Conference Paper ยท June 008 citations reads 94,375 author
Actors in the implementation process
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| Actors in the implementation process In the case of public policies, the organ that implements policies is the executive wing of government, which is made up of ministries and government departments or administrative agencies. These are the ones that organise inputs or resources like human resources, money, materials and equipment that are necessary to implement the policy. The other actor is the legislature, which holds administrative agencies accountable for what they do. This is done through committee hearings and investigations that are used to review the implementation process (ibid 198). The judiciary also plays a role through 9 judicial interpretation and application of the law. The civil society can also be engaged in implementing policies. For example, some NGOs and community organisations can be used to implement policies in particular sectors of the economy like agriculture, education and health sectors. In the case of policies for other organisations such as political parties and companies, they can also have organs similar to those of government so that the same procedures of policy implementation are followed. Policy evaluation After implementation of a policy, it is important to establish the extent to which policy objectives have been achieved. This is done through the process of policy evaluation. Evaluation allows the policy to be measured in terms of its effectiveness to resolve the initial problem. Inmost cases, evaluation tends to show that the policy was able to solve one problem and at the same time create another problem. For example, there could be a policy aimed at protecting the environment byway of heavy fines on industrial emissions. On the one hand, this policy would enhance preservation of the environment. On the other hand, the same policy would make the cost of production to be very high thereby making goods and services very expensive for poor people. Eventually, poverty levels would increase. This becomes anew problem, which requires anew agenda to beset and to go through the policy formulation process again so as to deal with the new policy problem. At this point, we can see that the process of policy making is a cycle, without a starting or endpoint. |