POLICY AND SERVICE DELIVERY: LEARNING FROM FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS
By: Dr. Bashir Ali (PhD)
Research Development Consultant and Advisor
Background
Harold Lasswell, an American analyst defined policy as “who gets what, when and how”. This is not reflecting the perspective of the 20th century but also an indication that modern governments care about the public and clients that engage in participatory culture.
Government as a service provider was a phenomenon started the century before the First World War (1914-1918). The modern governments were a new development reflected in rights for vote, representation in parliament, the formation of political parties and social movements. All these were results of the second half of nineteenth century and the beginning of twentieth century. This followed by the economic and social changes, the demographic changes, the industrial revolution and the commitments of the world wars. These changes included the shift from agricultural production to industrial production, the displacement of rural labour forces, the urbanization,, the increase of labour wages due to the creation of new class from the labour. This latter class together with the middle class challenged the previous class, the aristocratic privileges and the inheritance rules.
In the 1950s and 1960s the government/state that delivered services came before the movements of human rights and customers’ rights, the political activisms and the resistance voices.
In the mid of 1980s a process of making something conform to standards started based on rules and context. Between “Thatcharism” and “Reganism” (1979-1990) emerged local brands of neo-conservative doctrine and the ringing of the bell in Regan inaugural address that ”government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem”.
Sudan: Policy in Action in the early transitional Period (2019- Present)
This paper is to continue the debate and its ultimate objectives are:
To re-build the confidence and trust between the citizens and governmental institutions
To gain the mutual recognition between state and civil society through citizen engagement and participation in policy making process.
To support the creation and establishment of the governmental institutions and authorities (legal, executive and judiciary) and to define clearly the relationships between the different social actors.
The long years of repression changed the nature of politics and policies in the country. We witnessed in our recent history how politicians and members of one political dictator party imposed policies. In the absence of public interest and poor strategies, the making of policy significantly deteriorated and the decisions were lacking the basic participatory principles, social justice and transparency. This is clearly reflected in the absence of development programs and projects and the deteriorating social services of education, health, clean water supply, electricity, environment and waste management, and the deliberate neglect of agricultural sector and semi productive industry.
As a result of the failure political systems in Sudan, the regime’s parasite class replaced the national bourgeois. The regime consists of corrupt networks managed and succeeded to access and control all the public resources for the protection of the political systems and for the personal interest of its supporters. This includes the budget, which has never been prepared based on economic planning but on political decisions.
The political change in Sudan after December 2019 requires a complete transformation towards the government institutions through citizen engagement in all processes and at all levels. On the other hand this shift requires change in the content and form of the political and social institutions and all sectors of the work of civil society.
The cracks of service delivery and policy process have been obvious particularly in matters affecting life of people directly. The shortage of bread, for example shows the cracks in our delivery systems and policy making. Despite the responsibility of Ministry of Industry and Trade and the many promises but the problem has not been solved. The effort of the Service and Change committees (SCCs) and Resistance Committees (RCs) in the residential neighborhoods was a success in distributing bread and partially in monitoring the service delivery in their areas. This represents a significant milestone for SCCs and RCs and further validation of their engagement in transformed service delivery. It confirms also that the best means to serve citizens needs to engage them from the outset in the preparation, design, and implementation of the policy and service delivery.
The origin of the work the neighborhood committees is rooted in the Sudanese social capital when individuals voluntarily and cooperatively participate in and contribute to networks of trust and reciprocity guided by broadly shared values and aims. According to the World Bank and ILO, the estimated youth (18 – 24 years) unemployment rate was at 31.45 percent in 2019. The average value for Sudan from 1991 to 2019 was 29.21 percent. This statistic shows the economic and social challenges faced by the youth in the country in last three decades were huge. This was added to neglect and exclusion accumulated as part of poor education, lack of access to resources and job opportunities. What the country needs is a strategy for youth resilience. The resilience is what enables youth to endure traumatic times, during struggle for peace, dignity and democracy, and emerge stronger and better able to navigate present and future stresses and contribute to the social change.
Engagement, however is not a walk in the park. Engagement is perhaps the huge reform challenge facing government and public sector. Engagement is hard, and time consuming. Government is feared and not confident in the strategy of engaging the public. Engagement is also a threat of losing control. Finally engagement requires high expectations and more consultation.
The main obstacles to CSOs engagement in policy process described in Policy Engagement: How Civil Society can be more effective (ODI, 2006) and illustrated in Figure 4 (Source: Kornsweig et al (2006) and summarized as follows:
CSO staff do not have sufficient capacity
CSOs do not have enough funds to do this
CSOs do not have sufficient knowledge about policy processes
Policy processes are not open to CSO engagement
Policymakers do not see CSO evidence as credible
Policymakers tent to be corrupt
CSO staff do not have enough time
In their article “The Fragility and Precarity of Civil Society” Noha El-Mikawy, Regional Director, and Yara Shawky, Program Associate, Ford Foundation Middle East and North Africa office, emphasize that “The ability to organize, speak up, and engage is critical if underrepresented groups are to influence decisions that affect them and to hold governments and the private sector to account”
In order for the policies to improve and succeed and to relate to citizen needs, the engagement of the community and stakeholders is essential and the only option. Engagement is not only in the improvement of the inputs, ideas or initiatives of those more influenced by the policies, it is about creating a supportive environment for genuine collaborative development of policy. Citizens are not passive recipients, they are active stakeholders and shapers of policies.
Lessons & recommendations
In order to learn the lessons from the failure for example of making policies and providing services, we need to develop the necessary qualities, skills or competencies in an entity for example unit in government, private sector or any other non-governmental company, to enable it to function effectively and optimally.
Improving delivery of services is based on three pillars:
- Strengthening internal governance particularly official accountability systems
- Increasing participation
- Engaging civil society in policy implementation process.
The genuine value of capacity building approaches lies in enhancing the economic, technical and social efficiency of the whole policy making process including setting of agenda, policy formulation, and implementation by:
Influencing policy and practice to support local governments
Strengthening accountability chain from national level down to the community and back up
Strengthening local government leadership, financial management and planning and budgeting
Nurturing community voices,
Strengthening civil society governance
Expected results:
By building institutional capacity local governments and national accountability systems have been strengthened
Leadership and technical capacities enhanced
Citizens through engagement are empowered
Policies and service delivery at national and local levels are efficient, equitable and effective.
Conclusions
This paper shows the challenges facing the implementation of polices in matters affecting directly the life of people. It raises the significance of the engagement of civil society and community based organization in the policy processes. It describes the involvement of these social actors as part of the Sudanese social capital on the one hand. It advocates for making the government accountable during the process of policy implementation, monitoring and lessons learnt. The paper raises in general the capacity of the civil society to take the lead in advocacy and policy influence.