Too often, governance assessments end up being stand-alone exercises with little practical results, influence on reform or impact on democratization. In addition, capacity deficits, a lack of political commitment, poor coordination, low stakeholder engagement, poor institutionalization, unsustainable resources and little ownership represent pitfalls of conducting country-led governance assessments.

 

Evaluating preparedness for country-led governance assessments serves to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats with regard to achieving the main objectives of a national programme. Most commonly, such studies will take into account the political and developmental context, political commitment, demand and supply of governance data, institutional capacity, managerial capability and resources.

 

A strategic objective of affecting policy requires that the results of the governance assessment be embedded in policymaking. Country-specific drivers of demand and supply of governance evidence therefore may prove critical for informing the assessment strategy. At the same time, experience shows that increasing the supply side of governance data is rarely enough. A strategy for a national programme of country-led governance assessment thus needs to state how to strengthen the demand side of governance evidence.

 

Finally, evaluating preparedness may inform the baseline for the evaluation of the governance assessment. While the evaluation of readiness may not be useful as a baseline for how the assessment has influenced specific policies, it should be able to provide information on the increase of demand and supply of governance evidence in policymaking.