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| Congratulations MPA 1!
The governance of interdependence: Managing discontinuity Louk Box*
Dear Mr Director of the Lim a Po School of Governance Congratulations to all – this is the festive moment of celebrating that the pioneer group receives its Master of Public Administration from the Lim A Po School of Governance. Congratulations to you – the graduates; congratulations to you the teachers, but also to the administrative staff which made it all possible. Special congratulations to the ministries which participated in this programme, and last but not least to the parents who may rightfully be proud. The theme of my brief presentation is the governance of interdependence, which I shall try to link to another notion: the management of discontinuity. I have selected these themes because they go to the core of what you have been studying; at the same time they are the key notions of a great Surinamer who showed his students in The Netherlands the intricacies of interdependence long before the present globalisation ‘hype’ took off. He was one of the great minds that this country brought forth. He was a historian by training, a sociologist by profession, a poet at heart and a journalist by compassion. Appointed the first director of the Surinam Plan bureau, he tried to bridge the gap between science and policy-making. The first man in the Netherlands, (with W.F.Wertheim) to hold a chair in what now would be called Development Studies. He was a man who held the highest honours in The Netherlands but never forgot his country of birth. The poet who wrote about your country the beautiful lines: In de verte ligt het land mijner geboorte te blakeren in de zon en riekt naar hout, een groot wijd land met donkere rivieren, maar de mensen, levend op open plekken tussen de bossen, wonen er te dicht op elkander en dekken elkaars horizonnen af. He was less positive about his country of adoption about which he says ...een laag land, waar trage, schuldbewuste wolken drijven, aarzelend zoekt de zon er een pad, maar schenkt soms dagen van steile stilte en licht - That man was Rudolf Asueer van Lier, Rudie among his friends. He was born right here in Paramaribo in 1913, and died in Wageningen in 1987. He took his doctorate with teachers like Johan Huizinga, the famous historian and wrote a highly acclaimed dissertation Samenleving in een Grensgebied, which still is considered a classic in Surinam social history. He was appointed Professor at Leiden University at the age of 36, and later at Wageningen University, and received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the West Indies in 1979. He was the owner of the gown I wear today, and it is a great honour for me to do so: to wear this gown to the ceremony for you, the pioneers in a new branch of public administration studies, the study of public governance. Rudie would have been proud of you, because he felt that development is a painful process of coping with increasing global interdependence producing social and economic discontinuities. Colonial times had shown it already, with the boom and bust economies of sugar and other exploitative crops. But it happened again during the Second World War, and afterwards with bauxite or with timber exploitation. Each time, global interdependence came about through companies which exploited the country’s wealth during the boom period, each time also producing the discontinuities during the bust with its associated decline, poverty and misery. Rudie van Lier was the eminent social philosopher of discontinuity, the theme that he used for the speech he gave in accepting the honorary doctorate in Trinidad. He was also the poet of discontinuities or Rupturen as he called them in his last collection of poems. Discontinuity was to Van Lier (1979: 1) “a situation in which facts or concepts [...] present themselves in a disjunctive way. At first is does not matter whether the situation is only perceived as such or whether it is real”. Both as a social scientist and as a poet he worked like the geologist, who understands a landscape through the ‘breukvlakken’ which expose the processes that formed it. May in his memory a Chair be created in Surinam to honour the man who explored ‘frontier areas’ of social science and development. Our period is again one of great interdependence witness the migration flows from, and to this country; witness the tourists who come here by almost daily flights from all over the world; witness the scourge of drugs-related organised crime in your country and in mine. Social discontinuities result as a consequence, in the form of a declining role for the public sector which can hardly cope with the negative results of these developments: planning becomes more and more difficult, in some cases even impossible, leading to further decline of trust in the government, in public administration or in its management. Discontinuities should therefore not be seen as something unexpected according to Van Lier, but as part of the very essence of the interdependencies we now call globalisation. It is the management of such discontinuities which will increasingly determine the trust that we as citizens grant our governors, the elected politicians and the appointed officials. Three lessons that Van Lier taught me in this respect are therefore the following: 1. Without a sense of history, no sensible planning is possible. He showed his historical insight in Samenleving in een Grensgebied – he showed his practical acumen in daring to apply his thinking in one of the first planning bureaus in South America and the Caribbean. 