Governance Indicators Document Gains in Sub-Saharan Africa

Countries around the world, including some of the poorest in Africa, have made "significant progress" in improving governance and fighting corruption over the decade, the new "Worldwide Governance Indicators" (WGI) study by the World Bank Institute (WBI) and World Bank Development Economics Vice-presidency shows.

Work on indicators, such as the WGI, has increased in response to growing interest in good governance as a precondition to sustainable development. Governance itself is a broad concept with many facets; preeminent among these is the rule of law, of which compliance and enforcement are essential components. The WGI suggest that significant improvements in governance over the past decade occurred in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Tajikistan, Serbia, and Slovakia. And in Africa in particular, countries such as Niger, Sierra Leone, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Tanzania, and Rwanda showed significant improvements in some dimensions of governance since 1998. Even over the relatively short period since 2002, there have been big improvements in some aspects of governance in countries such as Liberia, Angola, Argentina, and Georgia.

The gains in countries straddling all six continents are "hopeful news," according to study co-author Daniel Kaufmann, Director of Global Governance at the WBI. But he acknowledged: "On average, there is no evidence that governance in the world at large has improved markedly over the past decade. It is a very varied picture. The good news is that some countries, including some of the poorest ones in Africa, are deciding to move forward, and are showing to the world that it is possible to make substantial inroads in improving governance over a relatively short period of time - in less than a decade. However, others have stayed behind or even deteriorated."

Over the same period there were significant declines in governance in countries such as Cote d'Ivoire, Zimbabwe, and Venezuela.

WBI says research has shown the importance of good governance for aid effectiveness in general, and for the success or failure of World Bank projects in particular.

The full WGI volume, called "Governance Matters VI," shows how the six aggregate indicators are constructed. They are based on 33 individual data sources and hundreds of variables, capturing the views on governance of tens of thousands household and firm survey respondents, as well as hundreds of non-government organizations and public sector experts, and commercial business information providers worldwide.

The indicators measure Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Major Violence and Terror, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption.

The new 2007 volume and study, as well as the revamped and interactive website, showcases the full WGI dataset, covering 212 countries and territories from 1996 to 2006. The database can be found at this address.

The Worldwide Governance Indicators have provoked debate and discussions about their strengths as well as limitations for monitoring country governance, and for informing specific country reform strategies. The authors emphasize that the aggregate WGI data are just the starting point for identifying the country's governance strengths, vulnerabilities and broad trends, and for thinking about governance in specific country contexts.

An important next step, they say, is to review the many individual data sources and variables on which the WGI are built, so to obtain a more disaggregated picture, as well as relying on complementary in-country measurement and assessment tools, such as the Governance and Anti-Corruption country diagnostics, which have already been carried out in well over 20 countries together with domestic stakeholders and institutions.

Kaufmann said it's not only developing countries that face governance challenges. He said the new WGI data shows that a number of emerging economies rate better in governance and control of corruption than some rich industrialized economies, and notes that research points to continuing bribery by many multinationals headquartered in OECD countries operating in emerging markets.

He also says that "even if the WGI only rates countries on governance, excluding international financial institutions, we have explicitly recognized that we need to 'practice what we preach,' striving to attain exemplary governance standards within our own institution, promoting internal governance reforms and change."

The WGI is one of several projects to develop and track indicators related to good governance. INECE is leading a global effort to develop indicators of effective environmental compliance and enforcement. The INECE Indictor Project adds to international efforts, such as WGI, to understand governance and its critical role to sustainable development. For more information on the INECE project, visit
http://www.inece.org/forumsindicators.html.