Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Monday, 13 April 2015
Africa's Next Hegemon - Behind Ethiopia's Power Plays
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/143664/harry-verhoeven/africas-next-hegemon
Africa: Strategic Governance & Leadership Challenges & Opportunities
1. Introduction
Leadership within the African context can best be described as quoted in the Chinese book “I Ching, or Chinese Book of Changes”, (1971) “To become a centre of influence holding people together is a grave matter and fraught with great responsibility. It requires greatness of spirit, consistency, and strength. Therefore let him who wishes to gather others about him ask himself whether he is equal to the undertaking...” Leadership has several forms of agency:
1.1. Official power:
The authority to instruct government machinery to carry out instructions is the prime example. Hence, the leadership we expect is above all about responsibility; requiring acceptance of the importance of one's self-coupled with an appreciation of the greater importance of others over oneself. Therefore, leadership entails liability for those who are led - whereby, leadership becomes a discipline in its own right. There is no set of techniques, rules, or series of commandments with which the leader can arm themselves and be assured of success; nonetheless, they must always interrelate, familiarize, change, and transform themselves.
1.2. Supremacy over dialogue:
Our cabinet leaders are expected to develop the capacity, through their statements and actions, including symbolic actions, to shape debate and dialogue. Even when their formal power is limited, they can use their access to the media and stature in society to influence what people talk about. It is vital to recognize that, through either position or personality, they have the power to impact on the world - to change it. This, in fact, is the essence of leadership: the leader is one who does not accept the limitations of a “given” situation or set of circumstances, but uses the opportunity to transform such constraints into new realities, and takes responsibility for the privilege.
1.3. Moral high ground:
An inspiring ‘job description’ of our ministers must be not only the power over discourse but also their ability to shape morality, to determine what is socially acceptable, culturally sound and politically uplifting. Indeed, leadership is more than a job; it is a calling.
1.4. Leaders operate at national and international levels:
The international component may be particularly important here, given our clear continen-tal African identity adopted under Emperor Haile Sellasse. As custodian of African Unity, our leaders are expected to be the role model for social change.
1.5. Leadership for human development and human security:
Political leadership of human development and human security requires intimate knowledge of public policy analysis, formulation, and management and development of strategic plans and implementing them. We can identify four main aspects to this:
• analysis, formulation and management of policy, strategy, process and organisation;
• obtaining policy consensus;
• ensuring that the public service can actually carry out policy, and not see it subverted or undermined;
• ensuring that the policy is implemented with sufficient energy: this implies mechanisms for monitoring and accountability: in addition, we can identify some of the preconditions for effective public policy measures against a major social ill:
o A set of technical and/or policy measures that a state can utilise to tackle effectively the specific social ill, with a package that works in the most basic technical manner.
o Mechanisms to ensure that the technologies and/or policies are adequately utilised, backed by legislation, administrative commitment or other specific forms of sanctioning. There have to be mechanisms for ensuring that institutions function, and political processes for accountability.
o An ethical consensus, which rules that this specific social ill is unacceptable, the policy must be acceptable to the target group and the public;
This is especially important in our continent when the policy imperatives involve trying to change attitudes and behaviour of a national psyche that has rendered the nation eternally dependent on international charity. Thus, our leaders are on the one hand responsible for breaking the boundaries of inward bound wisdom, of “common sense”, of patterns of thinking and behaving, which, over the years, have built themselves into routines, which pacify people to dormancy. On the other hand, they also have to maintain continuity whilst simultaneously promoting change; such is the nature of leadership ambiguity and contradiction that comes as part of the same deal.
2. Leaders oversight is an important part of the policy making process.
Leaders should ensure that the agreed policy is properly implemented and delivered to the tar-get citizens by means of leaders' oversight. As to Pelizzo et al (2006:8), “scholars have generally agreed on the fact that effective oversight is good for the proper functioning of a democratic political system. Effective oversight is beneficial for a political system for, at least, two basic reasons (West and Cooper, 1989): ‘first, because the oversight activity can actually contribute to improving the quality of the policies/programs initiated by the government; second, because as the government policies are ratified by the leadership branch, such policies acquire greater legitimacy’”. Besides their responsibility for the leadership process, leaders have a key function in providing oversight of the government on behalf of the public (Beetham, 2006:127). Through its core oversight function, leaders holds the government to account on behalf of the people, ensuring that government policy and action are both efficient and commensurate with the needs of the public and leaders’ oversight is crucial in checking excesses on the government (Yamamoto, 2007:6).
