A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

Table 14: Democratic Governance Profile of Province X
Province X: Overall Governance Index: 4.4
Index Areas Participation Fairness Accountability Transparency Efficiency Effectiveness
Government 3.9 5.5 2.6 5.4 2.8 3.3 4.4
Bureaucracy 4.0 5.3 5.3 1.0 2.5 5.7 6.8
Civil Society 5.4 4.0 7.0 7.0 3.9 5.8 4.9
Economic
Society
4.5 5.5 4.0 5.5 5.5 1.0 5.5
Key actors/stakeholders
Each provincial assessment was facilitated by an
independent researcher from Kemitraan-
Partnership, which was responsible for conducting
interviews, collecting secondary data, and
preparing a “provincial profile” to be shared and
discussed in a local consultative forum. The
methodology package lists the 32 well-informed
persons to be interviewed (e.g. one officer working
in the provincial secretariat, one officer from each
of the 3 parliamentarian commissionx on people’s
welfare, on the economy/industry/trade, on the
local budget and expenditure, one journalist from
the most prominent media in the province, one
academic who is a resource person for the local
government, one representative from the
provincial chamber of commerce, one CSO
representative who has participated in a
consultation with the local government, etc.)
Results reporting format
The final Index is expressed in the form of
Democratic Governance Profile as shown in the
following table, with scores between 1 and 10:
Gender focus
Minimal.Within the area “government”, an indicator
assesses the level of women’s political participation
in the provincial parliament by measuring the
proportion of female parliamentarians.
Poverty focus
While the overall aim of the assessment framework
is to measure the quality and fairness of policy
formulation and policy implementation processes
(as a proxy of quality and equitable development
outcomes), indicators do not have an explicit
pro-poor dimension.
Strengths
• Very comprehensive methodology combining
both objective and subjective data sources,
with detailed instructions for users and
ready-made data collection instruments (e.g.
data collection forms with scoring criteria,
guiding questions for interviews, etc.)
• Very actionable indicators generating data that
can easily used by local policymakers, pointing
to specific dysfunctions in local governance
processes
• Draws from an extensive range of objective data
sources from government and administrative
sources which are readily available but rarely
used in other local governance assessments
Weaknesses
• Detailed methodology drawing from multiple
data sources and informants, while ensuring
methodological rigor, requires a significant
amount of time and in-depth research
• Requires country adaptation, as several
indicators refer to institutions and practices
specific to Indonesia
Coverage
All Indonesian provinces.
Timeline
2008. On-going.
84 UNDP Oslo Governance Centre