Middle-income countries like the Philippines may achieve further economic progress and development by instituting frameworks and mechanisms that ensure good governance and accountability, United Nations Undersecretary-General and UN Development Program associate administrator Haoliang Xu recently said in an interview.
“Good administration has to be effective. You have to get things done professionally and effectively. But that’s not enough… the second area is you need to be accountable,” he said, referring to the UN’s 11 principles of good public administration.
“If you want to be effective, you have to have professional institutions. You want to have strong institutional capacity and professionalism. The second, accountability, is that you must have rule of law,” he added.
Xu, who is in the Philippines for the High-Level Ministerial Conference of Middle-Income Countries, noted the continuing issue of regional disparity and inequality in the Philippines.
However, he remains optimistic that despite the country’s delay in achieving its original target of reaching upper middle income status last year, the Philippines will achieve the milestone.
He noted the importance of aligning all forms of financing, including those from the private sector, to national development objectives. “Different countries have different systems. And many countries do favor decentralization because they believe that service is more effective if it is provided at a local level,” he said when asked if increasing funding for local government units – as mandated by the so-called Mandanas ruling of the Supreme Court – is an effective approach to addressing key development issues.
“But you need to have a very clear accountability mechanism. If you transfer more resources, you have to be clear for what purpose… what results you’re going to achieve,” he added.
For Xu, it is important that governance systems, including implementation and executive capacities, are aligned with the national development objectives.
Good governance and accountability should be a goal for any nation that aspires for economic progress and development, especially those like the Philippines that are on the cusp of the upper middle income status. The determination and consistency of our leaders to encourage such ideals and integrate it with our system of government, constantly fighting bad habits and temptations to stray which will spell the difference between moving forward to staying stagnant or even backsliding.*