Studies have underlined that the legislature may adopt several tools to oversee the actions of the executives such as hearings in committees, hearings in the plenary assembly, the creation of inquiry committees, leaders’ questions, question time, the interpellations and the ombudsman (Pelizzo et al., 2006:8; Maffio, 2002 & Pennings, 2000). The key functions of leaders’ oversight can be described as follows. At the core of this function is the protection of liberties of citizens, to detect and prevent abuse, arbitrary behaviour or unconstitutional conduct on the part of the government and public agencies. It detects waste within the machinery of public agencies. Thus, it can improve the efficiency, economy and effectiveness of government operations and hold the government to account in respect of how the taxpayers’ money is used. Ensuring that that policies are actually delivered includes monitoring the achievement of goals set by legislation and to improve the transparency of operations and enhance public trust, which is itself a condition of effective policy delivery.
However, as to Blackburn and Kennon (2003:6) “the government is not the only source of in-put of business for leaders. Much business originates from the opposition. The inspiration for their input is largely found in general public opinion, outside pressures or interest groups, newspapers, radio and television, and in the minds and attitudes of millions of citizens represented in the Com-mons by Members”. Leaders, therefore, finds itself the recipient of a wide range of external pressures and proposals, broadly divided between the governments on the one hand and the outside world - the public on the other. The prerequisite for policy making process is the existence of strong and competent leadership body. No country can have a workable democracy, with adequate avenues for citizens to be heard and without a vibrant and meaningful leadership (Ornstein, 1992:1).
Nonetheless, in almost every nation around the world, there is a gap between leadership powers to hold the executive to account (Power, 2012:16). However, since recent times, optimistic practices have been emerging even in the most criticized Sub-Saharan Africa. Joel Barkan (2009), in a wide-ranging study of leadership development in Africa, suggests that the situation is changing, with leaders evolv¬ing out of their role as rubber stamps for the executive and becoming more effective as watchdogs, policy-makers and representatives. Leaderships has to make effort not only to promote the public participation in the policy making process but also to perform representation functions.
The first and foremost characteristic of a leadership is its intrinsic link to the citizens of the nation or state – representation. In a representative democracy, they act as the eyes, ears and voice of the people (Ornstein, 1992:2). The other dimension to constituency activity consists in ensuring that local experience informs national policy-making. through their interaction with voters, local MPs gain enormous expertise about the impact of policy decisions and legislation at the local level. That direct experience is often far greater that of the civil servants and ministers responsible for drafting and implement¬ing legislation, but is rarely used by leaders in any systematic fashion to shape legislation. Instead, it is most frequently due to the initiative of individual politicians that the experience of citizens is used as a policy resource (Greg Power, 2012:66).
Leaders also need to have means of engaging and influencing the public. Openness and being accessible to the voter and taxpayer is a crucial feature of leaderships. Most leaders have sought to improve their outreach in the basic provision of information, especially through the development of visitors’ centers, open days and events – based on the insight that, in order to interest people in the leaders, there is no substitute for physical access. Because leaders’ outreach will ever physically touch only a small proportion of the population, the key means for informing citizens about public affairs, and a key channel of communication between leaders and public. In their investigative role, the media have always been seen as a ‘watchdog’ against all kinds of abuse. How well they fulfil these functions is vital for the quality of democratic life. Given the tendency for these functions to become distorted, whether by executive partiality in a state-controlled system, or by powerful economic interests in a commercialized one, leaders have key democratic role in setting an appropriate legal framework for the media, to ensure both their independence and their diversity (Beetham, 2006:6).
