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Econ2111

In: Social Issues

Submitted By 14159265
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In the research paper, conducted by Pandey et al. (2007) suggest that by empowering the people of developing nations through providing them with information on entitled social services, they may be able to demand and receive better services. Through their trial, the results of this paper proved this to be true. However, I don’t agree that this method alone will be beneficial in the long run without proper policy making from the government since there are several limitations and issues to this finding.
Service provisions in developing nations are mostly decentralised to the local authorities with the intention of increasing service provision through greater autonomy however, this has created the exact opposite effect. Service provision is poor, local authorities are ineffective and public workers are corrupt thus delivery is poor. In order to cut slackness, I believe the government should centralize their provisions instead in order to gain control and set equal standards across the country. Local authorities can serve as monitoring facilities instead of being responsible for their own provision. Then again, this process is extremely costly and may be timely to implement.
One of the comments of the pandey et al (2007) paper mentioned that locals found it difficult to understand the information being provided to them due to their poor levels of education. In addition to the poor provision of educational services, education may not be seen as such a high priority when faced with conflicting priorities such as meeting the basic needs. Children of very young age in developing nations often also work and thus are unable to focus on their education, despite being admitted to an educational facility. The vicious cycle of poor education often persists in these families and they continue to being illiterate. Without education it is difficult for them to understand the importance of many other things such as understanding their basic entitlements to receiving health care. Therefore when making policies in the short run, it is important to cater for those with a poor literacy level by providing the information in the very basic sense since it will affect them greatly. In the long run however, it is important to target the root cause and that is in my opinion definitely the provisional institutions. The government should most certainly centralize their provisions and standardize provision standards.
The aim of the Pantey et al (2007) paper is that by providing appropriate information hopefully the people will use this information and demand proper services from public workers, but most developing nations has a culture of ‘how things are done around here.’ For instance, those that may have understood the information provided, they are mostly likely too conservative and are afraid to speak out. People also tend to question the reliability and worthiness of the information provided to them due to the corruption in the public system. However for those that understood the information but are not afraid to seek out, although they were able to get into contact with the social workers, it was difficult for them to access the village head. This shows that the society is divided between those of higher social standings and low social standings and it’s difficult for those of lower social standing to access those that are superior to them and therefore minimal communication. In most cases where corruption exists, in order for someone of a lower social standing to get in contact with those in an important position, they may have to bribe their way through. Bribing is costly and therefore those of lower social standing may not be able to afford it and therefore their message cannot be carried across. When implementing policies to tackle these behavioural issues, it is rather often difficult and timely. Maybe the government can look at greater penalties on those being caught for bribery. From a business point of view when change is needed, a business would implement a change agent which is someone with some influence that can lead the business in a new direction. Therefore maybe electing a new village head and implementing new policies such as open forum or even social gatherings between the village head and their community may increase communications between the two parties.
In conclusion, although providing information to the resource poor may increase awareness of social and health benefits and allow them to demand it, however, in the long run without government intervention, the progression of improvement may be stagnant. In my opinion the government of developing nations should centralize their public service provisions and develop set policy standards to ensure that their services are properly delivered and enjoyed by its community.

Bibliography
Pandey, P, Sehgal, A, Ribound, M, Levine, D, Goyal, M 2007, ‘Informing the resource poor populations and the delivery of entitled health and social services in rural India,’ American medical Association Vol. 298, no.16 pp 1867-1875

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