Scenario Planning: Effective gizmo for State-Building Leadership & Public Policy impact Forecast?

Scenario planning as a process of visualizing what future conditions or events are probable, what their consequences or effects would be like, and how to respond to, or benefit from, them. It is a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. It is in large part an adaptation and generalization of classic methods used by military intelligence. The original method was that a group of analysts would generate simulation games for policy makers that combine known facts about the future, such as demographics, geography, military, political, industrial information and mineral reserves, with key driving forces identified by considering social, technical, economic, environmental and political trends and gaming the behavior of opponents.

Public policy is the principled guide to action taken by the administrative executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and substantial constitutional law and implementing legislation. Collection of sufficient resources from the economy in an appropriate manner along with allocating and use of these resources efficiently and effectively constitute good financial management. As public administrators of firms and agencies build scenarios, the implications for each uncertainty are extrapolated into the future to project different outcomes, and the combination of those outcomes becomes the basis for scenarios. Properly executed, scenario planning prompts participants to convert abstract hypotheses about uncertainties into narratives about tangible realities.

There are three scenarios of state building: legitimacy and accountability of states through democratic governance by holding elections and constitutional processes, economic liberalization, and strengthening the capacity of states to fulfill core functions of an effective state. Lee Kuan Yew, (Singapore) brought political stability, which together with rule of law, were essential for economic progress, thereby creating an Asian Tiger, meritocratic state, transforming from the third world to the first world in a single generation.http://www.academia.edu/14284465/Scenario_Planning_Effective_gizmo_for_State-Building_Leadership_and_Public_Policy_impact_Forecast

“Crises of Ethical Governance” Part II – Ethics, Corruption & Human Security

In spite of fast growing economies and notwithstanding the slavery and colonial legacy, that is still taxing the continent, new faces and forces of vulnerability and poverty haunt the Africa region. Conflicts, corruption, disasters, poverty, and pandemics now threaten the region with a calamity unforeseen even during the Great African Famine of the 1980s. While many proposals for remedial action have been formulated, real commitment to positive and collaborative processes at continental and inter organisational level has always been limited. These series of lectures aim to enhance the hallowed objective of curbing human insecurity, grand corruption and graft and stemming any the collateral threats of counter-corruption measures to good governance. It considers the relations between corruption, security, and development. The public service suffers from the pressures of economies, no less than those of politics. The realities prevailing in Africa render expectations of Africa’s public service rather unreasonable. For most junior public servants in Africa daily survival is nothing less than a minor miracle because their wages lag behind the requirements of self-reproduction. At a structural-political level, structural-cultural level and epistemological level,, is the conflict of the legitimacy of the received state, whose ‘public’ is nominal with the informal kinship-based; legitimacy of salient values of indigenous African cultures and those of the value systems of the modern state and the antimonies, distortions and confusions of an epistemological stance, which insistently privileges perceives Africa in the image of the West. Divided into four parts, it addresses the sources of human insecurity, the impact of corruption on development and discusses the redeeming factors to stem that tide of corruption and achieve a just society.
See lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/13949055/_Crises_of_Ethical_Governance_Part_II_Ethics_Corruption_and_Human_Security

‘Amalgamated Capital’ to finance Sustainable Development in Africa

With over one billion people still living in extreme poverty globally, accelerating progress towards the eradication of extreme poverty remains the primary goal of international development agencies, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Seen from the outside, Africa is often characterized as a continent of civil conflict, of refugee and displaced populations of economic crisis. Yes, some of the bloodiest conflicts since the end of WW II have been among Africans. Yet amid this gruesome picture, Africa is rising as the fastest growing continent in terms of aggregate economic indicators. One of the main outcomes of the Rio20 Conference was the agreement by member States to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will build upon the MDGs and con¬verge with the post 2015 agenda. It was decided establish an inclusive and transparent intergovernmental process open to all stakeholders, with a view to developing global sustainable development goals to be agreed by the General Assembly. Africa has no choice but to meet the SDGs, using this opportunity.
Available data suggest that development aid has nearly multiplied by tenfold in less than a decade from around $3 billion in 2003 to $30 billion in 2012. Ultimately, sustainable development will require investments of all kinds: public and private, domestic and international. It requires making the best possible use of each public dollar, beginning with the $135 billion in ODA. Amalgamated (Blended) Finance is the strategic use of development finance and charity funds to mobilize private capital flows to emerging and frontier markets. Amalgamated (Blended) Finance enhances the impact of develop¬ment aid resources by using those funds to tap into private capital in global markets, offering promising a latent solution to close the SDG funding disparity.
See the lecture here or http://www.academia.edu/14067768/_Amalgamated_Blended_Capital_to_finance_Sustainable_and_Inclusive_Growth_and_Development_in_Africa_-_Panelist_lecture_and_keynote_address_background_notes

