Governance Challenges in Rich Countries - Essay Example

Governance challenges in rich countries. Student’s Name Institution Professor. Date Abstract. Governance challenges can be similar or different in some countries like we shall discuss later. To understand these challenges it is important to take into consideration some factors such as UNDP Human Development Index Report 2014.Global discussions led to the development of Human Development on the links between economic growth and development towards the end of the 20th centuary.Human development approach is about maximising the richness of the life of humans rather than economic richness of a country. This approach aims at creating choices and fair chances for all people this ideas come together in the human development approach in the following ways. People: the human development puts more attention at improving the lives that people lead instead of assuming that economic growth will lead to greater economic chances for all. Opportunities: this aims at giving people their total freedom, better chances and opportunities to live the kind of life they value and seems good for them.it allows people to fully develop their abilities and give them an opportunity to make use of them. People can fully exploit their potential. Choices: people are provided with the opportunities available but it is upon them to make the necessary choices on their own. The choices that people make are out of their own concern and take fully responsibility. Human development in this case creates a conducive environment for people, collectively or individually to fully develop their potential and provides them with a chance to lead creative and productive lives that they value. Key words: Corruption, investors, intervention, Security, service delivery, corporate organisations, global warming. Governance, cyber security. Discussion. The abstract above provides us with a good ground to base our argument and be in a position to know whether different rich countries face similar governance challenges .Some of the governance challenges countries face despite their level of development include corruption,governace and security. These challenges greatly influence the choices and opportunities of people in a country. For many years national governance challenges, corruption and mismanaging of public funds have been specifically daunting the least developed countries.it has for long been assumed that it does not affect the rich countries ,however it has not been the case though as we shall see. Corruption. Corruption has always been rampant in the rich countries. Take for example the USA and Australia .these two countries are highly ranked in the UNDP Human Development Index Report 2014.In both countries it is illegal to give or take bribes for services to be delivered. People give and take bribes. This vice greatly contributes to corruption. Some people lose opportunities due to vice. (Kaufmann, 2002) reviewed on the trends of corruption and governance worldwide, he also gave detailed information on its costs. The issue with corruption is worldwide both in rich and poor contries.the effects are not selective, people will suffer and will lead to poor standards of living. There will be unfair treatment among people and lose of opportunities. This greatly affect the service delivery and production of a country in different sectors since those who are not qualified but have money to bribe are preferred locking out those with skills and ability, to fully exploit their potential in a productive way, Bribes stagnate the economic growth of a country. This discourages investors and business people, since they are afraid of unfair competition, harassment and high chances of making huge loses. Corruption reduces government revenue making it in effective and slow to deliver to its people. There is a high tendency of people in America to be involved in corrupt activities in their country rather than in another country, which is the same case with people in Australia. This acts make the governments to raise taxes with an aim to recover the lost money. Corruption leads to a lot of pressure on the people, in both countries people have to secure more than one job in order to meet their daily needs. People have been denied the privilege to make choices. They are restricted by finances to only accept that which they can afford. Their ability to lead successful comfortable lives is limited and they do not have a choice. Any form of corruption should be given the first priority, to be eliminated completely .allocation and utilisation of public funds should be carefully monitored. If this is not done the development of a country will remain stagnant. When a government takes into consideration some of these things it creates a conducive environment for economic growth .it builds the confidence of the investors and the private sector to invest in their country. The people are given the morale to develop and fully utilise their potential and ability. America and Australia both have done and taken great strides towards curbing the menace. They have step up agencies which carry out investigations and help the country save and recover revenue which could have been lost if it were not for their intervention. This has created an upward mobility in their economy and has made America and Australia some of the biggest economies in the world. These measures if adopted by the poor countries which are highly affected by corruption, bribes and mismanagement of funds could be of great help to them. They can easily improve their economic growth create better atmosphere and environment for business activities. The standards of living can be better. Corruption it is global and is not selective. Corruption takes place even in courts (Pahis 2009). There has been disclamation of particular groups of people in both countries based on ethnic backgrounds. In Australia the aboriginal Australians have for long been treated unfairly by the rest of the people. In America the black Americans of African origin have also been discriminated. These challenges have for long destroyed national peace and solidarity as different groups of people try to fight for fair treatment by others. Security. Security is a great issue in this two countries. There are various forms of security challenges in both countries. American has a key role to play in maintaining peace and order in the Middle East. Australian PM Calls for joint effort to control the terror group called ISIS.Ausrtalia has security challenges in North East Asia, however Australia has good and friendly ties with Japan and China who are her trade partners for a long time. American also faces a local security threat with the Mexican drug dealers who try to smuggle hard drugs into America through the border. These challenges have been a headache to both governments for a long period of time. A lot of security personnel have to be put in place to help curb the menace, (Ripsman 2010}. Cyber security has also caused a lot of havoc in recent time’s .In November 2014 there was a cyber-attack on the Sony. This lead to loss of data and financial details. Malicious people get access to confidential information that can hinder government, corporate organisations or even military activities. Every country in the world is prone to cyber-attacks .This is an emerging form of terrorism (Rollins 2009) .cyber terrorism can bring down big corporate organisations down and lead to losses. The governments have to put in a lot of efforts to stop this vice once and for good. If security and defence details leak to the terrorist, the country becomes prone of terror attacks raising the levels of insecurity. Business cannot fully operate since their competitors might have full details of their ways of operation. This will create unfair competition and there will be no improvement in service delivery. Climatic change has raised great climatic concerns in America and Australia .global temperature have greatly rises over the past few years .all this have been due to human activities on the surface of the earth. This has caused change in the distribution of weather and climatic patterns. There are some core threats to the United States due to climate change these include, homeland security, military infrastructure and global instability. The United States face costly climate change threats greatly affecting its military infrastructure .America has to look for better and adaptable means, which are very costly. Australia also faces serious climatic threats which include, getting off coal, getting on to renewables and ending of fossil fuel subsidies. The emissions in Australia come from burning of coal for electricity. The government of Australia has come up with measures to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The government seeks other means to generate power .this may include setting up a wind project. Wind energy is renewable and environmental friendly. Unfortunately they are slow on the project and prefer opening up new coal mines instead. Australia has also played a key role in helping other countries emit more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere .This has been achieved through the export of coal to her trade partners. Some of her trade partners lack sufficient solar and wind energy. This has forced to look for other alternatives which are coal and oil as their source of energy. Energy is needed for both domestic and industrial purposes. This has greatly facilitated in the rise of the global temperatures .It is important to note that climatic impacts will be economy and society-wide; insurance, health, transport, banking and construction. America and Australia have a role to provide energy for their industries and for domestic puposes.This calls for safer and environmental friendly sources of energy. They have to control the rate of emissions coming from their industries. People have the duty and responsibility to take care of their environment .it is easier to control climate change before it is too late, whereby we will have very little to do it if it gets to the extremes.it has for long been said that prevention is better than cure. Climatic is one of the most deadly global insecurity, (Miller 2001). Corporate governance. Corporate governance can be referred to as the relations, processes and mechanisms corporations are directed and controlled. It identifies the distribution of responsibilities and rights the various participants in the corporation. Lack of accountability can lead to collapse of large corporation between 2001-2002.fraud and global crisis also greatly affect the performance of corporations. Corporate scandals have greatly attracted public and politician attention.in America MCI Inc.  (Formerly WorldCom) and Enron made the government to intervene in order to restore the confidence the public had in corporate governments. Australia has not been left behind in this issue of corporate mismanagement, (HIH, One.Tel) have been linked with the final forwarding of the CLERP 9 reforms, (Shailer 2004). The government of America principles that govern the corporate governance .they are contained in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is also known as Sarbox or Sox, this has been an attempt by the federal government of the United States of America several principles of corporate governance. Corporate governance has principles that govern their operations which when not controlled can lead to failure or the corporation. Rights and equitable treatment of shareholders: the rights of shareholders should be respected and should not be prevented in exercising their rights. Information should be communicated to the shareholders and should be encouraged to actively take part in participating in the general meetings discussions. Interests of other stakeholders: organisations should realise that it is their duty to be in good terms with their policy makers. Customers, local communities, suppliers, creditors, investors and also employees. Role and responsibility of the board: this involves a lot of knowledge and relevant skills to understand and review the performance of the management committee.it also evaluates the competency of high officials of the corporation. Integrity and ethical behaviour: the organisation should develop a code of conduct for the stuff in the corporation with an aim to promote ethical and sound decision making. Disclosure and transparency: this ensures that all the parties and stakeholders have access to necessary information and not being hidden from crucial information. The above factors in properly considered can be of great help in any corporate organisation in the word. Mismanagement of corporate organisations has been due to greed and lack of proper skills .big corporations as stated earlier have collapsed both in America and Australia .their failure leads to the public losing their trust in them and loss of jobs to people and the government loses a substantial amount of revenue. Corporate governance has to be controlled through a number of ways, (Crawford 2007). Monitoring by board of directors: to safe guard capital the board of directors has all the legal authority to compensate, hire and fire top management. Internal control procedures and internal auditors: these are put in place by an entities board of directors. Balance of power: this is made possible the separation of power. All this is done to achieved maximum operation of the corporation so that it can perform competitively with other corporations .such factors have seem corporations perform so well in America and also in Australia, (Goergen 2012). Conclusion. According to the research that I did ,I came to conclude that rich countries such as the united states and Australia share very similar challenges in governace.what can vary is the extent into which these challenges have affected a country. The effects of cyber insecurity is greatly felt in the united states as compared to austarlia.racism and discrimination have ethnic groups has been rampant in both countries, black Americans in the united states and the aboriginals in Australia. The issue of terrorism and climate change is global no particular country is safe, but America has faced severe attacks such as the bombing of the twin towers by terrorist while Australia has not had any major terror attacks. Both countries have tried all ways and means to solve this governance problems and it has been a great success .some challenges have called for joint efforts, such as security, climatic change since they affect many countries. Reference list. Crawford, Curtis J. (2007). The Reform of Corporate Governance: Major Trends in the U.S. Corporate Boardroom, 1977–1997. Doctoral dissertation, Capella University.  Goergen, Marc, 2012.  International Corporate Governance, Prentice Hall, Harlow, January, pp. 104–105. Gordon Lederman. (2010) National Security Reform for the Twenty-First Century: A New National Security Act and Reflections on Legislation’s Role in Organizational Change. Journal of National Security Law & Policy, Vol. 3:363. Miller, C. and Edwards, P. N. (ed.) (2001) Changing the Atmosphere: Expert Knowledge and Environmental Governance, MIT Press. Ripsman, Norrin M., and T. V. Paul. (2010) Globalization and the National Security State. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rollins, John, and Anna C. Henning. (2009) Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Legal Authorities and Policy Considerations. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service. Shailer, Greg. (2009) An Introduction to Corporate Governance in Australia, Pearson Education Australia, Sydney, Tricker, Adrian, Essentials for Board Directors: An A–Z Guide, Bloomberg Press, New York.  Pahis, Stratos (2009). "Corruption in Our Courts: What It Looks Like and Where It Is Hidden". The Yale Law Journal 118. Retrieved1 August 2015. Read More