Democracy, Good Governance and the Millenium Development Goals in Asia

For me the subject of this panel is very timely because I am off to Thailand tomorrow to participate in a conference on The Culture of Peace and Sustainable Democracy. The atmosphere in Thailand is highly charged at the moment as the result of the deaths of some 70 young Muslim men in a security crackdown related to growing tensions between the Muslim south and the rest of the country which is primarily Buddhist.

I will be speaking on the importance of democratic politics as the most important conflict management resource a society can have. I will also document the failure of politics to play that role in a number of countries including Sri Lanka which has some striking parallels to Thailand.

I mention this because it demonstrates so clearly the close connections between governance democracy and development. The tensions between the south and the north of Thailand arise partly from regional differences in economic development exacerbated by large development projects that are seen by many in the south as impacting on them negatively without any corresponding benefits. This too reminds me of the genesis of the civil war in Sri Lanka where a huge dam and irrigation project in the Madura Oya region reinforced growing mistrust and tension between the Tamil minority and the Sinhalese majority.

I think it is always a good idea to start discussions like this with concrete examples so that our discussion does not get lost in the clouds. The connections between the goal of reducing poverty and governance are direct, multifaceted and powerful, realities we too often lose sight of.

The MDGs, Good Governance and Democracy

Unfortunately the MDGs lose sight of these connections or muffle them. There are only two explicit references to governance goals or indicators. Goal 3 on gender equality and empowerment of women includes an indicator on the number of women elected to national parliaments while goal 12 on developing a global partnership for development refers to the importance of an open rule based predictable non-discriminatory trading and financial system with the following words added in brackets (includes a commitment to good governance development and poverty reduction).

The Millenium Declaration that accompanied the Goals is more explicit about the importance of governance as part of an enabling environment conducive to development but the language spelling it out carefully tiptoes around the political rights in the way characteristic of UN declarations. As we all know, this tendency in the UN to play down the connection between development and democratic governance arises from the range of governance types represented in the General Assembly. It has no doubt been greatly reinforced by the fear that imperial democracy will use your governmental arrangements as an excuse for invasion and occupation.

The Asian Experience

As for the Asian experience, in general progress has been made over the past twenty years in linking governance and development, although this becomes much more problematic when the modifier democratic is added to the word governance. There has been solid progress towards the establishment of constitutional democracy in Thailand where the model constitution of 1997 has been followed by a huge national effort to create institutions to implement and protect human rights embedded in the constitution. That’s why recent tensions between south and north are proving so traumatic for the nation, that and the fear of igniting Islamic militancy.

Indonesia is another case where great progress has been made in connecting democracy and development. The results of this experiment will have a huge impact on the prospects for democracy in the 21 st century. The significance of Indonesia is two fold. First, it is a predominantly Muslim country where the success of democracy would disprove the notion that Islam is inherently antithetical to democratic values. Secondly, it remains a very poor country and the success of democracy here would go a long way to disproving the notion that it is only when countries achieve a much higher standard of living that sustainable democracy is possible.

Of course the other great experiment is taking place in China where the government is determined to find its own path to good governance and even democratic governance but without copying the western model of multi party democracy. Is such a thing possible and if it is not how will China accept that discovery?

I would say that Asia may well become a great leader in discovering answers to the challenges of democratic development, answers that suit Asia and the 21 st century. I would also say that we in the west will have to get used to the fact that Asia is determined to find its own way and now believes it has as much to teach as to learn from the rest of the world. For us the hardest part of the shift in world power towards Asia may be the part between our ears.

Parliamentary Centre Programs Linking Development and Democracy

If democracy is to contribute to achievement of the Millenium Development Goals – as I believe it can and must – the proof of the pudding will be on the ground in the day to day realities of development. To illustrate I will devote the balance of my presentation to brief descriptions of Parliamentary Centre efforts that connect MDG objectives and democratic governance.

1. Women in politics: the Vietnamese and Cambodian cases.

Vietnam an ideologically equal country, Cambodia thinks of itself as culturally so. But in both significant discrepancies between the economic and social status of women as compared to men though less so in Vietnam than Cambodia.

In both countries we have worked with women parliamentarians to strengthen their role in the political system, the premise being that you cannot solve the larger inequalities if women are not involved in decision making.

In both countries rhetorical commitment to equality combined with strong obstacles in reality. In both countries, women underrepresented in parliament, though more so in Cambodia than Vietnam. In both countries getting into parliament is just the start of the battle.

2. Parliament, the budget process and poverty reduction

Focus of much Parliamentary Centre work, generally not only in Asia, is in strengthening the role of legislatures in key decision making, notably the budget process. Particularly as those relate top the goal of reducing poverty – the central objective of MDG.

Development of courses for Parliamentarians on poverty reduction policies and the PRSP. Development of parliamentary performance measurement methodology testing how effectively and consistently with principles of democratic governance parliament participates in the budget process.

Results of field testing this methodology in Cambodia revealed that some progress has been made in ex-post facto evaluation of government performance, the ability of parliament to influence the making of budgets remains slight.




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