Another essential function of leaders in the policy making process is entertaining of public petition. Any citizen or group of citizens may prepare and sign a petition to the house on any matter in which the house has jurisdiction to interfere (Blackburn & Kennon, 2003:380). They extend their account by indicating that the petition must be presented to the house by a member. Policy is nothing without budget allocation, hence, it is a component of the policy making process. A law without a budget is simply rhetoric and the budget-making process is as critical as the lawmaking process (Hollister, 2007:7). The budget is the most important economic policy tool of a government and provides a comprehensive statement of the priorities of a nation. As the representative institutions of the people, it falls to national leaderships to ensure that the budget optimally matches a nation’s needs with available resources. Effective leadership participation in the budget process establishes checks and balances that are crucial for transparent and accountable government to ensure efficient delivery of public services (Wehner & Byanyima 2004:9).
Leaders’ 'power of the purse' is a fundamental feature of democracy. The vast majority of democratic constitutions require appropriations and taxation measures to be approved by leaders in order to become effective. For this requirement to be more than constitutional fiction though, leaders must ensure that the revenue and spending measures it authorizes are fiscally sound, match the needs of the population with available resources, and are implemented properly and efficiently”. Its options are to approve or reject the budget, to amend it, or, in a few cases, to substitute the draft tabled by the executive with its own budget. In some countries, the leadership passes separate legislation for appropriations and changes to the tax code; in others, it considers a unified budget bill. The exact form of leadership approval is less important than the fact that it must be comprehensive. Principles of authorization of all public spending & taxation ensures the ‘rule of law’ in public finance (Ibid:1, 30-31).
Thus, leadership capacity here entails conceptualization in global categories that are invested with varying local meanings that are themselves in part actualization of trends in international polilitical (and development) such as witnessed in Singapore and the Tiger Economies.
See more here or paste this link - https://www.academia.edu/11750510/Africa_Strategic_Governance_and_Leadership_Challenges_and_Opportunities
Leadership within the African context can best be described as quoted in the Chinese book “I Ching, or Chinese Book of Changes”, (1971) “To become a centre of influence holding people together is a grave matter and fraught with great responsibility. It requires greatness of spirit, consistency, and strength. Therefore let him who wishes to gather others about him ask himself whether he is equal to the undertaking...” Leadership has several forms of agency:
1.1. Official power:
The authority to instruct government machinery to carry out instructions is the prime example. Hence, the leadership we expect is above all about responsibility; requiring acceptance of the importance of one's self-coupled with an appreciation of the greater importance of others over oneself. Therefore, leadership entails liability for those who are led - whereby, leadership becomes a discipline in its own right. There is no set of techniques, rules, or series of commandments with which the leader can arm themselves and be assured of success; nonetheless, they must always interrelate, familiarize, change, and transform themselves.
1.2. Supremacy over dialogue:
Our cabinet leaders are expected to develop the capacity, through their statements and actions, including symbolic actions, to shape debate and dialogue. Even when their formal power is limited, they can use their access to the media and stature in society to influence what people talk about. It is vital to recognize that, through either position or personality, they have the power to impact on the world - to change it. This, in fact, is the essence of leadership: the leader is one who does not accept the limitations of a “given” situation or set of circumstances, but uses the opportunity to transform such constraints into new realities, and takes responsibility for the privilege.
1.3. Moral high ground:
An inspiring ‘job description’ of our ministers must be not only the power over discourse but also their ability to shape morality, to determine what is socially acceptable, culturally sound and politically uplifting. Indeed, leadership is more than a job; it is a calling.
1.4. Leaders operate at national and international levels:
The international component may be particularly important here, given our clear continen-tal African identity adopted under Emperor Haile Sellasse. As custodian of African Unity, our leaders are expected to be the role model for social change.
1.5. Leadership for human development and human security:
Political leadership of human development and human security requires intimate knowledge of public policy analysis, formulation, and management and development of strategic plans and implementing them. We can identify four main aspects to this:
• analysis, formulation and management of policy, strategy, process and organisation;
• obtaining policy consensus;
• ensuring that the public service can actually carry out policy, and not see it subverted or undermined;
• ensuring that the policy is implemented with sufficient energy: this implies mechanisms for monitoring and accountability: in addition, we can identify some of the preconditions for effective public policy measures against a major social ill:
o A set of technical and/or policy measures that a state can utilise to tackle effectively the specific social ill, with a package that works in the most basic technical manner.
