A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

and financial resources) and those hampering
political empowerment. 16
This has two implications: the first is the
importance of governance assessments for
providing a much better information base on the
situation of the poor so as to feed into policy and
decision making. In order to be effective, policies
have to combine sound technical analysis with the
political support and legitimacy that emanates
from the poor themselves.
The second implication is the need for governance
assessments to explicitly include measures and
indicators that will capture the specific governance
deficits that adversely impact the poor. In this
regard, there are three major dimensions of
poverty that assessments of local governance
should try to address through the design and
selection of appropriate indicators: 17
1 Poverty as a lack of power – this refers to the
lack of a voice in decision making and public
policy choices and in the access to resources
required to rise out of poverty; lack of basic
political freedoms; social exclusion and lack of
social rights; and limited capacity to access and
influence state institutions and/or social
processes.
2 Poverty as inadequate access to social services –
This form of deprivation is characterized by
poor access to services (such as education and
health facilities).
3 Poverty as insecure livelihood and vulnerability
to environmental risks and poor access to
infrastructure. The general concept of
‘insecurity’ refers to insecure access to, use of
and control over productive resources and
income-generating activities. This dimension
of poverty, which is characteristic of rural areas,
basically concerns assets (i.e., tangible and
intangible stores of wealth) and commodities
(i.e., products which are exchanged or sold) as
well as poor access to basic infrastructure (such
as markets, roads, etc.).
Box 7 below provides some examples of pro-poor
measures in assessments.
Unfortunately very few assessments of local
governance, including those in the Source Guide,
use measures that are explicitly focused on the
poor. For example, the Urban Governance Index (see
page 56), includes just two out of 25 indicators
(“existence of a pro-poor pricing policy for water”,
and “incentives for informal business”) that
explicitly focus on the poor. Several of the sources
in the Source Guide have broad stated aims of
promoting local development and alleviating
poverty but do not reflect or integrate this concern
by selecting indicators focused on the poor. That
being said, most of the sources do allow for the
data to be disaggregated by income levels to
provide information on the relationship between
poverty and local governance but this is not the
same as indicators that are specifically selected or
defined around the poor.
Box 7.
Examples of pro-poor measures in assessments
Example indicator
• Number of non-governmental organizations active in the poorest districts
• Evidence of local policies targeted at the poor, e.g. employment programmes, improved access to basic services
• Perceptions of poor respondents on whether they believe there has been an improvement in the provision of
public services because of decentralization
Data source
• Administrative data on number of registered NGOs at district level
• Analysis of local government policies
• Survey data
16
Angelo Bonfiglioli ‘Empowering the Poor Local Governance for Poverty Reduction’ UNCDF (2003). UNCDF
17
Angelo Bonfiglioli ‘Empowering the Poor Local Governance for Poverty Reduction’ UNCDF (2003). UNCDF
A Users’ Guide to Measuring Local Governance 15