Yemen takes steps to fight corruption by measuring it better
Yemen’s government and civil society, with the facilitation of UNDP, have taken concrete steps to raise the profile of the struggle against the endemic corruption that slows down efforts towards any durable human development in the country. Within the objective to develop the analytical capacity of the coalition of civil society organizations (CSO) that aspires to become the Yemeni Chapter of Transparency International, UNDP-Yemen in coordination with the Supreme National Authority for Combating Corruption (SNACC) recently organized a training workshop on the measurement of corruption. For three days, CSOs as well as government representatives joined by the purpose of the combat against corruption focused on understanding different approaches and methodologies for...
Nicaragua draws from Paraguay’s experience to improve the monitoring capacity of its National Assembly
Latin American countries, regardless of their size and development level, have a lot to learn from each other’s democratic processes. Nicaragua proved to appreciate the value of intra-regional exchange over external support, when it invited a Paraguayan delegation to share experiences on country-led governance assessments. A joint mission from the Global Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments, which supports a project to develop an indicators framework for the National Assembly of Nicaragua to better monitor government expenditure, and UNDP-Paraguay, which has successful stories to tell on national governance assessment initiatives (see our story on Paraguay: Congress better equipped to check on governance performance in our March 2010 Newsletter),...
Senegal and Indonesia: South-South cross-fertilization on data collection methods
In Senegal, the first National Programme for Good Governance (which ended in 2007) suffered from a lack of coordination amongst governance actors, and from the absence of a monitoring framework to help track results and inform decision-making. The ‘second edition’ (2007-11) of the Programme addressed these deficiencies head-on by establishing a new unit (DREAT) responsible for the coordination of all governance projects and programmes in Senegal, and for monitoring progress towards achieving the objectives outlined in the Programme. In an effort to enhance the quality of governance monitoring in Senegal, the coordinating unit (DREAT) steering the implementation of the national governance programme has embarked on a participatory process for developing a monitoring...
Viet Nam: New online tool will allow greater participation in assessing public administration
With the help of an online tool, people in Viet Nam will soon have the opportunity to engage more on issues of public administration and basic service delivery performance. The tool will help disseminate, analyze and review the governance indicators of the Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI). It will also help broaden participation and consultation in Viet Nam on these issues with the potential to strengthen accountability and responsiveness of government. Created by the Centre for Community Support Development Studies (CECODES) and the Viet Nam Fatherland Front (VFF), the PAPI responds to an urgent need for feedback from citizens on the quality of public services. The PAPI provides a two-pronged solution: On the one hand, it offers a diagnostic instrument tailored...
Dominican Republic: Human Empowerment Index will help strengthen local services for development
In collaboration with the Government of the Dominican Republic, UNDP is working on a National Human Development Report for 2012 that will strengthen the Dominican Human Empowerment Index. The index, analysis and policy recommendations will build on the previous report from 2008 entitled “Human Development, a question of power”. By comparing the situation for different social groups, age groups and men and women, at the level of provinces, the new report will aim to support public policy making as well as basic public services for strengthening human development. The human development approach takes a broad view on what development means. The approach understands development in terms of strengthening human capabilities, and contrasts with a common view that sees...
FYR Macedonia kicks off data collection on social inclusion in health and education
The Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYRM) has just released its third People-centered Analysis (PCA) Report, which continues to examine social inclusion trends. This third report has a special focus on the provision of healthcare and education services. Largely based on the findings of a representative survey, the PCAs have brought citizens' opinions and concerns about key social, economic, governance and inter-ethnic developments to the forefront of national policy debates in the country. Meanwhile, with the support of the Global Programme, a new methodology to assess social inclusion in the provision of health care and education services has been developed by the South East Europe University in Skopje. This new methodology aims to...
Iraq pioneers governance indicators for a complex post-conflict setting
Developing governance indicators for a complex post-conflict situation like Iraq is truly ground-breaking work. There are no existing models, no ready-made assessment frameworks available globally that can be easily applied to such contexts. As such, the pioneering efforts of the Iraqi Government in developing a national governance monitoring system can provide invaluable direction to nascent efforts in other countries and regions which are similarly affected by conflict. The Government of Iraq has recently completed its first National Development Plan (NDP) for the period 2010-14. It is now in the process of developing sector-level indicators to monitor the implementation of the Plan. The Governance Chapter of the NDP is clearly the hardest ‘...