o Mechanisms to ensure that the technologies and/or policies are adequately utilised, backed by legislation, administrative commitment or other specific forms of sanctioning. There have to be mechanisms for ensuring that institutions function, and political processes for accountability.
o An ethical consensus, which rules that this specific social ill is unacceptable, the policy must be acceptable to the target group and the public;
This is especially important in our continent when the policy imperatives involve trying to change attitudes and behaviour of a national psyche that has rendered the nation eternally dependent on international charity. Thus, our leaders are on the one hand responsible for breaking the boundaries of inward bound wisdom, of “common sense”, of patterns of thinking and behaving, which, over the years, have built themselves into routines, which pacify people to dormancy. On the other hand, they also have to maintain continuity whilst simultaneously promoting change; such is the nature of leadership ambiguity and contradiction that comes as part of the same deal.
2. Leaders oversight is an important part of the policy making process.
Leaders should ensure that the agreed policy is properly implemented and delivered to the tar-get citizens by means of leaders' oversight. As to Pelizzo et al (2006:8), “scholars have generally agreed on the fact that effective oversight is good for the proper functioning of a democratic political system. Effective oversight is beneficial for a political system for, at least, two basic reasons (West and Cooper, 1989): ‘first, because the oversight activity can actually contribute to improving the quality of the policies/programs initiated by the government; second, because as the government policies are ratified by the leadership branch, such policies acquire greater legitimacy’”. Besides their responsibility for the leadership process, leaders have a key function in providing oversight of the government on behalf of the public (Beetham, 2006:127). Through its core oversight function, leaders holds the government to account on behalf of the people, ensuring that government policy and action are both efficient and commensurate with the needs of the public and leaders’ oversight is crucial in checking excesses on the government (Yamamoto, 2007:6).
Studies have underlined that the legislature may adopt several tools to oversee the actions of the executives such as hearings in committees, hearings in the plenary assembly, the creation of inquiry committees, leaders’ questions, question time, the interpellations and the ombudsman (Pelizzo et al., 2006:8; Maffio, 2002 & Pennings, 2000). The key functions of leaders’ oversight can be described as follows. At the core of this function is the protection of liberties of citizens, to detect and prevent abuse, arbitrary behaviour or unconstitutional conduct on the part of the government and public agencies. It detects waste within the machinery of public agencies. Thus, it can improve the efficiency, economy and effectiveness of government operations and hold the government to account in respect of how the taxpayers’ money is used. Ensuring that that policies are actually delivered includes monitoring the achievement of goals set by legislation and to improve the transparency of operations and enhance public trust, which is itself a condition of effective policy delivery.
However, as to Blackburn and Kennon (2003:6) “the government is not the only source of in-put of business for leaders. Much business originates from the opposition. The inspiration for their input is largely found in general public opinion, outside pressures or interest groups, newspapers, radio and television, and in the minds and attitudes of millions of citizens represented in the Com-mons by Members”. Leaders, therefore, finds itself the recipient of a wide range of external pressures and proposals, broadly divided between the governments on the one hand and the outside world - the public on the other. The prerequisite for policy making process is the existence of strong and competent leadership body. No country can have a workable democracy, with adequate avenues for citizens to be heard and without a vibrant and meaningful leadership (Ornstein, 1992:1).
Nonetheless, in almost every nation around the world, there is a gap between leadership powers to hold the executive to account (Power, 2012:16). However, since recent times, optimistic practices have been emerging even in the most criticized Sub-Saharan Africa. Joel Barkan (2009), in a wide-ranging study of leadership development in Africa, suggests that the situation is changing, with leaders evolv¬ing out of their role as rubber stamps for the executive and becoming more effective as watchdogs, policy-makers and representatives. Leaderships has to make effort not only to promote the public participation in the policy making process but also to perform representation functions.
The first and foremost characteristic of a leadership is its intrinsic link to the citizens of the nation or state – representation. In a representative democracy, they act as the eyes, ears and voice of the people (Ornstein, 1992:2). The other dimension to constituency activity consists in ensuring that local experience informs national policy-making. through their interaction with voters, local MPs gain enormous expertise about the impact of policy decisions and legislation at the local level. That direct experience is often far greater that of the civil servants and ministers responsible for drafting and implement¬ing legislation, but is rarely used by leaders in any systematic fashion to shape legislation. Instead, it is most frequently due to the initiative of individual politicians that the experience of citizens is used as a policy resource (Greg Power, 2012:66).
