The Girl-Child and Government Service Provision.pdf - Tanzania ...

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provisions. Presently, Bank support for empowering thepoor remains incomplete. For example, the reportrecognises that “freedom from illness and freedom fromilliteracy” are important for the poor to escape poverty,but it fails to identify freedom from oppression and abuse.One can be healthy and educated but still be poor if governments,institutions and rules are not there to protectand to offer economic, social and political opportunities.Amartya Sen points out that the holistic approach to freedomdoes not include only health and education but also“freedoms [that] depend also on other determinants suchas social and economic arrangements as well as politicaland civil rights” (for example, the liberty to participate inpublic discussion and scrutiny). 7 This freedom to participatecan only be realized if those who hold the powerprovide the means for citizens to have access to both informationand development decision-making; governmentsand development institutions such as the WorldBank have special roles in ensuring that the poor receiveprotection while advocating for their rights in all dimensions(economics, social and political). The brilliance of theWDR 2004 is overshadowed by the missing component,which leaves a large and hollow space that begs forcompletion and clear conclusions. In order to fill the gapsin meeting the basic service needs of the poor, the Bankand other multilateral institutions (the United Nations,IMF, World Trade Organization, etc.) should seek for coherencein their approach to financing development. Forinstance, empowerment of the poor economically must beaccompanied by working with governments to discussopenly the rights of some oppressed citizens. Governmentsthat advocate economic development and strengtheningthe national and global economy should find everyopportunity to address how voices of the poor can beheard at all levels. The World Bank, as one of the leadinglenders to poor countries’ governments, has an opportunityto demonstrate leadership by endorsing recommendationsput forward by reports such as the EIR, as well asto take the WDR 2004 one step further in acknowledgingthat poor clients need more than money to empowerthem; they also need political security to voice their concernswithout fear of persecution.If the WDR 2004 were to argue sufficiently for empowermentof the poor, it would have to question the currentpolitical system. It would address the deeper institutionalreform that is necessary to make services work for thepoor, not just separating public services from the responsibilityof the government. What are the political implicationsfor an institution like the Bank to work with governmentson improving the rights of their citizens? Would the Bankthen work closer with its client countries to coordinateprogrammes that better empower the poor? Would theBank consistently review its lending operations to ensurethat all funding support to projects and programmes reinforcesits belief in holistic empowerment of the poor?These are important questions of power relations thatneed to be addressed when we seek to empower thepoor vis-à-vis the current situation of power imbalances.The role of governmentWhile the WDR 2004 has in-depth analysis of the powerrelations, it does not do enough to support the citizen’sconnections to his or her government. In describing thefailure of public services, the WDR 2004 proposes a newparadigm of decentralisation while admitting thatdecentralisation usually produces mixed results. The reportalso makes circular argument for reducing the role ofthe government while at the same time strengthening itsregulatory power. For example, in the discussion of makingdecentralisation work (chapter 10), the central government’srole is described as essential to success ofdecentralisation: “Decentralization fails or succeeds in theinterplay of its fiscal, administrative, and local capacity features.The centre’s role is crucial to all three elements and,more broadly, for the design and implementation of decentralization.”Another statement that demonstrates thetautological argument of the solution proposed by theWDR 2004 concludes: “Ultimately, the centre is both theregulator and the facilitator of decentralization.” In asense, the central government must learn to phase itselfout and at the same time be present and strong in orderto regulate and facilitate. The challenges in such a transitionoften lead to a budget cut, usually in the soft or socialsectors. 8 There was no discussion on solutions; the WDR2004 offered choices to governments and cited good examplesof how public services can work throughprivatisation.The WDR 2004 suggests removing the responsibility forservices provision from the government by introducingthe market approach. Argument for liberalizing the traditionallypublic-sector goods away from the governmentfails to recognise that water, electricity, health and educationfall into areas of natural monopoly and public goods.The high entry fees to businesses and efficiency gains from82 The Girl-Child and Government Service Provision
economies of scale of setting up water, electricity andsometimes hospitals make them very difficult to privatizewithout losing the efficiency benefits gained from naturalmonopoly. The public-good nature of health and education(some even argue, water) is what leads governments tomake the decision to provide these services to their citizens.Education, health and basic education should not beonly for those who can afford them, but they should beavailable for all. This concept puts the responsibility forproviding these basic services on the government. If thenatural monopoly were to be liberalized, then governmentmust be strong enough to ensure that there will be sufficientcompetitions in the market for water, electricity, educationand health. In remote villages of 100 to 1,000people, it would be quite difficult for more than one electricityor water company to compete for the market. If wewere to accept the logic that transferring public servicesto the private sector would produce more competitionand hence lower prices for the poor consumers, we wouldbe wrong. For example, Manila Metropolitan’s waterprivatisation gives us a picture of two wealthy and powerfulfamilies working with foreign companies to provideservices – without competition – to the people. Anotherexample