MUST BE DONE IN THE CONTEXT, in response to the contextual threat.

So: If good governance = having a functional immune system. How many governance reforms do anything remotely like building such system?

Posted at 11:00 AM in Post 2015 indicators (my thoughts) | Permalink

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