Leaders also need to have means of engaging and influencing the public. Openness and being accessible to the voter and taxpayer is a crucial feature of leaderships. Most leaders have sought to improve their outreach in the basic provision of information, especially through the development of visitors’ centers, open days and events – based on the insight that, in order to interest people in the leaders, there is no substitute for physical access. Because leaders’ outreach will ever physically touch only a small proportion of the population, the key means for informing citizens about public affairs, and a key channel of communication between leaders and public. In their investigative role, the media have always been seen as a ‘watchdog’ against all kinds of abuse. How well they fulfil these functions is vital for the quality of democratic life. Given the tendency for these functions to become distorted, whether by executive partiality in a state-controlled system, or by powerful economic interests in a commercialized one, leaders have key democratic role in setting an appropriate legal framework for the media, to ensure both their independence and their diversity (Beetham, 2006:6).
Another essential function of leaders in the policy making process is entertaining of public petition. Any citizen or group of citizens may prepare and sign a petition to the house on any matter in which the house has jurisdiction to interfere (Blackburn & Kennon, 2003:380). They extend their account by indicating that the petition must be presented to the house by a member. Policy is nothing without budget allocation, hence, it is a component of the policy making process. A law without a budget is simply rhetoric and the budget-making process is as critical as the lawmaking process (Hollister, 2007:7). The budget is the most important economic policy tool of a government and provides a comprehensive statement of the priorities of a nation. As the representative institutions of the people, it falls to national leaderships to ensure that the budget optimally matches a nation’s needs with available resources. Effective leadership participation in the budget process establishes checks and balances that are crucial for transparent and accountable government to ensure efficient delivery of public services (Wehner & Byanyima 2004:9).
Leaders’ 'power of the purse' is a fundamental feature of democracy. The vast majority of democratic constitutions require appropriations and taxation measures to be approved by leaders in order to become effective. For this requirement to be more than constitutional fiction though, leaders must ensure that the revenue and spending measures it authorizes are fiscally sound, match the needs of the population with available resources, and are implemented properly and efficiently”. Its options are to approve or reject the budget, to amend it, or, in a few cases, to substitute the draft tabled by the executive with its own budget. In some countries, the leadership passes separate legislation for appropriations and changes to the tax code; in others, it considers a unified budget bill. The exact form of leadership approval is less important than the fact that it must be comprehensive. Principles of authorization of all public spending & taxation ensures the ‘rule of law’ in public finance (Ibid:1, 30-31).
Thus, leadership capacity here entails conceptualization in global categories that are invested with varying local meanings that are themselves in part actualization of trends in international polilitical (and development) such as witnessed in Singapore and the Tiger Economies.
See more here or paste this link - https://www.academia.edu/11750510/Africa_Strategic_Governance_and_Leadership_Challenges_and_Opportunities
Access to Health Wellness Implementation of the Abuja Commitment in Africa
Abstract
Pastoralists and trans-boundary populations are under the grip of an unprecedented crisis, heightened by the inability of states to engage readily in the search for answers to the continent’s human insecurity challenges. Across the continent, these populations live in nations that remain in the throes of famine, poverty & violence and continue to suffer the devastating impact of AIDS and STIs and now Ebola. On a positive note, there is a remarkable success in rolling back HIV/AIDS, since the 2001 Abuja Declaration on HIV/AIDS and ORID. Africa is also at the forefront of the global development agenda today but the challenges for mobile populace remains daunting. Using qualitative data collected from primary and secondary sources, the research has unveiled existing and emerging health challenges that emanate from state fragility, the crises of managing health care and the crises of civic and political leadership in Africa. A state is fragile when the basic functions of the State are no longer performed, they breed widespread internal conflict, revolutionary and ethnic wars, adverse regime change, genocide, politicides, and de facto or de jure loss of state legitimacy. The finding point to the criminal negligence of health care systems in trans-boundary human movements in Africa while simultaneously addressing the need for clear trajectories with strategic entry points to address capacity development needs to stem the tide of pandemics.
