LEWIS Carroll set a daunting bar in Through the Looking-Glass: one must run to stay in the same place; to get somewhere one must run twice as fast. How far will our one step forward, two steps back gait take us then? Nations once behind us now run twice as fast to perform 21st-century miracles; our rulers still plod after 19th-century mirages.

The mirage now being sold to end misrule to entice a nation sick of it is creating many provinces. What they will fix is unclear: low growth or poor services? I dug deep into global research to test this idea but got a blunt rebuke from reform sages: more provinces fix neither; adopt sound policies for growth; devolve, not divide, for better public services. But our rulers avoid such steps. Provinces must ideally focus on policy and large projects; however, ours also control local services. Division will create new patronage layers and fragment policy across small areas; it will keep services poor. Devolving power and purse locally will ensure better services and policy coherence. If research evoked rebuke, global practice evokes alarm. The bottom 15 states on the Fragile States Index average five times more first-tier units than us but have populations only one-fifth of ours. Many........

© Dawn