The quality of governance has become an issue
of increasing concern in countries around the world,
both developed and developing. While the evidence suggests
governance matters for development, there is less understanding
regarding what aspects matter most and how to improve
governance. The main problem is the lack of reliable,
valid and comparable data on key governance issues.
This has left many unanswered questions regarding when,
why and how governance makes a difference to the way
countries develop. Current indicators also provide inadequate
measures for assessing changes and informing strategies
to improve governance. The WGA is a global, collaborative
effort to improve the assessment and analysis of governance.
WGA Phase 1 (2000-2002) was a pilot study in 16 countries to gauge perceptions of governance in 6 arenas. Phase 2 (2005-2007) used an improved methodology and surveyed perceptions in 10 countries.
Governance assessments for local stakeholders: What the World Governance Assessment offers
Overview of governance assessment frameworks and results from the 2006 World Governance Assessment
Report from ODI Learning Workshop on governance assessment frameworks.
Governance and aid effectiveness: Has the White Paper got it right?
'The big challenge for Britain's aid policy is to reconcile concerns about governance in developing countries with the commitment dramatically to scale up aid. Aid is set to double. But governance in Africa in particular is often poor – and...
Governance, Development and Aid Effectiveness: A Quick Guide to Complex Relationships
The relationship between governance and development has risen up the international policy agenda. There is widespread agreement that governance matters - intrinsically and for improvements in economic and social outcomes (see Box). But what exactly...
Rebuilding Governance in Iraq
While the priority in Iraq remains on military issues, with the forthcoming election emphasis is shifting towards establishing civilian forms of governance that are legitimate and sustainable. Although driven by the noble aim of building a liberal democracy,...
Making Sense of Governance: Empirical Evidence from 16 Developing Countries
Although governance has been the focus of a considerable body of literature on democratic transitions and consolidation, data to support the claim that the concept is a useful one has been lacking. Now however, Making Sense of Governance clearly shows the...
Conclusions from Phase I
This paper presents the conclusions of our effort to undertake systematic and comprehensive governance assessments in 16 developing countries - drawing on the views of local stakeholders. This working paper outlines what we consider to be the principal...
Economic Society and Governance in 16 Developing Countries
This paper presents the findings on the economic society arena in 16 developing countries.
The Bureaucracy and Governance in 16 Developing Countries
This paper presents our findings on the bureaucracy arena in 16 developing countries. Four observations stand out as especially important. The first is that bureaucracy is one of the more problematic arenas of governance in the countries in our study. Hiring...
Government and Governance in 16 Developing Countries
This paper presents the findings on the government arena in 16 developing countries. The first key finding of relevance for both researchers and practitioners concerns the need to make a distinction between government and regime.
Political Society and Governance in 16 Developing Countries
This paper presents the findings for political society in 16 developing countries. Our study confirms that political society is the most difficult arena to govern. The political society arena is problematic in virtually all countries included in our survey....
Civil Society and Governance in 16 Developing Countries
This paper presents the findings for the civil society arena in 16 developing countries. We find that the civil society arena is generally considered to be quite open in the countries included in our study. And it has recorded a solid improvement in recent...
The Judiciary and Governance in 16 Developing Countries
This paper presents the findings for the judiciary arena in 16 developing countries. We find that the judicial arena is problematic in virtually all countries included in our survey. Access to justice remains low.
Making Sense of Governance: The Need for Involving Local Stakeholders
There is no shortage of references to the notion that the quality of governance matters to development. Many observers and analysts believe that it is the main reason for explaining variations in socio-economic development performance around the world. Kofi...
Assessing Governance in 16 Countries: The Aggregate Picture
This paper reports on the aggregate findings of the pilot World Governance Assessment project.
Measuring Governance: Methodological Challenges
This paper begins by assessing different ways in which governance has been studied by others so as to place the authors own study in a comparative methodological context. The paper discusses the implementation of the survey, highlighting some of the problems...
Governance and Development: Sorting Out the Basics
Governance has become a key concept in the international development debate over the past ten years. It marks an intriguing transformation in focus from micro to macro issues. It also poses fresh challenges to those interested in relating socio-economic...
Assessing Governance Dataset
Governance and Corruption Brief
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has stated that ‘good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development’.1 If governance matters, so does the need for more reliable and valid data on key governance...
Assessing and Analyzing Governance in India
As part of the World Governance Survey (WGS) project, a comprehensive assessment of governance at the national level in India was conducted in 2001. 177 experts from four states – Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi and Kerala – completed a questionnaire providing...
People Power II in the Philippines: The First e-Revolution?
With the new Century over a year old, technology has now played critical yet very different roles in bringing two of the world’s leaders to power. Among others things, Florida will remembered for technological hitches that plagued the ballot counting and...
Estrada, not People Power II, Weakened Democracy in the Philippines
Many people in the Philippines breathed a sigh of relief as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was sworn in as the new President a month ago. They had had enough of Estrada’s corruption, cronyism and incompetence. After the collapse of the impeachment hearings, they took...