Governance and accountability how do the formal and informal interplay Nils Boesen, consultant

1
Governance and accountability how do the
formal and informal interplay?Nils Boesen,
consultant
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Three issues

• How do formal and informal aspects of governance
  interplay?
• How does governance change, and how can pro-poor
  change be promoted?
• Which preliminary policy lessons can be drawn?

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The definitions

• Institutions
• rules of the gamehumanly devised constraints
  shaping interactions, resilient social
  structures
• Governance
• ..how formal and informal rules are managed and
  enforced, or how power and authority are
  exercised..

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Relations vs. rules in governanceRelation-based

Rule-based

• Private and local information
• Implicit and non-verifiable agreements
• High entry and exit barriers
• Requiring minimum social order
• Effective in small and emerging economies

• Public information
• Explicit and third-party verifiable agreements
• Low entry and exit barriers
• Requiring well-developed legal infrastructure
• Effective in large and advanced economies

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Implications of relation-based governance

• High state autonomy up for capture, as much as
  for delivering public goods
• Weak pressure for performance and accountability
• Politics dominated by bargaining of power and
  rents among informally organised groups
• All countries have mixture of relations and
  rules, informal and formal

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The formal/informal interplay
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The good news Change!
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The mixed news Few pointers for action

• Nuanced analysis of converging pressures for
  change, but
• complex social governance systems have no
  change-buttons. However.
• economic diversification, competition
• urban economic and professional middleclass
• relatively independent, merit-based bureaucracy
• transparency
• and more!

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Preliminary policy lessons

• Understand, read informality is not always the
  enemy of development OECD governance models are
  not for uninformed export
• Governance improvement is not a tea-party
  Prepare for choices between pest or cholera work
  in and with the power game
• Eliminating bad governance may come second
  Change the power system do not let it fall apart
  when there is no alternative but chaos

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Preliminary policy lessons - II

• Systems approach to governance Stop doing harm
  by hailing new fads or setting divine targets
  take the long, tedious, complex, modest and
  unrewarding road of multiple small steps, keeping
  essentials and country specificity in mind.
• Re-build networks and develop tools Strengthen
  academia-practitioner link adopt
  multi-disciplinary approaches develop guidance
  for staff