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An Approach to Assessing Governance
How can we effectively assess and analyse
governance issues? Most commentators highlight the challenges
and that current approaches provide poor ways of assessing
key governance processes. Without advances on how to
assess governance, our understanding will remain unnecessarily
limited regarding how governance varies across the world,
what role governance really plays in development, and
what aspects of it may be particularly critical.
Based on extensive testing, we believe
we have developed a reliable approach to generating
valid data on governance issues. We developed an approach
using a balanced group of well-informed persons (WIPs)
- respondents who have a high degree of experience and
expertise regarding governance at the national level.
The WIP approach was shown to be feasible, relatively
low cost and generated meaningful results.
Step-by-step Overview:
Country Coordinators: The first
task is to identify a country coordinator/institution
in each country. The country coordinator then prepares
a short background governance report on the country.
The country coordinator, with the assistance of the
WGA staff, also develops the sampling frame.
Sampling: The coordinator then
develops a list of all relevant persons in 10 WIP groups
which include parliamentarians, civil servants, government
officials, business persons, academics and NGOs. These
persons should have extensive experience of the governance
realm. The coordinator, with help from the WGA team
will select the final sample of WIPs within these 10
different groups. It is desirable to include at least
100 respondents per country in the assessment - i.e.
10 from each key stakeholder group.
Data Collection: The governance
assessment exercise (background work, survey preparation,
data collection and reporting) at the country level
is the most cost-intensive component of the approach.
Our belief is that the key to feasibility, as well as
cost control, for the WGA lies in exploiting the use
of the Internet. As well as our paper survey, we have
developed an online version of the WGA survey. This
survey instrument utilizes custom programming and a
robust database format. The online survey tool has many
valuable features, such as confidentiality, a simple
fast-loading format and the ability for respondents
to stop at any point in the survey and return later
to finish, picking up where they left off. Country coordinators
can use this same online survey instrument to enter
data from respondents who choose to complete the survey
using the paper version.
The WGA Governance Index: The
governance index used in the pilot phase demonstrated
very high levels of inter-item reliability and good
correlation with existing credible indicators where
relevant. In addition to ranking each answer, respondents
are invited to provide comments; thus the approach also
generates very rich qualitative data.
Study Management: Back-up support
from a survey specialist is important for ensuring reliable
data. To save time, lower costs and provide support,
country coordinators in our work use the project's web
site and project management module to manage their samples
and data collection. We monitor the progress in each
country in real time and assist country coordinators
as needed.
Source:
Making
Sense of Governance: The Need for Involving Local Stakeholders
Goran Hyden, Julius Court and Kenneth Mease (2003) Development
Dialog.
Conclusions
in 16 Developing Countries Goran Hyden, Julius
Court and Kenneth Mease (2003) World Governance Survey
Discussion Paper 10.
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