2. Interdependencies generate discontinuities, which can be studied objectively by social scientists and their understanding can inform social intervention or even social engineering. 3. A theory of political and administrative practice is needed, just as a practical application of theoretical concepts. Van Lier called this the study of praxeology, providing in his words “a realistic sense of problems and versatile open minds.” (1979:10). My addition to these lessons is that the study of public governance is exactly a form of praxeology as Van Lier proposed. Whatever the notion of governance may be taken to mean (and indeed it has been taken to mean just about anything), one thing is clear: it is the study of the intricate interdependencies that shape the power relations in our world, in order to better cope with the negative effects or discontinuities that they produce. This is no longer a task for governments alone, in fact government is just one of the actors and at times unfortunately the less important one. Other actors dominate the scene, be they international public pressure groups, transnational companies, the global media or global crime syndicates. Yet governments and the States they represent still maintain the idea that they are sovereign and van be held accountable to provide human security. Governments will be trusted to the extent that they engage in effective public governance, involving private and civil society actors. Obviously no government can do this alone, not the US, not the EU and even not that most autonomous government of all: the Chinese. Regional and global governance is called for, like in your case Caricom. The study of public governance therefore is inherently transnational, inherently involving corporate governance and increasingly moving to an understanding of emerging global governance networks. The fascinating discovery I made was to see this reflected in your research papers. For if one wishes to apply this praxeological model of governance to the current situation in Surinam, one first needs to define the new interdependencies under globalisation, like the case of trade liberalisation with the new discontinuities resulting in poverty. But I also note it in the paper on Capital Account Liberalisation, and the resulting balance of payments crises. The declining role of the national state and its government is reflected in the paper on Contracting Out and New Public Management, or in the one on Public Private Partnerships in solid waste management, or indeed in the Management of Public Markets. Alternative arrangements need to be made to allow the State to function, as in PPP or in regional cooperation under Caricom. New actors enter the scene and their role needs to be understood, as is clear from the paper on New Players in International Relations, new Pressure Groups and NGO’s. Some (very old) actors suddenly re-enter the scene under a new regime, as is the case in the paper on the fight for Social and Cultural Rights for Indigenous People. In general one can say that the State changes its role, possibly concentrating more strongly on the provision of human security, as through the respect for Human Rights, especially in cases of Police Interrogation. But also for Children’s Rights and the need for an Ombudsman as is argued in another paper. This means that governance oriented States and their governments need to be able to set standards, or apply internationally agreed ones and see to their execution. One paper therefore argues in favour of Performance Based Management and the control of corruption in the public service; or indeed the need to control small arms in Surinam. But also standards in other fields of social concern, as is argued in the paper on Universal Primary Education. Such studies allow for a new understanding of public administration in Surinam, for what Van Lier called ‘een speels begrip van de werkelijkheid’ which allows seeing new opportunities for public engagement and intervention. If the papers have made anything clear it is that you, the graduates, have defined a fascinating governance agenda for the years to come. Allow me to finish with a final remark on International Cooperation, a topic close to Rudie van Lier’s heart. After all, he was involved in the Netherlands’s Government Advisory Council for International Cooperation, or helped to strengthen StiCuSa, the Foundation for Cultural Cooperation between Surinam, Netherlands Antilles and The Netherlands. Your programme has been a unique example of international education, crossing the normal borders. Your teachers came from many different countries, the institutions sponsoring it from Surinam, and The Netherlands. This is the line to follow, because it is true international cooperation in international standards setting. May your diploma from the Lim a Po School of Governance and the Institute of Social Studies help you in your career, and may it remind you of the standards of public service that these Institutes try to represent. * Lecture held at the Graduation of the First Master in Public Administration of the Lim A Po School of Governance (Paramaribo) and the International Institute of Social Studies (The Hague), Paramaribo, 2 February 2007. I thank Hans Lim A Po for the invitation and for sharing his insights. Louk Box is Rector of the ISS and professor of international cooperation. References ‘The Task Network’ A Critical Vehicle of Governance[1]
