Good governance: The Ingredient Africa Is Really Missing

Currently, nations across the world are sitting at major and complex crossroads. Basically, they are struggling with a myriad of issues and challenges that are facing the world at present while also simultaneously affecting their survivability or prospective prosperity in a world where significant threats such as drastic climate changes, deadly food inflations, renascent health pandemics, and extremely dangerous power plays have coalesced to create (at new levels) huge layers of human uncertainties. The collective effects have tended, typically, to reinforce (serially) the dire need to critically reexamine¬––and then reimagine––how policy-makers can best tackle the resulting or looming crises. Hence, good leaders capable of required bold efforts, are highly needed across Africa for strong and effective governance to ensure that the piled-up negative impacts of the growing issues and challenges on communities and households are properly engaged and mitigated. Unarguably, with these crises persisting, millions of additional people will be thrown into poverty in Africa and across other parts of the world.
Although all countries around the world (from low-income to high-income economies) are being impacted by the aforementioned crises in very diverse ways, research shows that higher-income countries have better tools to handle the hydra-headed challenges facing the world at the moment. That is in sharp contrast to impacts on lower income groups where Africa is heavily represented. More significant, and at the heart of the capacity of high-income economies to substantially mitigate the sufferings of their households in the face of these crises, is the fact that good governance, has been already institutionalized effectively in such countries. Of course, high-income countries tend (often) to have accountable and visionary leaders who are purpose-driven in their quest to positively transform their nation in all respects. According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), good governance has eight (8) essential characteristics: consensus-oriented; participatory; accountable; transparent; efficient and effective; responsive; equitable and inclusive; and follows the rule of law. More importantly, corruption is minimised where good governance reigns.
Be that as it may, with good governance and its concomitants, high-income economies are more able to build capabilities across a wide range of issue-areas. As such, it gives them the opportunity to achieve higher levels of resilience when confronted with troubling circumstances. In a multidimensional way, the higher capacities are reflected across wide ranging issue-areas such as: high educational enrollment at all levels and the associated human capital and its agency; rising advancement in science and technology; highly developed physical infrastructures; thriving business environment; strong private sector; independence of the various arms of government; respect for the rule of law; provisions of quality and accessible health care systems; substantive adoption of digitalisation across a spectrum of socioeconomic pathways (governance, schools, and health care, etc.); continuous development of skilled civil service; and a worthwhile social security systems. Obviously, good governance is crucial in enabling high-income economies to build such capabilities.
For Nigeria and a majority of other African countries, recurrent misgovernment has always been the bane of the masses. Where there is weak governance, tensions, internal conflicts and insecurity linger––poisoning solidarity and weakening trust and commitments to national objectives and goals. Those are because weak governance attracts, feeds on, and normalises corruption. Also, where misgovernment reigns, it wastes scarce resources needed to tackle numerous challenges posed by big problems such as climate change, global food inflation, the after-effect of Covid-19, and the negative impacts of Russia-Ukraine war. In fact, the Food Security Information Network (FSIN), in conjunction with the Global Network against food crises, estimates that more than two hundred million people in 45 countries will face acute food insecurity. Additionally, the 2021/2022 Human Development Report, warns that food insecurity will hit billions of people around the world. Without any doubt, millions of people in Africa will not escape.
Therefore, in other to begin on the true path to self-rediscovery and to join other countries with the ability to mitigate hardships as they befall world population groups, Africa needs to reinvent governance. One of the basic reasons why Africa has remained poor despite massive natural and human resources––and unable to converge on economic terms with Western nations––is that good governance has not been truly embraced across the continent. So, good governance, is the missing link in Africa’s quest for meaningful transformative change. As a first necessary step, Africa cannot afford to ignore the need to embrace good governance.
Chukwuma Okolo
Advocacy Research Associate

References
FSIN and Global Network Against Food Crises. 2022.GRFC 2022 Mid-Year Update. Rome.

Human Development Report 2021/2022: Uncertain times, unsettled lives: Shaping our future in a transforming world.

UNESCAP: What is good governance: https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/good-governance.pdf