DECISIONS, DECISIONS, DECISIONS.....

Happy New Year!!!!!! let me start off by asking, "how detty was your December?" wait!!! don't answer that out loud, just think about it😉. 

Think about how you started making plans for the month of December 2019 as soon as November took one step forward (I know some of you started way before that, I applaud your planning as well as decision making skills💪), think about how you mapped out how many shows, events, family gatherings and dates you would go to, think about the decisions you made to have fun and be happy while getting debit alerts (I earnestly hope your January is equally "jolly" too😂).

Think about  how you called friends and family, people who matter to you, people important to your course, how you made sure you were still within your budget or how you made alternative plans, how you smile while reminiscing because you planned, decided, acted on your decisions and got the result you envisaged.

Great feeling, right? now let's flip this coin from the "you" side to the "we" side where public policy is sitting pretty at. 

Public Policy simply put is decision making beyond the individual purview, it involves making decisions that affect either positively or negatively the totality of the citizenry of a particular country. It is considered by scholars of public administration as the means by which a government addresses the needs of its citizens through actions defined by its constitution.

It is a process about selecting strategies and making choices but this time these choices are not made by you they are made for you which is why it is important you know why, how, when, who makes these decisions and what these decisions are. 

Let's go one step further into the features of public policy; public policy extends to all the sections of the population and have societal legitimacy, it can be coercive in nature i.e only public policies can impose sanctions legitimately on the violators, it is purposely prepared and does not come by chance, it is result oriented and are not random in nature. Public policy is at the heart of public problem solving, it is the process of recognizing there is a need, a problem or an issue and working to solve that problem. 

Why is public policy important? why is it imperative that government not only make decisions but make decisions that effectively and efficiently (note: I will be using this "twin" a lot) address pressing needs of the citizenry? why should there be result oriented decisions that cut across health, transport, education, economy, infrastructure, electricity e.t.c? I wish I could go into the imperative nature of public policies in this post but I have pressing "Jolly January" decisions to act on but I solemnly swear to answer these questions in my next post which is another phase of this "funducative" journey, I love you and keep having a jolly January.

💖💖💖