Humans must remain at the centre of all govt decisions

By Godfrey Wasara | 3h ago

The fourth industrial revolution is redefining how public institutions should operate.

The fourth industrial revolution is redefining how public institutions should operate. State institutions are being called upon to reinvent themselves through close collaboration with the private sector and the general public.

Rapid and disruptive information flows providing more knowledge to civil society poses challenges on the way the state runs its institutions and negatively impact on the effectiveness of the way policies are promulgated and implemented. Mitigation can be generated through genuine and sincere state, private sector and civil society partnerships with the aim of shaping new scientific, technological, economic and societal frameworks.

The fourth industrial revolution obliges governments to apply digital technology to govern better. When technology is applied innovatively, state institutions modernise their structures and improve overall performance through strengthening e-governance processes to foster greater transparency, accountability and engagement between government, citizens and the private sector.

Whether the state likes it or not, it must admit and accommodate the fact that power is steadily shifting from the state and its institutions to non - state actors and loose networks. New technologies and the rate at which they facilitate information flow, allow all parties to exercise influence in a way that was never thought of a few years ago.

Truth be told, governments are now in trouble. Moises Naim puts it clearly when he says, “in the 21st century, power is easier to get, harder to use and easier to lose.” Policy makers are finding it difficult to effect change due to constraints created by rival centres of power comprising transitional, provincial, local and individual centres.

A clear example is Donald Trump and his ambitious executive declarations that have found stiff resistance from various stakeholders.

Micro-power can now constrain macro powers up to the government level. Barriers that used to protect the state are being undermined by digital technology making governments less attractive and less efficient as the public gets better informed and subsequently, increasing demand on expectations.

The WikiLeaks saga is a classical case in point. It exemplifies how power can be distributed in the digital world. One individual confronted a whole state displaying the shift of new power worldview and the erosion of trust that often comes with it.

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Technology is increasingly giving citizens the leeway to voice their opinion, coordinate their efforts and possibly circumvent government scrutiny. On the other hand, new surveillance technology gives rise to all too powerful public institutions.

Nevertheless, the government’s role of promulgating and implementing policy is increasingly diminishing due to growing levels of competition emanating from redistribution and decentralisation of power that new technologies have brought with them.

The private sector and civil society now view and evaluate public service centres on the basis of their ability to deliver expected services efficiently.

The state ought to deliver in order to survive. They simply have to adapt to survive or cease to exist. They ought to accept that they now face a world of exponentially disruptive change and have to subject their structures to levels of transparency and efficiency that can help them maintain competitive edge.

Governments are being called upon to become leaner and more efficient units within an environment of new and competing power structures. Positions must be filled on the basis of merit and nothing else.

Regulations play a pivotal and decisive role in the adoption and diffusion of new technologies. Governments are being forced to explore other ways of creating, revising and enforcing new regulations.

Gone are the times when governments used to have plenty of time to study specific issues and then come up with appropriate responses — a process that was linear and mechanistic — following a top-down approach. This is no longer possible. With the fourth industrial revolution, regulations are being challenged at an unprecedented degree.

Regulating authorities are often overtaken by events due to their inability to cope with the speed of technological change and rapid information flows. Leadership is being called upon to comment or act immediately. Thus, reduced time for leadership to comment or act appropriately means they may come up with inappropriate, immature and uneducated decisions.

Legislators are obliged to play a balancing act of supporting developing technology without stifling innovation. Regulators will have to find ways to adapt continuously to a new and fast changing environment by reinventing themselves to understand better what they are regulating.

The fourth industrial revolution requires regulatory and legislative ecosystems that can produce more resilient frameworks in a society where essential public functions, social communications and personal information almost always find their way to public platforms. Government, in collaboration with the private sector and civil society needs to create rules, checks and balances that promote justice, competitiveness, fairness and transparency.

The government must learn to blend various competing conceptual approaches, continuously learn, collaborate and adapt while ensuring that the human being and his surroundings remain at the centre of all decisions. This can be achieved if the government engages citizens more effectively and conduct policy experiments that allow for learning and adaptation.

This means governments and citizens need to reconsider their respective roles and how they interact with one another simultaneously raising expectations while explicitly acknowledging the need to incorporate multiple perspectives anticipating failures and missteps here and there.

Wasara is an accountant, author, independent researcher and management consultant. He can be contacted at [email protected]