- Governments must take responsibility for providing essential services that are free or heavily subsidised for poor people and geared to the needs of all citizens.
- Civil society organisations and private companies can play a crucial role but they must be properly regulated and integrated into strong public systems, and not seen as substitutes for them. Only governments have the capacity to deliver on the scale required.
I haven’t read the full report, and may be in touch with Oxfam when I have, but I’d just make a subtle change to the wording of the conclusions. I should much prefer that the conclusions were:
- Governments must take responsibility for ensuring that essential services are free or heavily subsidised for poor people and geared to the needs of all citizens.
- Civil society organisations and private companies can play a crucial role but they must be properly regulated and integrated into strong public systems, and not seen as substitutes for them. Only governments have the capacity to ensure delivery on the scale required.
A Social Policy Bond regime would not mean that government ducks its responsibilities to its citizens. It would still set a country’s health and education objectives, and it would still raise the finance to achieve them. But it need not necessarily provide the services itself. With the proper regulatory environment that Oxfam rightly sees as necessary, the whole process of service provision for poor citizens might be much better handled by a motivated private sector. Yes, government should ensure that the services are there; yes, government should ensure that they are delivered on the scale required; yes, government should ensure that they are free or subsidised for poor people; but no, government does not need to provide them itself.
No comments:
Post a Comment