Financing for Development Emergency Preparedness & Response Sub-Cluster of the Regional Coordination Mechanism

Conflicts, corruption, disasters, poverty and pandemics have often threatened Africa with a calamity unforeseen even during the Great African Famine of the eighties that affected 150 million Africans. While many proposals for remedial action have been formulated for vulnerability and poverty that haunt the region, real commitment to collaborative processes at inter- and intra-organizational level has always been limited. Mobilizing the action required has also remained a daunting challenge, as many practical and structural constraints militate against commitment by individual groups to organizational initiatives nationally and regionally. The tragedy, which took such a heavy toll of life over the past years, has highlighted fundamental weakness in the international humanitarian partnership. The complex political, economic, social and cultural phenomena of state failure are little understood with states plagued by rampant corruption, predatory elites who have long monopolized power, an absence of the rule of law and severe ethnic or religious divisions.
Nonetheless, the ability of states to strip people of their rights to livelihoods security, behind the thin veneer ‘non-interference in each other’s internal affairs’ is increasingly being challenged. While the African Union’s political evolution may allow such novelties, how do the responsibility to protect (R2P) and right to assistance (R2A) projects pursue their goals consistently in varying contexts, but do so without resorting to a self-defeating, overly scripted and stage-managed political ‘play’?. Transitions from humanitarian crises to effective and capable states can be explained with reference to two institutional factors: institutions and rules. Hence, new global donor strategies should focus on the different stages of humanitarian capacity building of crises states: conflict prevention, containment and peace-building and post-conflict reconstruction in the social, political and economic spheres. Strategies need to be simultaneously ‘objective’, dealing with substantive issues and the institutional mechanisms for response, and ‘subjective’, in developing the awareness, understanding and expectations at all levels.
See full lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/14018394/Financing_for_Development_-_Emergency_Preparedness_and_Response_Sub-Cluster_of_the_Regional_Coordination_Mechanism

Triangular Partnership in Higher Education Governance: Priming Human Qualities in Africa

A disciplined, healthy, nourished and motivated labor force is required to produce and distribute the goods and services needed for sustained human development. Leadership teams that are committed and willing with positive attitude to facilitate the process of opening up greater opportunities for every citizen are needed. The sector would require a proactive and innovative managerial and entrepreneurial team with capacities and willpower. To meet this challenge is synonymous to meeting the development challenge at large. The percept of governance of higher education has become apparent as the keys to the 21^st century and requires public understanding of the achievements. The theoretical discourse dwells on developing the framework the need for policy imperatives for guaranteeing governance of higher education. The conclusion poses questions related to: are all ideas and values of governance of higher education allowed to contend, are there laws or unwritten ‘codes’ which prevent or hinder intellectual and cultural freedom?

Within Africa, the supply of ideas of governance of higher education may be artificially deflated by particular strategies and mechanisms used by incumbents to manage entire reform processes. Conceptual possibilities may be left unrealized, or sub-optimally realized, insofar as governing elite are preoccupied with filling out those spaces of uncertainty in governance of higher education thought, discourse and action that alternative groups would occupy in the course of their own engagement. The crux of the challenge is to engage in Triangular Partnership, where the diaspora can participate in creating an intelligent and critical mass of human qualities and ensures their effective participation in the development process, putting it productive use. It is about having the ability and willingness to spot, sequence and execute human-centered development priorities and programs in the face of limited institutional capacities. The results would lead to the creation of a strong continent, active in global transactions.

Key words: governance, higher education, stakeholders, quality, standards, 

See full lecture here or  https://www.academia.edu/14169867/Triangular_Partnership_in_Higher_Education_Governance_Priming_Human_Qualities_in_Africa