of water privatisation can be found in Cochabamba,Bolivia, where foreign companies Bectel (US) andEdison (Italy) gained a 40-year concession to run theCochabamba’s water company. The citizens’ uprising inApril 2000 protesting water price increasing more than200 per cent is perhaps the most widely known exampleof peoples’ protest to privatisation of these once-publicservices.The report recognises that because of market failure, basicservices are a public responsibility. However, becausegovernments have failed the poor too, there is not muchleft but for the poor to take charge. The strong emphasison separating government policy-makers from serviceproviders leads one to conclude that the alternative proposedis to make the poor more powerful by cutting outthe government from providing services and thus puttingclients’ demands directly to the service providers(whether private contractors, community based organisationsor some combination). The report, however, failedto include a comprehensive framework for empowermentof the poor through a rights-based approach that wouldenable them to have political space to manoeuvre vis-à-vistheir governments.There is little indication of confidence in the WDR 2004 ina central government’s ability to provide services to itscitizens. Instead, trust is placed in the private sectors,which can provide the capital and the expertise needed toserve the poor. The proposed structural changes wouldplace more responsibility on the poor, asking them to takecharge of their own needs – without providing them financial,political and social support. While it seems like a positivestep to have trust and confidence in the poor to manageand bring their consumer power to bear on thecompanies, the move to empower the poor can fail completelyif there are budget constraints. The WDR 2004recognises that this “soft budget constraint” can weakenthe “relationships of voice and client power”. In placingconfidence in consumers’ power, who will provide thetechnical, financial and political support to strengthen thevoices of poor consumers?In addition to the inconclusive discussion of the powerrelations, the WDR 2004 addresses services as if they werenameless and faceless. For instance, the first sentence ofthe nearly 300-page document reads, “Too often, servicesfail poor people – in access, in quantity, in quality.” Thereport did not use “public services”, though it is obviousthrough later readings that the WDR 2004 attributed thefailure to serve the poor to incompetent governments andunmotivated public service workers. While the governmentrole in providing services is often unclear, accordingto the WDR 2004, the responsibility of making serviceswork nonetheless rests on them. The difficulties faced bydeveloping countries’ governments are not well understood.The reality of insufficient funds and budgetary cuts– sometimes in response to recommendations and/orcommitments to reform in order to meet the requirementsfor loans from multilateral institutions such as theWorld Bank and the IMF – are not discussed. The Bank,through its loans to developing countries, often attachesconditionalities that require a government to divest itsproperties, such as water and electric companies, in orderto free the market and reduce the government’s fiscalburdens. This supply-side approach to policy-makingusually leaves the employees, often among the poorest inthe country, out in the cold. A more responsible andperhaps “people friendly” approach would be to analyzeboth the demand and supply for public services and toopen the discussion to both sides of the markets bybringing in the consumers and producers before a governmentmakes a unilateral decision – particularly onethat would put it in a more favourable light with themultilateral financial institutions. Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001Nobel Prize–winning economist, calls it “balancing out thediscussion.” 9The Girl-Child and Government Service Provision 83
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Copyright 2004 by World Vision Inte
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ContentsIntroduction ..............
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identified in the case studies that
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Approximately 53 per cent of the po
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facility but also with staff member
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Literacy and educationAdult literac
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constrained by low funding; the nat
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Policewoman, for example, had 100 p
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EducationA deputy principal of a pr
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ObservationsThis study has focused
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Regulation and taxation neededCorru
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7. What reasons does the family giv
Page 29 and 30:
Girl-Child Accessto Government Soci
Page 31 and 32: class. According to a 1996 TDHS sur
Page 33 and 34: there is governmental inconsistency
Page 35 and 36: ole models. Other educational barri
Page 37 and 38: was collected face to face. The stu
Page 39 and 40: • Consultations: Institutions con
Page 41 and 42: Secondary schoolsTwo of the five vi
Page 43 and 44: This finding is consistent with nat
Page 45 and 46: Case story 3Mercy John, a 14-year-o
Page 47: Health workers’ viewsAll the heal
Page 50 and 51: Annex 2: Questions forinterviews wi
Page 52 and 53: Annex 6: Questions forfocus-group d
Page 54 and 55: Sepehri, A. 1992. ‘Balance of Pay
Page 56 and 57: equires the generation of condition
Page 59: Table 3-3. Interviews, April 28-May
Page 62 and 63: Table 3-5. Working adolescentsLos C
Page 64 and 65: Table 3-6. Household chores and lac
Page 66 and 67: per cent of the population. However
Page 68 and 69: Figure 3-7. Access to services in t
Page 70 and 71: Annex 1Interviews, Stage 1, April 2
Page 72 and 73: Education1. Who likes attending sch
Page 74 and 75: 3. What are the main reasons why bo
Page 76 and 77: 7. What do you think are the main p
Page 79 and 80: World Development Report 2004and Gi
Page 81: power and wealth. But it fails to d
Page 85 and 86: Services and the girl-childThe serv
Page 87: 5The World Bank Annual Report 2003,
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