Structural Growth, Slow Decision-Making and Ineffective Decisions

The expansion of councils and parallel bodies in Iran has become one of the structural challenges of the decision-making system. The multiplicity of these bodies, which creates overlapping duties and scattered responsibilities, has made the decision-making process more complex; yet the consequences of this approach are not limited to slow decisions.

Ambassador Arjan; Dr. Majid Iranshahi - Many issues and various challenges in political, social, cultural and new technologies fields have emerged in the country for many years. From the water crisis and natural resource management to the hijab issue, chronic inflation, internet filtering and trade union protests, there is almost no issue that has been solved with a fresh and efficient approach. In facing these challenges, governance has almost always followed a specific and repetitive pattern.

2 . Creating new structures and institutions

Experience has shown that these two tools, alone or even together, have not produced tangible and sustainable results. The problem is not solved; It is only temporarily managed or sidelined.

The root of this approach is a structure-oriented view that equates organization creation with performance. According to this thinking, any problem can be solved by establishing a headquarters, supreme council, working group or new institution. In practice, however, this view leads to limiting the power and authority of other parts of governance and even the social body. Instead of strengthening existing capacities, parallel structures are created that both consume resources and complicate the decision-making process.

The obvious manifestation of this phenomenon can be seen in the unprecedented number of councils (more than 100 cases) and various headquarters. These parallel institutions not only create overlapping duties, but also weaken accountability. Its direct result is the extreme slowness of the decision-making system; In such a way that issues such as Internet filtering remain in a state of uncertainty for years and no definitive and stable decision is made.

On the other hand, these parallel structures have practically removed the legislative and executive powers from their main functions. Instead of playing a central role in policymaking and implementation, the parliament and the government find themselves involved in coordination with dozens of parallel institutions. This situation has visibly increased the level of intra-governmental conflicts and made the decision-making space away from transparency and efficiency.

The budgetary burden of these institutions also has an important consequence. The country's limited financial resources are distributed among repetitive and low-efficiency structures, and this has a negative effect on the fair distribution of privileges and facilities. In a situation where many critical sectors are facing a lack of resources, the continuation of this practice will only lead to a waste of funds and a decrease in efficiency.

In today's world, where the speed of responding to issues is considered one of the serious principles of governance, the continuation of this hand of command only paves the way to the accumulated crises.

As long as new structures are built instead of solving problems and responsibilities are distributed among parallel institutions instead of clear decision-making, not only existing problems will not be solved, but the system's capacity to face future challenges will also be weakened.