New paper on governance indicators and National Human Development Reports
National Human Development Reports are particularly opportune entry points for promoting the use of better quality and more country-based democratic governance indicators. The Global Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments published a new paper which explores the use of governance indicators in National Human Development Reports (NHDR) between 2000 and 2009. With 10 case studies, this paper illustrates the diversity of governance indicators usage and data collection, as well as some of the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches. A major recommendation in the publication is to use the opportunity of NHDR preparation to support the strengthening of national capacities to monitor governance on a sustainable and continual basis. Download the full...
Governance assessment toolbox for education and health MDGs
The idea for this Toolbox arose from a simple observation: measurement influences action. If equity, accountability and transparency in the provision of health care and education are not being measured, it is unlikely that society will take strong action to reduce the growing disparities concealed by national averages. Indeed, there is strong evidence that poor governance is one of the overarching reasons for the shortfall on the MDGs, yet there is very little guidance available for diagnosing in a systematic manner the multiple types of governance obstacles that hinder MDG achievements. This toolbox aims to fill this gap by providing a set of assessment tools for diagnosing and monitoring a range of governance problems that are specific to the health and education...
Arab Democracy Barometer launched
The Arab Reform Initiative (ARI), in partnership with the Arab Barometer, has recently launched the Arab Democracy Barometer (ADB), a rich multi-country survey project on a variety of social and political issues that will be carried out in 10 Arab states: Jordan, Morocco, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Algeria, Bahrain and Palestine. The project is financed by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada and UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Arab States, who will use data from the surveys in its upcoming reports on Arab human development. The project seeks to measure and track over time citizen attitudes, values, and behavior patterns relating to pluralism, freedoms, tolerance and equal opportunity; social and inter-personal trust; social, religious and political...
Washington D.C. workshop: Towards global indicators for peacebuilding and statebuilding
The Global Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments, in partnership with UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR), continues to deepen its involvement in innovative work to better measure governance in situations of conflict and crisis. (See our story on Iraq in this Newsletter, and our story on measuring poor state performance in the June 2010 Newsletter.) A recent example is its participation in an expert workshop in Washington D.C. aimed at building a consensus around a set of peacebuilding and statebuilding indicators, operationalizing the seven goals identified in the Dili Declaration. This event jointly organized by the OECD-INCAF and the World Bank-World Development Report 2011, in cooperation with UNDP-BCPR, intended to inform the international...
Global Programme mid-annual report issued
The Global Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments has issued its mid-annual report, covering the period from January to July 2010. Highlights of the report include a detailed region-by-region and country-by-country update of the Programme’s activities to support country-led governance assessments, a description of its knowledge management and outreach processes, a section dedicated to South-South cooperation and a section on emerging governance assessment areas such as reduction of deforestation and forest degradation, conflict and post-conflict contexts or political economy analysis. For more information, contact joachim.nahem@undp.org.
OGC annual retreat: planning innovation
On 15 and 16 September, all the staff of the Oslo Governance Centre (OGC) took two days off their daily routine to focus exclusively, in an out-of-office environment, on team-building as well as developing an innovative vision for 2011. The annual retreat’s programme included diversified sessions on the global context and current implications of UNDP’s governance work, exercises on the application of new approaches to governance analysis, discussions on how to systematically improve knowledge production and management, and groups’ work to plan for a 2011 agenda that will make a difference. But it also provided the space for more informal socialization activities, essential to a good understanding among team members and thus to the efficiency of their work efforts....
A summary of online commentary and debate (July - Sept 2010)
Table of Contents Critical Assessments Fresh Measures Scoring Governance (and Sport) New tools and Tech Trends Critical Assessments There were a number of online discussions this summer criticizing methodologies and uses of governance indicators. Open Democracy dismissed the idea of a "democratic recession" they found represented in a number of Global Indices on Governance. The Center for International Media Assistance launched a new report, “Evaluating the Evaluators”, which sparked some debate on press freedom assessment methodologies, while Mark Ellery suggested in his post, Dying to Measure, how a focus on impact assessment can distract from big-picture programme goals. Aresearch summary was posted by the Governance and Social Development...