Key words: diseases of poverty, human mobility, health systems, state fragility & capacity,
See more here or https://www.academia.edu/9685233/Access_to_Health_Wellness_-_Implementation_of_the_Abuja_Commitment_in_Africa_and_IGAD_countries_Lessons_learned
Pastoralists and trans-boundary populations are under the grip of an unprecedented crisis, heightened by the inability of states to engage readily in the search for answers to the continent’s human insecurity challenges. Across the continent, these populations live in nations that remain in the throes of famine, poverty & violence and continue to suffer the devastating impact of AIDS and STIs and now Ebola. On a positive note, there is a remarkable success in rolling back HIV/AIDS, since the 2001 Abuja Declaration on HIV/AIDS and ORID. Africa is also at the forefront of the global development agenda today but the challenges for mobile populace remains daunting. Using qualitative data collected from primary and secondary sources, the research has unveiled existing and emerging health challenges that emanate from state fragility, the crises of managing health care and the crises of civic and political leadership in Africa. A state is fragile when the basic functions of the State are no longer performed, they breed widespread internal conflict, revolutionary and ethnic wars, adverse regime change, genocide, politicides, and de facto or de jure loss of state legitimacy. The finding point to the criminal negligence of health care systems in trans-boundary human movements in Africa while simultaneously addressing the need for clear trajectories with strategic entry points to address capacity development needs to stem the tide of pandemics.
Key words: diseases of poverty, human mobility, health systems, state fragility & capacity,
See more here or https://www.academia.edu/9685233/Access_to_Health_Wellness_-_Implementation_of_the_Abuja_Commitment_in_Africa_and_IGAD_countries_Lessons_learned
Sunday, 12 April 2015
Unlocking the Entrepreneurial Promise: Human Security, Human Capital, Employment and Entrepreneurship Development in Africa
Unlocking the Entrepreneurial Promise:
Human Security, Human Capital, Employment and Entrepreneurship Development in Africa
Human Security, Human Capital, Employment and Entrepreneurship Development in Africa
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/unlocking-entrepreneurial-promise-africa-costy-bt-costantinos/edit
Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD
Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,
College of Business and Economics, AAU
Background notes & transcript of a lecture at the
AU/UN Finance & Economic Ministers Forum, side events
March 29-31, 2015, AU, Addis Ababa
As
a region of young people; whose visions of human development and human
security are defined by the tenacity to achieve the Compact defined by
the Millennium Development Goals, the youth are right to aspire to forms
of transformational development in terms of equity, a healthy
population, an educated, fully engaged and employed youth with a solid
family structure. Nonetheless, the reality is of one of marginalization,
demanding radical developmental and demographic reconfiguration. The
later breeds despondency, desperation, intolerance and of course
belligerence; so much so that political forces in every corner have
mobilized the youth for violent ends, often to the detriment of their
very own livelihoods. Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD
Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,
College of Business and Economics, AAU
Background notes & transcript of a lecture at the
AU/UN Finance & Economic Ministers Forum, side events
March 29-31, 2015, AU, Addis Ababa
The unfolding human tragedy, its impact on human security and development are indeed too ghastly to contemplate. Whereas, the challenge simply stated, underpins the need to connect to the energies of the youth, they have instead, for so many years were encouraged to look to outsiders to provide the means and processes of change. They have been discouraged from mobilizing for local actions and for their own development, finding themselves in positions of unequal power, making it very tempting for many in politics to dictate conditions and terms of relationships on them.The purpose here is to propose means that are designed to develop strategies to mobilize nations and civil societies to direct policies and programs to address the compelling and evolving implications of unemployment and human insecurity; so that it does not further reverse human and social capital development in the sub-Region. The need for collective learning about responses and the responsibility to those whose suffering provided the basis for that learning will never be more urgent than it is now. Unfortunately, such lessons, which may be learned through the shocks administered by an uncompromising reality, are rarely translated quickly into personal or organizational memories and the inherent will to change. The reasons for this are sometimes rooted in human inertia, weakness and self-interest. They are equally often the products of a genuine confusion about how to act most effectively in an environment that seems to be growing more complex.
