Item 3: On the follow-up of the World Summit for Social Development and the 24th Special Session of the General Assembly; Priority theme: Improving public sector effectiveness
Seminar Hosted by the Triglav Circle at the UN:
On the occasion of the forty-second session of the Commission for Social Development and its consideration of its priority theme Improving Public-Sector Effectiveness, the Triglav Circle organized a workshop on The Concept of Effectiveness in Public Policy. This workshop took place Friday 6 February, from 1.15 PM to 2.45 PM, in conference room C of the United Nations Secretariat. Approximately 35 people attended this seminar. They represented delegates of member countries, the UN secretariat and representatives of other NGOs.
Statement by Barbara Baudot, Coordinator of the Triglav Circle to the Commission on Thursday, February 5, 2004*
Thank you, Mr Chairman,
The Triglav Circle was established to help realize the core message of the Social Summit, wherein governments expressed their commitment to respond more effectively to the material and spiritual needs of individuals, their families and the communities in which they live.
Public policies are made to address these needs. They vary considerably, with levels of resources, and, perhaps more importantly, with cultures and political systems.
Yet, our contention is that the question of the effectiveness of these public policies, notably those designed for the delivery of essential social services, can and should be approached through a universal framework inspired by basic moral principles.
Three questions are illustrative of this approach.
First, Do public policies promote equity, mutual respect, and sustainable life styles?
Second, Is public sector policy-making driven by altruistic motivations?
And third, Is public policy guided by a meaningful vision of life?
First: Do public policies promote equity, mutual respect, and sustainable life styles?
Common sense should inform the policy maker that a harmonious society does not evolve from measures that fall short of equitable consideration of all members of society or which fail to take into account the finitude of natural resources and the fragility of the biosphere. Effectiveness would therefore ride on answers, for example, to the following questions: Do public policies address the root causes of inequities and inequalities? Do they tend to redistribute income so as to reduce the enormous gap between the rich and the poor? And, Do they tend to discourage the relentless squandering of natural resources by countries with advanced technology enabling them to do so?
Like the beam of the proverbial lighthouse, public goods should provide for all on an equitable basis. Thus the provision of public goods and services is ideally the most effective way to promote fairness and harmony. Public goods must include education, health, opportunities for employment, and the protection of nature. Thus, members of societies and the world community should share concern for the highest quality of public services.
In this context, assessment of the effectiveness of the public sector must be in terms of its efficacy in the promotion of well-being for all, much more so than by the comparative costs of delivering services.
Second: Is public sector policy making driven by altruistic motivations?
Two thousand four hundred years ago, Aristotle noted the likelihood that public policy pursued with self-serving intent would fail. Today, too many public policies are motivated by private gain through economic expediency and political ambition. It is common that such murky initiatives become so bound up in political dealings that the crucial public problems nominally addressed become obscured.
Even if a policy is written in lofty and benevolent words its faulty implementation will reveal the real underlying interest. An all-too-common motivation for public policy is to ensure that laissez-faire economic relations are securely embedded across the world without consideration for conditions that make markets equitable and open to all. Often this idea confuses public service efficiency, which should be gauged in norms of equity, for its economic perversion, expediency. The escalation of social uprisings in poor countries where the provision of water resources has been taken over by private corporations is one sad example of exploitation of the circumstances of the indigent as a result of this perversion.
Social policy-making would be well served by a large injection of traditional virtues. Prudence would take the trouble to look beyond numbers and percentages to the real issues. Honesty would call for transparency in all dealings. Compassion would favor mutual understanding and provide needed sympathy. Humility, humanity, and honor would demand effectiveness by all measures of social justice. Policy makers often reject these virtues but the poor performance of cool-headed “instrumental rationality” now prevailing in many forums suggests that a change is in order.
Third, is public policy guided by a meaningful vision of life?
On the dark side of western modernity is the perception that economic progress is the universal measure of well-being and the foundation for happiness, even, implicitly, the purpose of life. In this spiritual void, forces of the market promise fulfillment in material things. Paradoxically, economically advanced societies are challenged by mounting obstacles to their real happiness, harmony, and security.
But even if public policies were to provide equity and equality of opportunity and even if the actors were magnanimous, there would still be need for a wider vision of human destiny. Scientific thinking, as Albert Einstein has reminded us, has significant limitations. It produces empirical knowledge and indirectly, implies means of action. But, such thinking is not the way to determine the meaning in life, nor to identify the values essential to social harmony, sustainable life-styles, and happiness. These can be discovered through spiritual, philosophical, or religious thinking. This type of thinking is the fount for appreciating nature and for the establishment of the ideals of a good society.
Vaclav Havel, the former President of the Czech Republic has articulated what many others have observed, that civilization must regain a sense of purpose through a change in this sphere of the spirit, in the attitude of humankind toward the world, and his or her place in the order of existence. Only such new understandings will allow the development of new models of behavior, new scales of values, and a new sense of responsibility to the world. This demand for regaining a sense of purpose is a common spiritual minimum shared by great philosophies and religions. In aspiring to such ends it should be possible for the effective working of public policy to reduce the glaring inequities and disparities that exist between people and to overcome the obstacles to harmonious relations between people and nature.
*The views in this statement are not necessarily shared by all the members of the Circle but illustrate the type of considerations that are raised in gatherings of the Circle, consistent with its terms of reference