People vs Systems in Global South and North: What is the Difference?

The two concepts have remained the basis of understanding the socioeconomic and political progress of many countries in Africa since the classification of countries into the global north and south by many economists several years ago. From academia to industry, the issues and needs of African countries have been debated and are still being discussed in many fora. In most cases, experts and political leaders have made a case for learning from the global north. The region, which has been seen as having socioeconomic and political indices that could be picked for benchmarking similar components on the continent.

While debating existing issues and needs in relation to the global north, reference has always been made to how systems are built and allowed to work in the global south. From public to private sectors, African experts and scholars are always pointing out how educational, transportation and health systems are working in the global north but are nearly not available or functioning in many African countries.

Using Nigeria as an example of understanding Africans’ attitude and behaviour towards better systems, our analyst had earlier reported that there are micro and macro leaders but their readiness to ensure sustainable processes and future remain questionable because personal interests are being prioritised mostly above collective interests. Our analyst points out that over the years, it has been the blame game of macro leaders who are not doing well at the expense of debating the poor attitude and behaviour of micro leaders towards the ideal and shared constructive future, not a destructive one.

Based on over 2 years of analysing Nigeria’s socioeconomic and political challenges, our analyst concludes that “some reactions indicated that macro leaders should be held responsible for the bad system which has been producing bad outcomes in the public and private sectors over the years. Some reactions revealed the fact that both the macro and micro leaders are the proponents of the bad system.”

Whether a physical or technological system, its functionality depends on the people’s readiness to make it work. Several years ago, Edwards Deming noted that 95% of variation in the performance of a system (or your organisation) is caused by the system itself and only 5% is caused by the people.

Deming simply said that system governance is in charge of establishing a predictable and steady environment so that employee performance is under control. Once more, what matters is not how well people do precisely, but rather how their performance changes from day to day.

In other words, when a system is designed to deter cheating and some people are willing to carry out their oversight responsibilities honourably, people rarely succeed or sabotage it. With the experience our analyst just gained in a country in the global south, this position has recently become even stronger.

He has always treasured the opportunity to be with other Africans while sightseeing. However, his collegues consistently exhibit the swindling system’s behaviour. Thursday was chosen as the day for the long journey. Before arriving at any destination, everyone is required to use their transportation card at each point of entry into the buses or the metro.

The design of the transportation network and how people interact with it prevents the absolute exchange of money. In other words, it is virtually hard to steal from the payment. However, some people choose to forego tapping the payment terminal. Security personnel are typically stationed in key bus and metro stations to check for defaulters due to the prevalence of this among passengers.

The thought of not paying the fare was consistently discouraged by our analyst. But his colleagues thought they couldn’t be found. In certain places, his colleagues would swiftly tap the payment point when it was clear that security personnel were at bus stops inspecting defaulters. One of the colleagues encountered his waterloo on October 20, 2022. Payment cards were requested by the security officers, who then began using another computer to check them (Fraud detection machine).

However, the colleague had previously tapped the payment point machine when he noticed the security officials in the distance. Unfortunately for him, the fraud detection mechanism noticed that he paid at the point of arrival rather than the point of departure.