In 1945, the human community proclaimed a bold and revolutionary vision of the future; where the youth will engage collectively as result of the responsible action of politically mature citizens acting in the framework of a free society. As we stand on the watershed of the old and new Millennia, demands for greater democratic space and youth participation in Horn of Africa have increased the accountability of state actors. This tall order would revolutionize approaches to self-directed human development that only a new paradigm shift and commitment to new organizing principles can achieve. Hence, the need to focus on practical strategies for employment based safety nets and employment generation loans that have transformed hitherto underemployed economies into forces of livelihood sustainability and human security.
Human qualities for development
A major contributing factor to the appalling situation is that there is and has been a shallow understanding of and a feeble grip on, the essential components that constitute the required human qualities for development and the intensive and comprehensive nature of their development and utilization processes. As such, important components and commitment required to build and use a quality labor force for accelerating and sustaining growth are not properly addressed in the education, training and productivity programs. Nations have failed to produce and retain the necessary pool of self-confident, healthy, knowledgeable and skilled public and private sectors labor force, which is full of initiatives and resourcefulness with a sense of purpose, work ethics, vision, integrity and direction. Pronouncements have been made regarding employment and career development programs in m ay forums. Yet, like many other policy efforts, these have not yielded the desired results. Human capital flight from the region has reached high proportions leaving behind an ill-prepared labor force. Skills, knowledge and positive work habits continued to be in short supply. School systems are in shambles in most countries. Strong private sector leadership at all levels of society is essential for an effective auguring of quality labor market. It is essential that their efforts should be complemented by the full and active participation of civil society and the state. Leadership involves personal commitment and concrete actions.
Policy and strategic collapse
While the degree of awareness on the challenges has improved over the past few years, the tendency for governments to treat these challenges as yet another routine issue that needs to be tackled through five-year development plans is tantalizing. The fact remains, however, that these challenges will increasingly claim the livelihoods of many families and the economic backbone of many nations; retarding human development to a level where it becomes impossible to reverse the trend in much less time than the development cycles of states. These are further complicated by fear of the unknown, traditional power dynamics, lack of experience or awareness of collective action, poor local leadership and the lack of energy, time and willingness to devote to activities other than subsistence.
An ambitious African youth policy of 2004 zeroes on enabling the youth to play an active role in building a democratic society and good governance, as well as in social and economic development. It further aims to deliver a democratically oriented, knowledgeable and skilled, organized and disciplined enterprising youth generation. Nevertheless, the low levels of opportunities for productive employment only serve to amplify the nation’s penury. This is not without its politico-ethical consequences. It is echoed in the politicization of violent and fearless youth and the mass diasporization that now crowded Western capitals, as a source of skilled human capital. Failure to utilize such a lynchpin factor of production is not acceptable. Radical policy and strategic measures to boast the private sector’s role and capacity need to be launched with vigor to develop the management and functionings of the labor.
Knowledge management and Communities of Practice:
Evidence of sufficient knowledge and information about the business sector is another indicator. Progress in information systems on micro-economic behavior including labor market networks and the specific requirements of technology transfer and adaptation are all preconditions for sound policy and strategy analysis, formulation and management. Planning and policy-making are characterized by on-going dialogue between government and different groups of economic actors and by regular exchange of electronic data and information on specific needs and requirements including the critical area of technology transfer and development. Further, a coherent and coordinated approach of government agencies in their dealings with the business community, flexibility in response to changing circumstances; attention to detail on objectives agreed upon and emphasis on achieving high levels of performance must be developed.
Entrepreneurship development
Entrepreneurs that are expected to employ the vast army of labor and that operate on a small-to intermediate-scale usually exhibit fairly sophisticated organizational skills. Nevertheless, as their businesses grow along the small-to intermediate-scale continuum, they often face constraints such as limited managerial capabilities; difficulties with technology transfer and adaptation; and, as in the case of informal sector micro-entrepreneurs, inadequate or inappropriate public provision of enterprise-level support. If entrepreneurship is to become the vehicle of growth, ‘graduation’ of informal sector micro-enterprises to better endowed establishments and higher levels of value-added and economic diversification is to be achieved, it is clear that the deficit of skills that are necessary to establish a range of capabilities on the managerial side must surmounted (Costantinos, 2004).
