Right Governance Awards to governments

Gregory Wright

My proposal: a Right Governance Award (RGA) would be given yearly or biannually by an international coalition of non-governmental organisations to one or more nations whose governance fulfils the parameters of the coalition's consensus definition of good, enlightened, progressive, just, intelligent, sustainable governance.

The Right Governance Award to nations would be given in the spirit of the Right Livelihood Award to individuals and organisations.

'A Right Governance Award would be given to one or more nations where the governance was good, enlightened, progressive, just, intelligent and sustainable'

Some of the qualifying defining parameters of a 'well-governed' nation might include positive key measurements of public health, welfare and education, a certain reasonable distribution of wealth, a modest size of armed forces and military budget, sensible environmental policies, honesty and integrity of elections, an institutionalised respect for the basic human and civil rights of all groups, equality of all under the law, a low proportion of the population in incarceration, and an arguably positive effect of the nation on other nations and peoples (eg exported pollution, arms, and refugees would be debits; well-designed foreign aid programmes, helpful partici-pation in the UN and its agencies and in regional organisations, peace-brokering efforts, useful export products, a reasonably even balance of trade, trained emigrants and polite visitors abroad would be credits).

An important relativism: each government would be evaluated in the context of its region of the world or by the standards of its continent.

A Right Governance Award hopefully would help set a standard to which governments would strive in their management of their countries, a standard which their own citizens and their neighbours would expect and demand.

And the RGA would help put the idea 'in the air' that there is a reasonably objective yardstick against which the quality of a government can be measured.

Ed: Perhaps an Award could be given to the most improved nation since the previous ceremony.

'Well-designed foreign aid programmes, helpful participation in the UN and its agencies, useful export products, a reasonably even balance of trade, trained emigrants and polite visitors abroad would be credits'

Gregory Wright, 14161 Riverside Drive, #3, Sherman Oaks, CA 91423, USA (tel 818 784 0325).

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