Decisions are now being issued from the governorates, whether those related to national affairs or to the governorate itself. Before each visit by the Prime Minister, meetings are held with the MPs of those governorates to identify what their regions need. This contributes to making field visits reasonably productive, instead of turning them into mere ceremonial tours.
اضافة اعلان
Policies have now become “made in the field,” based on the real priorities and needs of those areas. This represents an important shift in the philosophy of public administration itself from a state managed through offices and reports to a state that derives its priorities from direct reality.
This point deserves long reflection, as it represents one of the most significant possible transformations in the relationship between the center and the periphery.
In the past, governments dealt with governorates through bureaucratic reports submitted by official institutions, or through general plans that did not accurately reflect what people truly needed. But when meetings with MPs precede the visit, the information base expands significantly, and the government is presented with more than one source of information and more than one perspective on the same issue.
Ministries view governorates through numbers and indicators, while MPs see them through daily interaction with citizens, and local communities view them through their immediate needs and the details of their daily lives. Hence the importance of the Prime Minister’s meeting with governorate MPs before visits. MPs, regardless of how their performance is evaluated, ultimately serve as a channel conveying what people in their regions are saying. Therefore, this prior meeting helps in setting priorities before arriving in the field.
This policy effectively means acknowledging that priorities are not the same across the country. That is why uniform centralized policies often fail to achieve balanced impact, as they assume that everyone faces the same problems. When decisions are made based on the specificity of each governorate, we move closer to the concept of “place-based development” development that starts from the characteristics of the place and its actual needs, not from general assumptions made in the capital.
It can even be argued that this policy represents a form of practical decentralization, even if it is not full legal decentralization. Centralization can go beyond the transfer of powers to include the transfer of thinking and priority-setting to levels closer to citizens.
However, the success of this approach depends on several conditions, most importantly ensuring that visits do not turn into responses to immediate demands only. Citizens naturally demand solutions to their urgent problems, but the government’s role is to think about the future. Therefore, visits must combine addressing urgent issues with drawing long-term development paths.
It is also necessary to involve other actors alongside MPs. Although MPs represent an important perspective, they are not the only one. Consultation can be expanded to include municipalities, chambers of industry and commerce, professional associations, universities, civil society organizations, youth, women, and entrepreneurs.
One of the reasons behind the trust gap between the government and citizens often stems from the feeling that decisions are made far from them, and that their priorities do not reach decision-making centers. But when citizens see the Prime Minister listening directly to their region’s representatives and then visiting the site himself, it sends a message that the state is trying to see problems through the eyes of their owners, not only through reports.
This policy reflects a shift from governing the state through “reports” to governing it through “direct observation.” It is an important step, especially as it is combined with follow-up, transparency, and broader public participation.
The best policies are those that emerge from a deep understanding of people’s lives and real needs, and are translated into actionable and accountable plans.
