Can Good Political Governance do it for Malawi?

Can Malawi engage the gear of good governance a bit more? Would this unlock Malawi’s potential of delivering to its people desirable, of-quality, sustainable livelihoods? Can Malawians engage a higher gear of demanding accountability with all the whole marks of answerability and enforceability from their politicians? And can politicians take on the voice of Malawians as they formulate, articulate and implement policies?

THE MALAWI CONTEXT
Malawi is a small country in the Southern part of Africa, bordered by Zambia in the West and North-west, Mozambique in the South, South-west and South-East and Tanzania in the North. It was colonized by the British. The country gained independence in 1964 and became a Republic in 1966. In 1971, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the then President declared himself the Life President of the country in himself becoming the “government and the law.” Throughout his presidency with the help of a single viable political party at the time, the Malawi Congress Party, Banda held an iron grip on Malawi. It was such a tight-fisted grip that any change to ways of governing, let alone democratic changes, looked a farfetched far-cry. However, in the late 1980s pressure started mounting on Banda and his political party to change course. Of particular concern was his repressive approach to governance and there were reports of atrocious abuses of human rights especially among the people Banda considered political dissidents. In March 1992, the Catholic Bishops in Malawi issued a Pastoral letter entitled “living our faith” in which they directly confronted the Banda regime and denounced the human rights abuses. This caused an uproar and the momentum to rid Malawi of Banda’s brutal rule. In the same year, a civil rights activist, Chakufwa Chihana announced that he was returning to Malawi, after several years in a Banda-imposed-exile to help aid the removal of Banda from power. The country was aflame with the wind of change that it was not possible for Banda to hold on and in 1993 a referendum was called for the Malawian people to choose between remaining under one party rule and political pluralism; Malawians chose political pluralism in the name of Democracy and the first multi-party elections were conducted in 1994 ushering into power Bakilli Muluzi. The change was that quick and substantially smooth and Stephen Brown 2000, writing for Africa Files, rightly says “no one could have predicted that within a short period of time, between 1992 and 1994, the brutal dictatorship would peacefully transfer power to a democratically elected opposition party, a process hailed as a model democratic transition”

POLITICAL GOVERNANCE
Political governance, let alone good political governance, is a very contentious term. It can mean different things in different settings. What seems universally agreed upon though is that governance is vital for development to occur to a people in a given setting.

Governance has been spoken about by many – people, organizations, institutions and governments themselves; it is a word, or rather a concept that you find in many documents and schools of thought in today’s development rhetoric. Kofi Anan, for example had this to say in 1998 about governance when he was UN’s Secretary General, “Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development.” The Economist, in 1999 intimated that “of all the ills that kill the poor, none is as lethal as bad government.” Not willing to be left behind in making a case about governance, the Commission for Africa, 2005 commented that “the issue of good governance and capacity building is what we believe lies at the core of all of Africa’s problems.” And the United Nations, through its Millennium Project, seems to wrap it up as they say “there is no excuse for any country, no matter how poor, to abuse its citizens, deny them equal protection of the law or leave them victims of corruption, mismanagement or economic irrationality” (UN Millennium Project, 2005). But quite rightly, ODI 2006 cautions as it intimates that governance has to be contextualised if its meaning and its appeal including measurement are to be appreciated better.

There are principles of governance that are applicable and should be embarked on universally. The World Bank identifies six dimensions of governance which can be measured in different settings using different indicators. They include: Voice and accountability, Political stability and absence of violence, Government effectiveness, Regulatory quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption (World Bank, 2007).

As the concept of governance will be examined under the lens of the role it plays on sustainable livelihoods (SL), it is important to make mention of sustainable livelihoods as well. SL is about a people meeting their life’s needs not only today, but tomorrow as well and for the rest of their lives. International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) describes SL as “being concerned with peoples capacities to generate and maintain their means of living enhance their well-being and that of future generations” (http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/sei/sustainability/livelihoods/def.html)

Both concepts, good governance and sustainable livelihoods, affect the people. There has to be a way for the people to interact with both and ably articulate their needs and aspirations so that they benefit from both. All the literature and data synthesised in this research will be appropriated to Malawi and in settings like Malawi’s, one of the poorest countries in the world, the people’s interaction between the political governance arena and their abilities to create sustainable livelihoods should be even more important. Institutions, policies and structures should be inextricably linked to the will of the people and this calls for their “voice” to be heard and those that take “responsibility” for political leadership to be “accountable” on the decisions or omissions that they take as they discharge the people given-authority. On the whole, political leadership should be about delivery of services to the people and facilitating people’s participation in creating strategies for sustainable livelihoods.

