Six Challenges for a Modern Public Servant-1&2&3

World Bank defines the governance as the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is executed, including the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced. As the issues pertaining to government are becoming more complex in nature, the need for effective, informed and neutral policy makers and public servants is ever increasing .In fact the entire modus operandi and standard operating procedures of governance are likely to undergo a radical change in the face of fundamental social, economic and political changes posed by a rapidly changing world. Some of the drivers of this changing landscape are as follows

(Please read the three- part article at the following)

http://www.shahidhussainraja.com/six-challenges-for-a-modern-public-servant-1

http://www.shahidhussainraja.com/six-challenges-for-a-modern-public-servant-2

http://www.shahidhussainraja.com/six-challenges-of-a-modern-civil-servant-3

Agrarian Reforms in Developing Countries

Keeping in view the crucial role agriculture plays for improving all the socioeconomic indicators in a developing country , need to transform it from an underdeveloped sector to a dynamic one becomes all the more important. After all it was the agricultural revolution which released the resources, human and financial, and put Europe on the trajectory of accelerated growth , ensuring food security , improving the balance of payments position besides providing a base upon which the whole edifice of their economies stood during the Industrial Revolution.

This calls for   the implementation of comprehensive agrarian reforms which could bring fundamental structural and institutional changes in the political economy of a county’s agriculture sector. These countries need to push their technological frontiers in the agriculture sector for enhancing its productivity to improve the quality of life of their citizens. Both need an efficient, productive and profitable agriculture sector whose growth is sustainable and outputs are competitive. This is possible only and only if we increase the pace of farm mechanisation and technological innovation in all the agricultural operations. Some of the areas which need proper policy formulation, creation of institutions and allocation of resources are as follows:

• Formulation of comprehensive Land Use Policy
• Improving Agricultural Terms of Trade
• Developing  Rural Infrastructure
• Improving Rural Governance
• Ensuring Environmental Sustainability
• Creating Linkages and promoting Investment
• Gender Mainstreaming
• Changing Production Relations

For details, kindly read my article at      http://www.shahidhussainraja.com/agrarian-reforms-in-developing-countries

Why State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) underperform? Case of Pakistan Railways-1

In every country, developed or developing, general public has been complaining against the state owned enterprises about their performance. Ranging from inefficiency, poor service delivery, non-friendly customer behaviour of the employees, inadequate complaint redressal mechanism to corruption and bad governance are some of the common allegations leveled against these enterprises.

In this series of articles we will be discussing the case of Pakistan Railways -nature of the complaints against its performance, their underlying causes, structural, managerial or otherwise and suggest a way to improve its efficiency and service delivery. The lessons learnt, conclusions drawn and suggested way forward could be,more or less easily applied to other sate owned enterprises.

(Kindly read the full article at the following URLs)

http://www.shahidhussainraja.com/case-of-pakistan-railways-1

http://www.shahidhussainraja.com/case-of-pakistan-railways-2

Privatisation in Pakistan

                                                                                                                Pakistan is soon starting what may be called her fourth generation of privatisation. The first round, which  started in 1950s and peaked in 1960s, was meant to strengthen a nascent private sector which was  reluctant to invest in industry  either due to paucity of requisite resources at its disposal or  high risks involved or both. Consequently the state built factories in strategic and other important sectors and handed them over, at very nominal rates, to the businessmen which laid the foundations of Pakistan’s industrial sector. The second generation privatisation, carried out in 1980s was mainly the de-nationalisation of industries nationalised during the 1970s.However 1990s and to some extent early 2000s were the heydays of privatisation when large number of  state owned enterprises were sold to private sector to improve the efficiency and service delivery of the SOEs, by bringing in the incentive and reward mechanism of the private sector who would inject capital, technology and better management practices to  reap efficiency gains more than reducing state losses.
(Kindly read the full article at the following URLs)


http://www.shahidhussainraja.com/privatisation-in-pakistan-1

http://www.shahidhussainraja.com/privatization-in-pakistan-2