A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

Box 6:
Preliminary research in four municipalities to support the development of the Social Audit
on Local Governance for Bosnia and Herzegovina
This qualitative research was conducted by Prism Research in 2006 and involved 4 municipalities in BiH. The goal was
to obtain information about specific characteristics of services financed by the local municipality and to generate
indicators that measure citizens’ satisfaction with the quality of services, along with providers’ self-evaluation of
service provision. In each municipality a different sector was investigated:
• Local governance (satisfaction with local government, its quality and reliability; transparency; access to decision
making processes and participation; responsiveness of local government; social capital; public finances)
• Local roads (local road building; local road maintenance; winter road maintenance; signalization and drainage; work
and communal inspection services)
• Services of day-care centres (infrastructure; personnel; educational program; hygiene; medical services; evaluation
of the quality of services; collection of charges and financing)
• Waste collection and removal (work of the service provider and its infrastructure; municipal coverage; frequency of
solid waste removal; unregulated rubbish dumping; financing of solid waste collection services
The information was collected from citizens, civil society organizations, local governments, community representatives,
and local service providers. Data collection was done through focus group discussion and face-to-face in-depth
interviews. The table below shows the indicators generated by users and providers during the research in the
Municipality of Donji Vakuf, on the theme of local governance, and the results from the community performance scorecard
and providers’ self-evaluation scorecard.
Indicator
Group Grade
No. Users Providers Users Providers
1 Satisfaction with the work of the local authorities
and municipal agencies
Satisfaction with the work of the local authorities
and municipal agencies
2 5
2 Engagement by local community representatives Engagement by local community representatives 1 2
3 Citizens’ participation in MZ (Neighbourhood
council - Mjesna zajednica) sessions
Citizens’ participation in MZ sessions 2 2
4 - Citizens’ Participation in NGOs 2 4
5 Dispersion of municipal councillors (their place of
residence) throughout the municipality
Dispersion of municipal councillors (their place of
residence) throughout the municipality
2 5
6 - Proportion of those who receive and who are
(concerned with information MEANING?)
2 5
7 Number of formal requests for information Number of formal requests for information 1 1
Source: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTSOCACCDEMSIDEGOV/Resources/Prism_SocialAuditofLGinBiH_QualitativeReport.pdf
108 UNDP Oslo Governance Centre