If you ask about the most important factors behind the failure or success of a policy, accountability would emerge as one of the most important factors. But before discussing that, let’s discuss what some readers have termed as confusion in my previous column about the difference between development and progress.
First, even in academic literature there is no consensus on unanimous definition of such terms. Second, this series of articles is for general and nonacademic readers so there is no harm in presenting complicated concepts with simple ideas. As discussed in the previous column, we may consider development as a much broader concept than progress, but you don’t necessarily have to agree with this simplification. Taking an example from education, one makes progress by completing a certificate course or earning a degree. One certificate or degree completes an educational task and you make progress.
But how much that progress has actually contributed to your development is a different question. You may have to make progress in multiple – consecutive or parallel – educational tasks before you can claim to have developed intellectually. It may or may not involve certificates or degrees. That’s why not all degree-holders are intellectually developed. We may also try to understand this by the concepts of growing old or growing up. When we complete each year of our life, we make some progress by achieving one task of getting one year older. That is progress, not development.
Nearly everyone grows old, but not everyone grows up. Growing up involves substantial development with progress in multiple directions, before somebody can be counted as a grown-up human being. Perhaps the same applies to countries and nations; we are a 73-year-old country, but as a nation how grown up we are is anybody’s guess. Yes, as a country we have made some progress, but development? You tell me. Let’s take one last example from the health sector. We build a clinic or hospital, we make some progress. How much that contributes to the development of general health of people is a different question.
Coming back to our topic of accountability and policies, first we need to be clear about what we mean by accountability. Going by the claims of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Pakistan, it has recovered billions of rupees by plea bargains with the corrupt. Well that is some progress; but how far that has contributed to actual reduction of corruption in Pakistani society is a development question. But NAB’s definition of accountability is confined to financial malpractices only. When we talk about accountability as a major factor for failure or success of policies, we have a much broader concept in mind.
Accountability essentially is an obligation to justify actions or decisions. This accountability -- or obligation – may apply to a group, an institution, or a person, who has followed a line of action or has made some decisions that affect other people. A policy, in simple words, is a line of action or decisions, and the thought process behind it. When a group, an institution, or a person makes a policy that affects other groups, institutions, or persons, there has to be some accountability, meaning an obligation to justify those actions, decisions, and the thought process behind it.
This may apply to all policies: from business or corporate policies to defence, development, domestic, economic, and foreign policies to many others. Let’s broaden our discussion and have a look at China. When China occupied Tibet, or decided to contain or even suppress the national and religious aspirations of the Uighur population in Xinjiang, it was following a certain policy – a line of action and made some decisions based on a thought process. That policy may or may not be in a written form. The leadership in China made a policy decision and the army and the party followed it.
Was there any accountability nationally or internationally? Nationally, people were suppressed and internationally there was some condemnation, and that’s it. These actions and decisions crossed the boundaries of many policies such as defence, domestic, and foreign policies. When the policies of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution were initiated and implemented from the 1950s to 1970s, they affected millions of people and resulted in unspeakable hardships and sufferings of the common Chinese people and even of many party activists and leaders. Was there any accountability of anyone? You may read and find for yourself.
But China is an authoritarian communist country, you say. All right, let’s take another example of the world’s largest democracy, or so they claim. India in the mid-1970s was under the yoke of Indira Gandhi. Though the democratic traditions in India were strong at least in terms of multiparty democracy and regular elections, a nearly independent judiciary, and fairly vibrant press. And it so happened that when Indira Gandhi wanted to assert her authority, she made some policy decisions and took a line of action. The thought process behind that policy was assertive and authoritarian.
The judiciary was manipulated, media subdued, opposition nearly crushed and for a couple of years there was no accountability – Indira did not feel obliged to justify her actions and decisions. Again, her policy cut across many dimensions from development and domestic policies to economic and judicial ones. But since India was a functioning democracy, she was held accountable by the people of India who threw her out of power and replaced her with a new government. Which itself was removed by due process of electoral accountability and the people brought Indira back within three years.
But both China and India were developing countries, prone to such authoritarian tendencies; well, you are right again. Let’s take the most developed country in the world, the USA. The 1950s was an era of McCarthyism. A policy of communist witch-hunt was followed for almost a decade, and targeted not hundreds but thousands of left-leaning activists, actors, directors, intellectuals, and anybody who could be suspected of being a communist or simply a sympathizer. Can it be called a policy? Oh, yes. It was initiated by none other than President Truman, who signed a policy document in 1947 to start investigations against suspected communists.
Was there any accountability? Yes there was; the courts, the media, and the senate itself finally sprung to action and put paid to McCarthyism, and Senator McCarthy himself died a broken man just at the age of 48 in 1957. The Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren and media anchor Edward Murrow played an important role in bringing down political suppression and McCarthy himself. As an aside, if you are interested in this type of accountability you may watch the marvelous movie ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ directed by George Clooney in 2007.
But then look at the American policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, and back to Vietnam, resulting in millions of casualties. Has there been any accountability, apology, or even expression of regret? Let me know if you can recall one. What about Muslim countries? Let’s finish this column by one example of the largest Muslim majority country in the world: Indonesia. The first leader of independent Indonesia Dr Sukarno formulated a policy of non-alignment and was successful in it. But then, a policy made by General Suharto resulted in over a million deaths of mostly innocent Indonesians.
In conclusion the point is, if there is accountability the people are bound to explain and justify their policies, meaning their lines of action and decision that affect other people. Without accountability, mostly there are disasters.
