Peace, Order and Good Government in Latin America and Africa.
2001 Series 2 Number 3 Page 14
This five-page essay consisted of the notes for a presentation to CACOR by Liberal MP David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast), Secretary of State for Latin America and Africa. Not long before, Mr. Kilgour had been a Progressive Conservative.
He began by pointing out that he felt there is no single model of good governance. [I would argue that is incorrect and have written extensively about it.* Ed.] Nonetheless, he went on to explore what happened around the world to provide the conditions for good governance in the last half of the 20th century. He then went on to explore the extent to which freedom among citizens and human rights are relevant to judgement of governance. Eventually, he got to discussing, if briefly, the contribution of absence of corruption to the record of any government.
Next, he examined Africa, concluding it was over-full of development (by which he appeared to mean economic activity), violence, and disease–three indicators of poor governance. Again, corruption was mentioned.
As with Africa, he thought corruption was a major challenge for South America.
He concluded with a quote from Czech President Vaclav Havel: “If modern democratic states are usually defined by such characteristics as respect for human rights and liberties, equality of citizens, the rule of law, and civil society, then the manner of existence toward which humankind will move from here, or toward which humankind should move in the interest of its own preservation, will probably be characterized as a existence founded on a universal, of global, respect for human rights, a universal equality of citizens, a universal rule of law, and a global civil society.”
[I would argue that for us to be well governed, our government, corporations, and social networks must be free of corruption. We have a long way to go. Ed.]
Link to | Peace, Order and Good Government in Latin America and Africa.
* Governance Reform: Different Thinking by David Dougherty – Canadian Association for the Club of Rome
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