Implementing Good Governance at the Local Level

In the questionnaire, there was a question about implementing good governance in the public servant’s own work. I had several explanations but they were not very detailed. Again, people had used the four terms when they explained their own behaviour, like:

“I follow the rule of law.” (male, works department, 26-35 years)

“I’m transparent in my work.” (male, finance & trade, 26-35 years)

“I abide these principles as a way of make work better.” (female, education, over 46 years)

There were also some contradictions in some answers. It would have been interesting to know if these contradictions came up due to the lack of time or because of a lack of knowledge. One example of the contradictions is the answer that one female from the department of economics gave:

“I strictly adhere what the rule of law applies.” (female, economics, 26-35 years)

In spite of that, in the question what the rule of law is there was no answer in her paper. Is the reason for this that she does not know what the rule of law is or did she just not want to an-swer that question or was running out of time? There were a few of these kinds of contradic-tions in the questionnaires. Another one was given by a male from the administration depart-ment. In the following, he explains how he implements good governance in his work:

“…giving directive instructions to the people you serve and trying to use knowledge management.”

(male, administration, 26-35 years)

However, he did not answer to the question about knowledge management at all. Again a question emerges: was that due to the lack of time or did he just not know what knowledge management is? Because of these contradictions, I wanted to ask about good governance in a different way during the interviews. I asked the public servants to explain how they under-stand the concept and is it working at the local level. I thought that this would tell more about their own thinking than just repeating the concepts. The answers were quite long ones, but I obtained different kind of information just like I wanted. I also asked if they knew the concept before the training or not.

“Workers can see what we are doing, we give them a chance to say their opinion. I knew the concept before but now after the training I am conducting it effectively.” (male, media)

“It is many things like doing your work, treat others well, work according the rule of law, I knew it before the training. I try my best to implement it.” (female, administration)

“I meet people daily and discuss with them... Good governance works somehow but it depends on our effort. I learned something in the training but it was very shallow.” (male, education)

“Good governance is regulations and following human rights, I knew before but not very well.” (fe-male, community development)

“I knew it before but now I understand it more. It is not working because there are a lot of people who do not get the training.” (male, community development)

“Good governance is the way you behave, the way you carry out the duties, transparency, account-ability, respecting the rule of law.” (male, media)

In the interviews, the concept was explained in a broader way and I received plenty of infor-mation. Everybody agreed that they had learned something about the concept in the training and understood it better now. The interviewees also agreed that good governance is working somehow and they are trying to implement it, but most of the public servants did not partici-pate in the training and will act just the way they did before. I noticed that people who I inter-viewed felt quite powerless in implementing good governance. They definitely do their part, but at the same time cannot change the whole society and asked for more training many times.

Only one of the interviewees answered that she does not know what good governance is.

“I do not understand it. I did not know it before the training.” (female, health)

However, although she claimed that she does not know what good governance is, she an-swered that it is now working at the local level.

“It is working in the local level.” (female, health)

I think the reason for the contradiction in this answer was the lack of a shared language. She could not explain her thoughts very well in English and she seemed to feel quite uncomfort-able all the time. I felt that she did not want to talk with me and answered in a very shallow way, which might be the reason for this contradiction.

I also discussed with one facilitator, Mr. Chassama about good governance. He said that it is well understood but the problem is how to implement it at every level. People have to be com-mitted to it at every level all the way down to the street level, and that will be a challenge. He also agreed that more training is needed and there is corruption because of the lack of good governance. People have to get training about good governance in order to be able to imple-ment it. (Chassama, 2007.) It seems that many terms have been learned in the training and these concepts are repeated in this evaluation, both in the questionnaires and in the interviews.

It still leaves an open question of how well good governance works after all because the an-swers to that question were quite careless.