Starting a conversation about the future of governments post coronavirus

Great thinking and endeavor, however countries or governments different from each other , hence responses and responding will be also different. For instance developed countries are different in their knowledge and capabilities from developing ones . Unfortunately most developing countries lack the same capabilities and abilities that characterized the developed countries . Needless to say that the most obstacle in developing countries is the lack of mutual trust between governments or the political systems and its citizens where corruption and lack of integrity in the whole systems is a pandemic in itself . Thus , future scenarios must take place .

Government needed to measure the productivity of civil service just like private sector, bottom line results not just cost centers. The point on changes in government and mindset post covic must seriously address the efficiency of delivery and services, policy delays and procrastination will increase cost of doing business and that's may be a key survival issue for private sector but may not be so impacted or clearly seen from the public sector position.

Let's cut the bullshit, the current governmental system has outgrown it's relevancy.

I am fortunate to have worked as an entrepreneur, a non executive director of leading institutions in the educational, health and financial sectors of East Africa that are part of an international development agency which subscribes to global best practice. I have now joined the Government as the Chair of my local Municipailty. The challenge that Governments face are: constitutions that have created fat government structures in the name of democracy, lack of an effective National Audit office and a culture that implies that if you work in the Government, it is your right to steal. If we address these three issues, even poor countries can have access to adequate resources to successfully serve their populations post COVID

Yes the government needs to quickly adapt and adjust themselves to be relevant in current environment and the fallout of it. But it will be different from country to country and, for Indonesia, it will be different from one region to another. Granted this is an opportunity for reform minded bureaucrats to accelerate the reforms that has been slowly evolving (with many progresses and degresses along the way) since 2004. However, current situation starkly demonstrated the weakness of decentralised government system in Indonesia, local governments are responding differently and leaderships are widely varied. More than ever, the national government is facing authority challenge from local goverment leaders and often has to scramble responding. Some ministers have shown strong leadership and have made good decision, most notably the Finance Minister, Sri Mulyani, who sgould be credited to has largely been able to lessen the impact of the pandemic to the economy through her office's quick and firm decisions. The minister for bureaucratic reform, Tjahyo Kumolo alao do a relatively good job in responding to the crisis. But some ministers are just not performing very well. For Indonesia, the government adjustments would not be as quickly and straight forward as we would like to, but I think recent direct conversations with some government officials in bureaucratic reform agenda, plus some insights feom various discussions on webinars, give me some hope that the government is aware that they have to change and there are some actions already taken to speed it up.

The way in which public servants interact within the departments where they work, as well as citizen-to-government engagement, is seeing a significant shift as a result of the current work-from-home requirements brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The need to create an efficient and effective government has therefore increased significantly with more attention being given to leveraging on information technology to do government business- from zoom meetings, google meet, and WebEx to on-line interviews and transferring citizen services online. Prior to COVID-19, public service transformation initiatives considered both on-line and non-online solutions almost on equal footing. But under the current circumstances the latter is rapidly taking a backseat, accordingly paper-based solutions and face-to-face services is increasingly becoming an exception, there is instead an accelerated demand for on-line services that can be accessed remotely. Under such circumstances, the need for governments to turn to solutions that create seamless integration across complimentary services by use of Information Technology solutions cannot therefore be over emphasized.

For developing countries, this presents both an opportunity and a challenge. It presents an opportunity because of the expanding IT space and relative cost reductions accompanied by increased uptake and competition in the IT market. It is also an opportunity because; developing countries can jump from their current manual face-to face systems without going through the various stages of involved in transitioning to online systems. However, it may also present challenges because in spite of relative reduction in cost of IT, most developing countries governments operate budgets which may not accommodate the resources associated with such projects.

The opportunity to shift from reactive to proactive service delivery mechanisms aimed transforming citizen service delivery experience should not however be allowed to pass. Developing countries need to ride the wave and be part of the global modernization and innovation strategies, aimed at creating public value through the engagement of a broad ecosystem of stakeholders that offers a chance to better respond to citizen demands. At the domestic front, initial results from those countries which have been successful in containing the pandemic show that- there is need for a strong government capable of ensuring compliance; there is need for competent public service which can generate timely information that will trusted by the citizens; there is need for a professional public service whose response assures the citizens not to panic. The need for capable public sector institutions and capacity building – not necessarily training must therefore be re-looked.

In conclusion, COVID-19 has demonstrated that ensuring and enhancing the safety, wellbeing and living standards of citizens is a primarily responsibility of the government. It has also revealed that, governments’ response to such type of emergencies require intervention mechanisms which do not rest solely on recourse to the authority and sanctions of government. As a result, public sector governance must be approached and perceived as a collaborative process, requiring a wide array of third parties in addition to government to address public service delivery problems. It demands that public sector leadership take cognizance of the complexity of new actors, relationships and tools of governance in public service delivery.

This emerging governance framework is less focused on the internal workings of public service and more on the networks of actors involved in service delivery. In spite of being called upon to provide strong leadership in ensuring implementation, the myriad of actors who are involved in the fight to contain COVID-19 as equal partners, is a clear demonstration that public sector managers can no longer act as a commanders and controllers of other actors, but can only negotiate and persuade key stakeholders to achieve optimum output from the increased complexity of relationships and players. It is for these reasons, that to meet the emerging challenges and citizen expectations, the public service will require a shift of institutional capacity from the traditional “administration and management skills” to “meta-leadership” or “enablement/negotiation skills”, which are the skills required to engage partners arrayed horizontally in networks, to bring multiple stakeholders together for a common end in a situation of interdependence.

Awesome