What’s Deadly Dull and Can Save the World? Answer: Bureaucracy

Next time you’re knee-deep into your annual tax return or endlessly queueing at the council office to renew your driving licence, take a moment to be grateful. As journalist Maite Vermeulen puts it in this article:

“Bureaucracy is the office where you go to get a building permit. It’s the agency that helps you set up a small business quickly and easily. It’s the reliable statistics office that ensures government policies are based on sound data. Bureaucracy, in short, is all the fundamental building blocks of civilisation we have the luxury of taking for granted.”

Vermeulen came to this conclusion following a reporting trip to the slums of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. She recalls conversations she had with slum dwellers to illustrate her case:

"If you could name one thing that would really change your life, what would it be?", I say. I’m expecting him to say a better house, or more food, or a doctor, or education for his kids. I’m expecting him to mention one of the things relief money often provides.

But Sony Lebrun grins broadly at me, revealing a missing tooth, and says, "What would help me most? A land registry."

I assume I’ve misheard.

"A land registry," he repeats, smiling.

She delves deeper into the ways in which bureaucracy can provide security, and highlights reasons why building a bureaucratic system is hard. A lot of it is down to capacity building – something foreign aid agencies have been reluctant to fund. This is a result of the fact that we as donors don’t respond as well to fundraising drives for office clerks and desks than to school uniforms or woolly hats for children.

If you prefer to listen to Vermeulen’s experiences, she makes her compelling argument in a 15-minute TedX talk too.