Building good governance
3rd November 2010 by Andrew Matheson, Manila | Comments Off
The foundation policy of the new Philippine government is to tackle the country’s poor record on corruption. That’s a big job, as I commented earlier. One bright light in the quest for building honest and effective governance in the Philippines is the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA).
For 10 years this NGO has tackled what it calls the challenge of developing good governance mechanisms in a democracy with weak governance institutions. ISA works with local government, national government institutions and professional bodies to apply its ‘performance governance system’, which is an adaptation of the balanced scorecard method.
I’ve been very impressed with what the ISA is doing under its chairman Dr Jesus Estanislao. I’ve had some very interesting discussions with him about how this organisation is partnering with public sector bodies to create islands of good governance that stand out as examples.
There’s been some small New Zealand involvement too. At the ISA’s ‘Public Governance Forum’ that I attended earlier this year, Graeme Clentworth of the New Zealand Defence Force talked about how that organisation was successfully applying the balanced scorecard method to monitor implementation of the strategic defence plan.
The Philippines needs more solid work of the type ISA is doing, to improve standards in the public sector and in institutions. This will make a difference to the lives of ordinary people. As President Aquino said at his inauguration: “Our foremost duty is to lift the nation from poverty through honest and effective governance”.
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