So far we have discussed how a policy can be disastrous if it has no accountability mechanism with it. So when and where should this accountability start? For that we need to look at the policy cycle and some types of policy.
Not getting into academic rigmarole, we define policy as a line of action and decisions, resulting from a certain thought process. A defence policy is a line of action and decisions a country takes, based on some thinking. If China annexes Tibet; India takes over Kashmir; the US invades Afghanistan, Iraq, or Vietnam; or Pakistan follows a certain policy in Balochistan or adopts a policy of strategic depth in Afghanistan, these are all actions and decisions based on some thinking. Now, where does that thinking come from? We need to understand that nearly all states have been traditionally expansionist, highly possessive, and suppressive.
A development policy is also a line of actions and decisions based on some thinking. If China under Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in the 1950s, it was a certain development policy. When Indira Gandhi in India imposed strict family planning in the mid-1970s that was also development policy and so was Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, though they were different in focus and scope. We can see that the level of accountability in all these examples was not the same, depending on the system and the thinking behind them.
To be effective, accountability – which is an obligation to justify your actions and decisions – must be incorporated at the entire policy cycle. Though in academic literature you will find at least half a dozen steps in policy cycle, here for simple understanding we present just two steps: initiation and implementation. For accountability purposes, the first question should be who initiated the policy, meaning whose thought process triggered that policy; how many groups, institutions, and persons were involved in it; and which group, institution, or person was obliged or duty-bound to explain and justify the policy.
Behind most failed policies you will see a certain group, institution, or person initiating the policy in exclusion to others, and the initiators of that policy had no obligation to explain or justify their policies. Second, no matter how many people are involved in policymaking, if the people who are affected by the policy disown or dislike it, surely the policy will fail – though it may give the state a temporary feeling of success in its policy. Be it the Great Leap Forward, imposed family planning, nationalization or privatization of public assets, or the World Bank-funded outfall drains in Sindh, the examples are too many to cite here.
Accountability also means that the thought process behind a policy must be discussed in detail, involving not only the experts of that field but also the representatives of the people who will be affected by that policy, and those who will be implementing the policy. Let’s take education policy in Pakistan. Pakistan has had nearly a dozen education policies and policy papers circulated and passed by various cabinets and committees. Not even a single education policy in the history of Pakistan has been successful in achieving what it set out to do.
Moreover, no education policy has been allowed to complete its term, meaning most policies were terminated in the middle of their implementation and a new policy process started with some new faces. There are hardly qualified professionals in education policymaking in Pakistan, and there is no accountability of those who make the policy which fails. Most policies regurgitate the same platitudes found in all previous policies such as to make students ‘good Muslims’ and ‘patriotic Pakistanis’ without explaining what these terms actually mean and how these tasks will be achieved other than by forcing students to memorise slogans and verses.
After accountability of the initiators of policies, we must have accountability at the implementation stage which involves overseeing, and keeping in check those entrusted with public responsibilities to put the policy in practice. Again, taking an example from the education sector in Pakistan we see a quick succession of education ministers and secretaries at both federal and provincial levels. Go to any education secretary’s office in any province and you will see a long list showing that education secretaries file in and out every few months. So, who will you hold responsible? None.
Accountability normally involves at least two stages: first is a calling to account to provide an explanation of what has or not has been done; and second, holding to account or being sanctioned and putting remedial measures if something went wrong. Accountability may involve both blame and praise; that’s why an impartial, people-friendly and transparent accountability is needed.
In countries such as Pakistan, most policies and projects – including the development ones – do not have such accountability mechanisms. Accountability is taken as just monitoring and developing a database of excel sheets and number crunching. Many donor-funded projects fail because the donors themselves do not have proper accountability mechanisms.
Starting with the donors themselves, most of them have good development policies but when it comes to their implementation there emerge serious issues. Due to a project-oriented approach, institution building does not take place. Then there are project management issues such as frequent changes in project management resulting in lack of accountability. In a five-year development project, it is not unusual to see three to four project managers or team leaders in quick succession. In many donor-funded projects, accountants and finance managers have supreme say over technical experts, so accountability is also mostly confined to finances only.
Accountability is also about controlling the exercise of power. Be it the top most leaders of a country or project chiefs and heads, there must be some checks on them. But for that you need a well-defined policy with an accountability mechanism embedded in it. Accountability fails for at least two major causes. One is to keep policy a loose and vague document so that the bearings are difficult to hold. Second, for the entire duration of a policy or a project under it, you make so many changes of implementers and managers that you can’t hold anyone responsible.
In public policies, the state and its functionaries must be accountable and duty-bound to explain and justify their actions and decisions. But that rarely happens; in most cases it is the government and not the state officials who are targeted in the name of accountability. Most states have an inbuilt tendency or unwritten policy to defend and protect their own functionaries. Governments come and go and they do not have deep-rooted connections and tentacles as state institutions do. The same applies to development policies; a person with state links is more likely to be less accountable than a person without such links.
It is easy to write reports and discuss terms such as ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ accountabilities, ‘hierarchical relationships’, ‘stakeholders’, ‘society-driven change’, and ‘diagonal mechanisms’. Policy literature is full of such jargon; the point is to go beyond such mumbo-jumbo and focus on institution building rather than operationalizing various projects just to show some progress, and as soon as the project ends, the operation stops, because there was no institutional backup for that. Donor guidance often uses its own terminology. Blaming governments is easy, but unless the donors themselves practise what they preach, accountability will remain a mirage.
Multilateral agencies such as the UN and World Bank appear to have better accountability mechanisms that help them in their development policy implementation.