A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

Gender focus
A specific attention is given to the gender
aspect of social exclusion in the region due to the
particularly bad conditions of women’s access to
assets, poverty and political representation,
together with higher levels of poverty and
unemployment amongst women than for men. As
a result, the questionnaire aims, at a minimum, to
consider the situation of women in economic and
political participation, and how they relate to the
functions and services of the municipality.
Questions have been included in the
questionnaire to assess the ability of the municipal
administration to implement gender-mainstreaming
measures efficiently. Questions also cover specific
actions, such as encouraging women to apply for
vacancies, and measures to increase the number of
women in public and private decision-making
bodies, and the quality of their participation (e.g.
“Does the municipal administration use any of the
following special methods (Interviews with
individuals, Specially targeted surveys, Focus
group discussions, Advisory panels, Working
groups or Committees, Separate public meetings)
to ensure that women, minorities and typically
socially excluded groups are participating
effectively in public consultations regarding
drinking water supply, liquid waste management,
solid waste management, basic healthcare, and
primary education?”, or “If there are specific
guidelines / procedures covering the integration
gender and human rights issues into policies,
strategies, and services, to what extent are they
actually implemented with respect to drinking
water supply, liquid waste management, solid
waste management, basic healthcare, and primary
education?”).
Poverty focus
The tool explicitly focuses on the capacity of
municipal administrations to deliver services to all
sectors of the community, in particular those
members of the community facing increased risk
of poverty and social exclusion. The questionnaire
therefore includes questions that directly address
the accessibility of public services to these groups
(women, ethnic and religious minorities, old
people, people with disabilities, migrants, etc.) with
respect to their needs, their participation in
defining these services, and their participation in
service delivery (e.g.“Which of the following issues
are important when selecting service delivery
partners: Partner’s services meet pro-poor
requirements (affordability), regarding setting of
tariffs, users fees, payment methods etc.”).
Strengths
• The capacity assessment exercise is not
conceived to be a measurement tool per se,
but to be followed by the implementation of
capacity response strategies on the ground.
• The questionnaire is intended to be used as it
stands. Thus there should be no need for
significant modification. Nevertheless, if it is
considered desirable and feasible, some
supplementary questions formulated by the
assessment team may be added or may be
taken directly from the list of supplementary
questions annexed to this user guide.
Weaknesses
• The methodology is limited to services that are
delivered exclusively by municipalities, and to a
lesser extent, services that are delivered with
the involvement of other service delivery
organisations. It does not cover services for
which municipalities have no responsibility, or
for which they have minimal responsibility.
Thus, in some countries, the methodology may
not cover all five of the above services, where
municipalities have little or no involvement the
delivery of one or other of these services.
• A wide range of human and institutional
resources are required to manage, implement
and follow-up the capacity assessment
exercise: UNDP country offices, national
central, regional, and local administrations,
associations of municipalities, national,
regional, and local NGO, citizen representatives,
national public administration academies, EC
Delegations, independent experts, etc.
Coverage
It is envisaged that all the municipalities of Turkey
and the Western Balkans will be covered by the
survey.
Timeline
2008. On-going.
148 UNDP Oslo Governance Centre