Graduates,
We are here this evening to celebrate the end of a long and demanding climbing expedition which you all have completed successfully. You will shortly receive your degree certificate as the embodiment of the internationally recognized Master’s Degree in Governance from Europe’s leading centre for development studies, the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. It was a long and demanding journey indeed. You were admitted to the Masters Program on March 18, 2005, so almost two years ago and since then you have completed 312 lecturing hours, 12 exams, two individual assignments, a number of group assignments and an individual study project resulting in the writing and defence of a masters thesis. I have great admiration for the drive and ambition you have shown, for your perseverance and for your talent to combine all this with your full day work and with your family and other social responsibilities. As the first batch that has successfully completed this Master of Public Administration in Governance Program you have set the ball rolling for what we hope will become a sustainable contribution to continuously improved governance in our country. I thank you for that! It was an expedition, an organized journey involving young men and women who by focusing together on a particular purpose have not only achieved their objective but have also established amongst themselves a social network with a common frame of reference. A highly useful network that will last for many more years and that will help to guide your further professional career. You will be able to call each other to account on high standards of integrity and discipline and I am sure that in the future all of you will distinguish yourself, even if it is only by the love for learning which you embraced during the program and I hope you will radiate daily in your further personal and professional life. It was a climbing expedition because you were all conditioned to continuously increase your level of knowledge, skills and insights from a national perspective while widening your horizon and enhancing your outlook on the outside world. This objective was at the heart of the curriculum of the Program which was specifically tailored as such by ISS and FHR. Prof Box, I must thank ISS and its staff for this extra-ordinary form of effective cooperation. I need to mention in particular dr Wil Hout who has put considerable effort in getting this program going and making it such a success. Graduates, the success of the Program is proven by the grades of your exams and assignments. The overall average grade of the 22 of you who graduate today is 76 which is above the ISS benchmark. Six of you end up with an average grade of 80 and ‘very good’ as their iudicium and one has a grade of 87 and receives his degree ‘with merit’. The level of your achievement has also been recognized in the grades of your theses, the results of your individual study projects. Two of you with a grade of 90 or more received a ‘distinction’, three, with a grade of 85 -89, received a ‘merit’ and two with a grade of 80-84 qualified as ‘very good’. Indeed an exemplary result for which you need to be congratulated! In your theses a number of themes clearly emerged as overall concerns and common challenges which our state and society currently face. They virtually cover the entire governance spectrum. Your interest in these subjects and the depth of your research and analyses not only suggest that you are committed and dedicated to make a real contribution in resolving these issues but that you are also confident that you can face the challenges involved because you have acquired the necessary competences to do so. I would now like to briefly discuss one of these themes and provide you with references which you may use to effectively discharge your responsibilities in relation to this theme. The theme concerns a lack of coordination between stakeholders in the undertaking of most tasks within the realm of the Government’s role and responsibilities. Many of you, in one way or another, have stressed a poor task network as a major bottleneck for good governance. It was signalled to prevail in the area of implementation of international agreements, in the area of participation of local communities in development projects, in institutional capacity building, , in the provision of services like waste collection, in the application of appropriate standards when criminal suspects are interrogated and so forth, and so forth. But before discussing the concept of a task network itself, I would like to place the notion in a wider perspective; a perspective which includes on the one hand the policy and regulatory framework within which public sector organizations operate and on the other hand the performance and results framework of public sector organizations and individuals like yourself working in these organizations. You will have to appreciate the factors of the policy and regulatory framework. Your scope and responsibility for influencing these factors are minimal. However