Transparency and Governance

Transparency and Governance Many nations struggle with the issue of transparency, particularly the third world nations. This has been seen as one of the chief causes of poverty in the nations and also a contributor to bad governance. However, the bad governance is also seen to be recipe for lack of transparency, the two are inter-connected in such a manner that they are both cause and effect of each other. Transparency involves the long-term institutionalization of open and understandable procedures, rules guiding the procedures and understandable information.

It means that official business is carried out in a way that the substantive and procedural information is made available to the society and understood by them, with the few exceptions to protect the security and privacy of a government (Johnston M., n.d:Pp2). It is only when these tenets are followed that the governance can be said to be transparent.

On the other hand, good governance can be defined as the legitimate, accountable and most effective ways of acquiring power as well as resources with the ultimate aim of implementing the widely accepted social goals. The key attributes of good governance are outlined as transparency, responsibility, accountability, participation and responsiveness to the needs of the people (United Nations Human Rights., 2017). Transparency is hinged on other arms and stakeholders of governance.

One of the chief arms of governance is the independent judiciary that will help in interpreting the laws and also mete out legal punishment to the individuals or institutions that are found to contravene the tenets of transparency and good governance. The other group is the free, responsible and competitive press which will help in objectively reporting on issues and following up those acts of government that are seen to breach transparency to the logical conclusion.

By doing this, the press will be helping in holding the government officials to account hence increase transparency (UNESCO, 2017).

An active civil society also forms part of the essential arms of any good governance since it is the civil society that will inform the general populace, sensitize them on the goings on in the government, comment on behalf of the people and widely hold the sitting government to account over the actions they take, as well as form liaison with the external governments with the aim of making the governments, especially in third world countries, accountable to the people.

In transparent governance systems, the procedures need to be open to scrutiny and must be comprehensible. In this respect, a transparent government will make it clear what it is they are doing, why the particular actions are taking place, the people involved therein and the standards that guide in making the decisions made and must show that it abided by the set standards. It is worth noting that transparency may in many instances slow down the administrative procedures in the course of its implementation yet will offer relative advantage.