To unravel what sustainable livelihoods really means, the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA), succinctly frame-worked by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom will be utilized. There is the context in which People determine their livelihoods and this ha been referred to as the vulnerability context and within this the shocks, trends and seasonaity of what defines people’s livelihoods are considered. Further to this there is what has been described as Livelihood Assets – the Human, social, physical, financial and natural capital and the access one has to these greatly influences the livelihood outcomes in a given set of a population. Not less important to all this is what has been called the “transforming structures and processes which include levels of government, involvement of the private sector etc for structures and laws, policies, culture, institutions etc for processes. When all this is considered, people will embark on livelihood strategies which at he end of it all determine people’s livelihood outcomes (DFID, 1999).

It is at the point of “transforming structures and processes” that issues of governance pose potential for improving or limiting people’s accesses to assets and choice of strategies that people choose to employ to better their livelihood outcomes. People (the citizenry) should be able to influence what happens at this level and demand that their voice be taken into account as policies are instituted. Politicians on the other hand should listen to the voice of the people and they (politicians) should be willing to be accountable for the decisions they take or omit in creating an enabling environment for people to pursue strategies of achieving desirable and acceptable livelihood outcomes. The World Bank, 2004, has described this form of accountability as possessing the quality of answerability and enforceability .

Despite democratization and going to the polls every five-years, Malawi has not made any significant gains in as far as improving the quality of life of the general population is concerned. Brown, 2000 puts it more succinctly as he says “Malawi faces the major challenge of building new democratic institutions and practices and even a democratic culture in a context of enduring neopatrimonialism, widespread poverty , creating such related problems as low levels of literacy, education and health, continued economic stagnation, weak civic organizations, limited participation and accountability and profit-seeking politicians.” This has led the population to be totally indifferent from democratization as conditions of living have not changed post-Banda and political pluralism is associated with food shortages, high commodity process, badly-shaped infrastructure. (Brown, 2000). Simply put peoples livelihoods have remained the same or become worse as livelihood assets are hard to access in the backdrop of economic deficiencies and rife with political inadequacies. Good governance, this research wants to assert, can do it for Malawians using the sustainable livelihoods approach.

CONCLUSION
Every human being desires livelihoods that are of quality and sustainable. An enabling environment to pursue desirable levels of livelihood outcomes needs to be created and good political governance is one concept that can facilitate the creation of that environment. This research will be intent at examining the governance concept and its role in bringing about sustainable livelihoods. This will be appropriated to Malawi and suggestions made on how Malawi can benefit from the concept of good governance. Voice and accountability will be a dimension of governance that will be examined in detail in this research. It is expected that some policy recommendations will be made at the end of the research.

REFERENCES
Brown, S. (2000). The Trouble with democracy. Africa Files [Online] Available on http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=3640 [Accessed on 21/02/2008].
Department for International Development (1999). Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheets. [Online} Available on www.livelihoods.org/info/guidance_sheets_rtfs/Sect2.rtf [Accessed on 28/02/2008]
International Institute for Sustainable Development (2001): Implementing Sustainability – Sustainable livelihoods: Stockholm Environmental Institute [Online] Available on http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/sei/sustainability/livelihoods/def.html [Accessed on 08/03/2008].
Overseas Development Institute (2006). Briefing Paper: Governance, Development and Aid effectiveness: A quick guide to complex relationships. [Online] Available on http://www.odi.org.uk/Publications/briefing/bp_mar06_governance.pdf [Accessed on 07/03/2008]
World Bank (2004). World Development Report: Making services work for the poor. Oxford University Press. Washington.
World Bank (2004). Governance and Anti-corruption. [Online] Available on http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/WBI/EXTWBIGOVANTCOR/0,,menuPK:1740542~pagePK:64168427~piPK:64168435~theSitePK:1740530,00.html [Accessed on 10th March 2008].
World Bank (2008). Worldwide Governance Indicators: 1996 – 2006. [Online] Available on http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/WBI/EXTWBIGOVANTCOR/0,,contentMDK:20771165~menuPK:1866365~pagePK:64168445~piPK:64168309~theSitePK:1740530,00.html [Accessed on 03/03/2008].