An efficient and a development-oriented private sector provide the nourishment, which markets require to grow and function effectively. Markets themselves provide the credit ingredients, which the private sector requires to grow, expand and contribute to development. Thus, there is a reciprocal and mutually productive relationship between the private sector and credit and capital markets. Responsibility for their implementation has been assigned to stakeholders at the national, sub regional and regional levels. Further analysis suggests that we should incorporate the requirements of establishing capital markets and strengthening the private sector in the list of priorities on their macro-economic reform programs. The banking system must be functioning taking care of the money markets. Consequential growth response of the latter should give a boost to capital markets, which in turn provide capital for SHD (Costantinos, 2008).
Human security
Human security, a post-Cold War concept, is a multi-disciplinary understanding of security involving a number of research fields, including development studies, international relations, strategic studies and human rights. While the “HDR originally argued that human security requires attention to both freedoms from fear and from want; divisions have gradually emerged over the proper scope of that protection and over the appropriate mechanisms for responding to these threats. The Freedom from Fear School seeks to limit the practice of human security to protecting individuals from violent conflicts. The Freedom from Want School focuses on the basic idea that violence, poverty, inequality, diseases and environmental degradation are inseparable concepts in addressing the root of human insecurity. Different from Freedom from Fear, it expands the focus beyond violence with emphasis on development and security goals. In reality both should serve as important impetus to global action” (UNDP, 1994).
Conclusion
Indeed, there is no more compelling raison d'être nor a mission-objective so utterly entrenched in the preservation and, even advancement of human-kind, than good governance and leadership that can lead a social league to relate cogently to an epidemic of ignorance and hence under-employment that has spun out of control. With few exceptions, nations have failed to win popular legitimacy - possessing relatively few authentic social organizations that can articulate and aggregate social interests. Civic leadership remain generally non-existent or at best, weak.
Hence, the central hypothesis in entrepreneurship development is that the relative strength of political organizations determines the rules of the political game that are installed. It requires a plural set of political organizations, which promote and protect rules of peaceful political participation and competition. Together, institutions (plural organizations plus rules of accountability) ensure control of the state executive. These create enabling environment for entrepreneurship development
- ingredients of enabling environment for entrepreneurship development: avoidance of bureaucratic barriers and efficient and reliable infrastructure:
- expansion and establishment of intermediary financial institutions: establishment of education and training institutions, healthy business-government relationship, stable political and regulatory climate, development of grassroots entrepreneurship:
- government institutions have been created to serve the large businesses: expansion of the role of civic associations, sound and stable macroeconomic policy framework, and on improving competitiveness and employment opportunities
On value for money and accountability in service delivery:
Institution of higher learning must ensure multi-sectoral training in order to produce a multi-skilled labor force. Countries must continue with their programs to decentralize and devolve services, embrace the opportunities brought by ICT as well as maintain capacity building in education and health, and promote mobile services to hard-to-reach communities. Countries must embrace social accountability for service delivery and empower citizens to demand quality services.
On risk protection, inclusion and social cohesion:
Countries of the region and the international community must urgently address the serious problems of human trafficking and piracy, as well as the peculiar situations in fragile states in the region. Member states must develop national and regional policy frameworks on education focusing on science and technology with revised curriculum to address the demands of the labor market. Countries must revive adult literacy, distance learning, early childhood nutrition and education.
On migration, labor mobility and remittances:
Countries must produce what they can absorb and export, while considering the Push-Pull factors in a globalized, technological 21st Century as well as creating jobs and introducing investment incentives for nationals and the Diaspora of the region. Countries must facilitate brain circulation through support of migration that provide exposure/expertise and improve education systems that add value to migrant labor making them competitive in regional and international markets.
See paper here or copy and paste this link into your browser https://www.academia.edu/11801659/Unlocking_the_Entrepreneurial_Promise_Human_Security_Human_Capital_Employment_and_Entrepreneurship_Development_in_Africa6OTAzZTljNGNmMzVkZTA1
Theories of Governance and New Public Management
Theories of Governance and New Public Management
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/theories-governance-new-public-management-costy-bt-costantinos/edit
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/theories-governance-new-public-management-costy-bt-costantinos/edit
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