Why is governance important for responding to COVID-19?
Image: @kylejglenn
Holly Jarman and Scott L. Greer
Governance is the process of steering a society towards a set of goals. When we study governance, we try to understand the ways that governments, politicians and stakeholders in society choose and define their goals, as well as the ways they try to steer society towards those goals. Some of those goals relate to policy, such as increasing access to healthcare or reducing unemployment. Other goals are political, such as getting re-elected.
Steering towards those goals can happen in ways that are better or worse for the eventual outcome. Decisionmaking procedures can be fairly transparent and easy for the public to follow, or they can be obscure. Sometimes it is clear which people or agencies are in charge, and other times not. Some governments allow other organizations and the public to inform the decisions they make, while other governments do not. Governments can conduct themselves ethically, or be a source of corruption. And the success of a policy can also be hampered by a lack of policy capacity -the ability of a government to access and leverage relevant resources such as expertise, data, and analysis.
As we get deeper into our analysis of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s becoming clear that governance is a key factor in predicting the success or failure of governments’ plans.
Can national leaders bring populations together to support public health measures like physical distancing? Are different subnational governments within a country able to coordinate their responses and prevent the spread of disease between regions? Do bureaucracies, health systems, and public health agencies have enough capacity to handle a fast-moving but long-term crisis?
Governance should not be an afterthought. It is necessary to understand and improve the ways in which societies make decisions and implement them if we are to achieve our goals. A good policy idea that is not adopted and implemented, or one that is mistakenly adopted and implemented in the wrong place or context, will not produce the desired result.
In terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, this means that we have to understand that policies adopted in one place will not automatically produce the same result in another place. The success of physical distancing depends on factors such as trust in government and social policies that allow people to stay home without suffering financial harm. The success of a government’s re-opening strategy depends on their capacity to understand and plan for vulnerability in the population. The invention, acquisition, and administration of a potential COVID-19 vaccination will be a governance challenge that spans all levels from local to global. The pandemic is a tremendous test of governance, but it is also an opportunity to improve governance for the better.