the factors of the performance and results framework of you and your organization are by definition within your sphere of influence and responsibility. I would expect you to discharge this responsibility by putting effectively into practice what you have learned about new norms of performance and results based management of public sector organizations and their resources. Now about the task network itself. The concept of a task network is at the centre of the new good governance paradigm because this task network is the hinge between the external and internal environment of government organizations. It ensures that within the policy and regulatory framework relevant actors of government and from society cooperate effectively in the pursuit of government tasks and at the same time contribute towards better organizational and individual performance and results of government, the private sector and civil society organizations. As a coordination mechanism the task network is the operational dimension of the interdependence of the different actors who share responsibility for a particular government task. It facilitates interaction and cooperation by transcending traditional boundaries of government domains and it institutes a process that in practice, through a pattern of bargaining interactions, defines common goals to be pursued by actors who in fact have goals that vary. What then are your responsibilities when you are part of a task network? There is no unequivocal answer to this question. Depending on the task to be performed and the role of your organization in the applicable governance structure your responsibility and influence will vary. But ambiguity is no excuse for escaping responsibility; so let me provide you with some tools which may be helpful in mapping your responsibility profile in a task network. Central in a task network is the fact that responsibilities have to be shared between the various stakeholders who have an interest in the performance or outcome of the task at hand. Who are stakeholders? As you have been taught, they may, in the governance paradigm, be not only from the public sector but also from the private sector and civil society. Some of those from the private sector and civil society may have responsibility for accomplishing a certain task and others may be just beneficiaries of the outcome of the task. Generally speaking the interaction between responsible stakeholders contains elements of cooperation as well as competition which are balanced out in a delicate process of coordination while interaction with beneficiaries would be only a process of consultation. How then should responsibilities be allocated between stakeholders? A fundamental conceptual point of departure is that responsibility can be shared in various ways. A distinction can be made between primary and secondary responsible stakeholders. Primary responsibility rests with those government organizations that are designated in the governance system to bear the ultimate responsibility for the task concerned while secondary responsibility is of an operational nature; it is about contributing to accomplishment of the task. In allocating responsibilities within a task network one should also make a distinction between responsibility for process, responsibility for content and responsibility for context. These three responsibilities can be vested in stakeholders in different degrees and in different combinations. Most people are inclined to consider responsibility for content per se as the most important and I would think that you too were of that opinion at the start of the program. But I expect that now, at the end of the program you will recognize the importance of ‘participation’ as a central process in complying with good governance principles. You will now appreciate that managing process often is as equally if not more important than managing content. You have also developed what is being referred to in management literature as ‘a helicopter view’, an ability to place an issue in a wider context in which external contextual factors may facilitate or impede successful achievement of a task. I have earlier referred to such factors in the policy and regulatory framework of the state At this point I would like to add as highly relevant contextual factors, international commitments and standards which state and society have to comply with in order to be respected in the international community. I would submit against this background that in the current wave of globalization, managing context is a highly critical dimension in any governance task network. Let me conclude by expressing my confidence that you all are well prepared to map and assume your responsibility with respect to the three levels of governance I have just referred to. I am also highly confident that you will make a difference by performing your role and exercising your responsibilities in accordance with the highest professional standards you have internalized in the program. I wish you all lots of success! Thank you for your attention. [1] ’Speech by the Rector of FHR at the Occasion of The Graduation of the First MPA Intake on June 2, 2006
WORDS OF GTATITUDE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE (Wanya E. Illes)
