Is MoM another pappy show?

Nov 01, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The objectives of ‘Men on Mission’ (MoM) are commendable. The problems which the Men on Mission are expected to address include violence against women, unemployment, other social ills, and poor parenting.

But the initiative is likely to not husband the resources which will be expended since it is poorly structured. These problems fall under the purview of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Protection and would have been better managed under that Ministry.

Instead, this is a presidential initiative, one that will therefore be centrally organized and coordinated under the auspices of the President. There is some form of steering commit headed by the Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force. But addressing structural problems in our society requires a different type of project management team, one that can give full time attention to the initiative.

This shortcoming indicates that the MoM initiative is poorly conceptualized. It appears to form part of the ‘show and circus’ plans of the Government – one which is aimed at exciting the population but delivery very poor and limited outcomes.

The issues which are to be addressed by MoM cannot be addressed outside of a major study of these problems. If one of the international financing agencies had been approached to fund such an initiative, it would have insisted on there being diagnostic studies of the issues before the project was developed. A team of Consultants would have been dispatched to study the problems and to come out with an approach.

One of the fundamental flaws of this project is that it lacks this pre-assessment. There is therefore no guarantee that the approach taken by the President is the right approach and one that will yield the desired results.

An undertaking of this nature has to be a long term project, not a short term initiative. This is all the more reasons why it should have been organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security. A project of this nature will take years, and will require sustained support, monitoring and assessment. To organize it outside of a Ministry is to doom it to failure.

The initiative, though well-intentioned, will not make the desired inroads because the problems which it seeks to address are deep-seated. And while the President said that the initiative will get to the roots of the problems, this surely is much too ambitious and undertaking for project for which there has been no specific parliamentary approval of resources.

Another serious flaw of the initiative is that it seeks to counterpoise the position of men relative to women. The President himself regurgitated a number of statistics all comparing men to women. MoM presumably intends to improve the standing of men relative to women. But if for example the life expectancy of men increases relative to women to the point where it surpasses that of women, would the latter not complain that they are further disadvantaged.

The President was selective in his statistics. He did not dwell on the relative representation of men and women in power and in positions of authority, including in his Government, the National Assembly and on Boards and headships of State Corporations. The recently appointed Board of the Guyana Sugar Corporation for example has 3 women out of a 13-person directorship. Should women not be complaining?

The President has an uncanny tendency to splurge statistics without considering their relevance. For example he spoke about men being more predisposed towards having cardiac attacks. And he suggests, quite incorrectly, that this has to do with men not taking care of themselves. But any average medical student would tell you that some of the factors contributing to men having more heart disease than women have to do with gender and genetics.  What the President did not state is that the rate of deaths is not that different between men and women when it comes of coronary heart disease. What he did not state is that men have a higher risk of heart disease because, in part, they are exposed to more stressful occupations and handle stress differently

The President spoke about more women registering for university than men. But he did not state that if the numbers were on parity, it would have been the women who would have been complaining given their historic dispossession from territory education which was once dominated by men.

The President also spoke about boys having the highest dropout in nursery, primary and secondary school. But does this not amount to failure of the management of the education sector. After all education is compulsory up to age 14  which covers all of nursery, primary and most of secondary schooling. So how come this problem has not been arrested at the nursery and primary levels?

It is this sort of analysis which is needed to guide the interventions which are going to be made by MoM. Unless those planning the intervention are guided by proper analyses and have arrived at a strategy and approaches which are needed, the initiative will join the long list of ‘circus and shows’ to which Guyanese have become accustomed under the PPP/C.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not this newspaper.)

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