Decoding Economics through Development

Professor Nissar A. Barua, Department of Economics, Gauhati University in his session discussed on the issues of Governance and Economy. Prof. Barua started with the concept of Governance which came to the forefront in the 1990’s when re-minted by economists, political scientists and disseminated by institutions like UN, IMF and World Bank. Since then, the term has gained increasing usage. Initially, the term governance was basically about authority and control; however, over the years, the importance of some attributes like participation in the decision making process, equity and justice, transparency and accountability was being realized. Recently, the definition of governance has been extended to bring predictability through corporate governance. With this background, Prof. Barua narrates governance as “A process whereby public institutions conduct public affairs, manage public resources and endeavor to attain the exalted objective of maximizing social welfare.” He states that governance can take place at individual, national, local and as well as at institutional level. Moreover, he added that to understand a particular form of governance, one has to look into the participating entities, the intentions associated with it and the relative sphere of their influence. While discussing about the democratic and non-democratic structure of the inter relationship among the entities in terms of power or control, Prof. Barua has rightfully justified that in a democratic structure, the role of government and the private sector including media have much more important role than the civil society, unlike the non-democratic structure. He has also added that the whole structure changes and power comes to the hands of military forces when some distortions occur under particular governance. The professor also explained the rural and urban setting of power relations of the entities. In addition to this, from the UNDP report, 1997, he has also discussed about the principles of good governance. The principles which have been discussed extensively are-a) participation and consensus of the stakeholders, b) vision and direction of the government leaders, c) flexibility to respond in a dynamic environment, d) efficiency in terms of allocation of resources and proper utilization as well as equal distribution and effectiveness in terms of attainment of goals, e) accountability and transparency in utilization of resources or government funds, f) equity and rule of law. Prof. Barua, concluded by explaining the three issues that come into play while studying the role of governance in terms of economic development. These issues are –

§  Issues in allocation of resources- the scarce public resources should be used in terms of public interest in an optimal and sustainable manner while giving priority to the poor section

§  Utilization issue- the transparency and accountability should be maintained and there should be timely formulations of proposals and prompt execution.    

§  Equity issue- the issues of equity like minorities, SCs/STs, gender equity etc. have to be given equal importance.  

Report prepared by Reema Rabha on the first session, October 30, 2017 on Refresher Course on Communication for Development organised by Department of Communication and Journalism and UGC-HRDC, Gauhati University with support from UNICEF, Assam