MPA I: een fascinerende agenda van nieuw openbaar bestuur "Openbaar bestuur is in deze tijd inherent transnationaal, het heeft onvermijdelijk te maken met multinationals en maakt een groei mee in bewustzijn van een begrip van opkomende mondiale netwerken van bestuur. Wat ik fantastisch heb gevonden in jullie ‘papers’ is die aandacht die jullie de verschillende dimensies hiervan reeds gegeven hebben, of het nu over de liberalisatie van de kapitaalrekening van het land gaat, de liberalisatie van de kippensector, de sociale en culturele rechten van inheemsen, public-private-partnerships of de veranderende rol van de staat. Jullie zien de dimensies van het nieuwe openbare bestuur dat ook hier in Suriname geleidelijk zijn beslag zal krijgen." Louk de la Rive Box, rector van het Institute of Social Studies in Den Haag, sprak de geslaagden van de eerste MPA (Master of Public Administration) opleiding in ons land lovend toe. Een totaal van 22 studenten heeft aan de FHR School of Governance deze opleiding met succes afgelegd van maart 2005 tot februari 2007. De la Rive Box plaatste het resultaat van de studenten in historische perspectief. Hij haalde Prof.dr.Rudolf Asueer van Lier aan als model voor de studie van openbaar bestuur. Hij was de eerste directeur van het Planbureau in ons land, werd op jonge leeftijd tot hoogleraar benoemd in Leiden, later in Wageningen, met een eredoctoraat van de Universiteit van de West Indies. Hij bracht, legde De la Rive Box uit, wetenschap en beleidsontwikkeling met elkaar in contact en ontwikkelde een theorie van historische ontwikkeling van ons land gekenmerkt door discontinuïteiten of breukvlakken, vanaf de vroegste koloniale tijd tot nu. Hoogtepunten en bloei worden steeds weer gevolgd door verval en ellende. Wij zitten weer op zo’n breukvlak: waar een overheid bestormd wordt door nieuwe uitdagingen als migratiestromen, toeristen, drugsgerelateerde misdaad, e.d., op de negatieve effecten waarvan zij steeds minder greep lijkt te hebben. Maar met Van Liers ‘speels begrip van de werkelijkheid’ is met de nieuwe Public Administration als wetenschap van discontinuïteiten een kader te scheppen voor duurzaam onderzoek voor effectieve overheidsinterventies. Jullie hebben, hield hij de studenten, voor ‘een fascinerende agenda’ geschreven voor dat nieuwe bestuur. Nieuw referentiekader Mr Hans Lim A Po, directeur van de FHR School of Governance, reikte de diploma’s uit, en gaf iedere student een waardering en, vooral ook: een observatie mee van hoe hij hen heeft zien worstelen door deze opleiding heen, een opleiding van bijkans 2 jaar naast een volledige dagtaak, een gezinsleven en diverse sociale verplichtingen. Vanuit het Institute of Social Studies (ISS) kon hij melden dat de gemiddelde prestatie van de hele groep boven het gemiddelde van het ISS ligt, en dat er enkele uitschieters een bijzondere waardering hebben gekregen. "Wat ik vooral zie is dat jullie middels deelname aan een straffe expeditie van onderzoek en studie je doel bereikt hebben, dat jullie een sociaal netwerk hebben gevormd van mensen met een gemeenschappelijk referentiekader en dat jullie een liefde hebben gekregen voor studie. Lim A Po lichtte een speciale vaardigheid toe die de opleiding hen heeft gegeven. Openbaar bestuur eist niet alleen het beheer van taken en onderwerpen (inhoud), maar ook het beheer van processen en het beheer van contexten. "Jullie dachten eerst dat de inhoud het belangrijkste onderdeel vormde van openbaar bestuur, nu zien jullie dat het accent in feite elders ligt namelijk in het beheer van processen (van uitvoering en verandering). En jullie hebben ook zicht gekregen op het belang van de context van je handelen, niet alleen het overheidsbeleid en wet- en regelgeving, maar vooral de internationale verdragen, de verantwoordelijkheid voor de uitvoering daarvan en het stellen van internationale standaarden op lokale verhoudingen. Ook Harry Kenswil, als nestor van de Public Administrators in ons land, sprak de geslaagden toe. Hij was trots op dit resultaat, maar voegde daar later toch een zorg aan toe: laat ze hier blijven, laten ze de ruimte krijgen om zich waar te maken en laten zij de echte ‘agents of change’ van onze samenleving worden. Lim A Po benadrukte het vaker bij zijn persoonlijke toespraken: laten deze mensen hier blijven en met deze vaardigheden een bijdrage leveren aan de ontwikkeling van dit land. Hij drukte er een boodschap mee uit, dat onder specifieke en bewust gekozen omstandigheden, zoals met het FHR instituut, jongeren tot grote prestaties instaat zijn. De uitdaging voor henzelf en de rest van de samenleving is om hen te behouden om prestaties voor Suriname te leveren. Geslaagden betroffen John Guno Achong (Defensie), Malti Chaan Baboeram Panday (DNA), Daniëlle Franciska Boldewijn (TCT), Elisia Deekman (Nederl.ambassade), Marijem Djosetro (RGB), Irma Maya Dorinnie (RO), Audrey Afita Emelie Emanuels (Min.van ATM), Sabitadevie Sandra Nanhoe-Gangadin (Volksgezondheid), Wanya Editha Illes (HI), Claudine Harriëtte Krommie (BuZa), Hargwatie Maikoe (BuZa), Jerrel Winston Moriah (BuZa), Jane Rumawatie Nanhu (BuZa), William Mohamed Mustafa Orie (CBvS), Sharitadevi Pardeshi (OW&V), Deborah Arti Phoelsingh (PLOS), Peggy Alice Purperhart (HI), Lucretia Patricia Redan (KPS), Jerrol Renfurm (HI), Susan Iris Sandel (PLOS), Sardha Madhumatie Devika Sitaram (RO), Patrick Charles Sylvester (Fnc).
Stoet geslaagden
Uitreiking MPA diploma aan Marijem Djosetro
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