Selecting governance indicators

Transcription

1 Selecting governance indicators Roger Koranteng, Adviser (Governance), Thematic sub-programme Group Joseph Mensah, International Development Studies, York University, Canada Introduction The Commonwealth Secretariat has a global reputation as a trusted partner in governance and development and is a provider of professional and technical services. The Secretariat seeks to be efficient and effective and to measure the impact of its work as mandated by the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGMs). The 2006 Ministers Forum on Public Sector Development in Sydney, Australia, requested the Secretariat s Governance and Institutional Development Division (GIDD) to develop a governance framework to guide improved service delivery. It is a known fact that the roads to good governance are not paved in a linear or identical fashion, since there are historical differences among regions that are bound to affect the way governance is perceived (Mensah, 2006). This notwithstanding, the Secretariat accepted the need for a common framework to guide its governance-related activities. The Secretariat, in consultation with both internal and external stakeholders, developed the following definition of governance: The Commonwealth views governance as the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country s affairs at all levels. Good governance enables the development of public value by promoting the principles of accountability, transparency, predictability, capacity and participation throughout the institutions and processes that regulate the public realm. Based on this definition, the Secretariat sees good governance as a means of enabling the development of public value through institutions and processes that are accountable, transparent, predictable, and capable and open to participation. Thus, for the Secretariat, the core five principles of good governance are: Accountability Transparency Predictability Participation Capacity/capability (Koranteng, 2009). Each of the five principles is linked and mutually reinforcing. For example, without transparency it is unlikely that citizens can fully participate in public life, hold officials to account, or operate within the rule of law. Similarly, accountability is related to participation, and is the ultimate safeguard of predictability and transparency. If the system lacks capacity, the ability to deliver in any of the other four areas is severely compromised. Having identified the key elements of good governance, there has been considerable discussion about moving towards country-specific indicators. These indicators are considered important because they can provide a more strategic lens for responding to country-specific needs by aligning resources. The view that good governance has a positive effect on socioeconomic development i.e., that it can help countries create the necessary conditions for the proper functioning of markets, private enterprises, civil society and institutions has become the new orthodoxy in the available literature on international development (Weiss, 2000; Besançon, 2003). Many think-tanks, academics, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), international development agencies and donor organistions, such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the UK s Department for International Development (DFID), are now devoting substantial attention to good governance and its measurement indicators. Despite the valuable insight offered by the prevailing indicators of good governance, there is growing concern that the bulk of the data upon which they are based is derived almost exclusively from the perspectives of experts in the global North, with little or no input from stakeholders in the South. To the best of our knowledge, none of the current governance indicators involve local stakeholders in developing the indicators. Writing about the specific case of broad or composite indicators of good governance, this is how even the World Bank (1994) expressed this sentiment: Most broad indicators are produced by for-profit firms or NGOs from industrial nations, through non-transparent processes, and unaccompanied by details about the nature or sources of the perceived deficiencies in governance. As a result, they can easily be dismissed by governments embarrassed by their low rankings. Ghana s workshop It was in an effort to help address this concern that the Commonwealth Secretariat recently embarked on a project to gather the views and perceptions of member countries on good governance and its indicators through a series of workshops. The idea was to find out directly from Commonwealth member countries, most of which were in the global South, what their contextually grounded views on good governance really are. An initial step in designing such governance indicators was to involve local stakeholders in articulating locally relevant definitions of good governance and to participate in the selection of the variables and indicators for measuring governance. The Secretariat believes that governance indicators must be developed with, by and for stakeholders within the country being reviewed. This means that 14 Commonwealth Good Governance 2010

2 S e l e c t i n g g o v e r n a n c e i n d i c a t o r s local stakeholders must participate in deciding which indicators to focus on, and their views and perceptions must be included in the assessments. The governance indicators should be actionable and, more importantly, the process must have a bottom-up approach. At the end of the process we will then be able to conclude that, within the Commonwealth, perceptions of governance are countryspecific or are generally the same. We hope to roll out the process throughout Commonwealth countries and that it helps in the selection and validation of locally relevant governance indicators. The very first of such initiatives was undertaken in Ghana, through a workshop held in Accra on January The workshop was a resounding success, and the hope is that similar workshops will follow suit in other Commonwealth countries in due course. Significance of the workshop Given that good governance is essentially about such principles as transparency, participation and capacity, the Secretariat s efforts to take the exercise of developing good governance indicators to individual countries needs no further practical or theoretical justification. For one thing, if it does not take the views and perceptions of these member countries into consideration, the Secretariat stands the risk of undermining its own principles of governance and institutional efficiency, embedded in transparency, participation etc. Another argument favouring the Secretariat s efforts to contextualise its governance indicators, with regards to the views of individual countries, is the fact that member governments cannot easily discount the ensuing indicators, and their attendant ratings, as mere pontifications by foreign experts with no local input. Any such criticism is effectively nipped in the bud with a project like this, which relies entirely on the views of local people or experts. Methods of data collection There are a number of approaches for gathering data on good governance indicators. One can conduct a large survey among the citizens or firms, derive the data from experts, or use a combination of the two. Given the short time-frame within which we were operating, we decided to use the two-day workshop to gather the necessary data from experts drawn from the Ghanaian social, economic, political, and intellectual spheres. Notable Members of Parliament and government ministers, including the Ghana Minister of Foreign Affairs who is also currently the Chair of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group on Governance were involved. Faculty members from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) the host institution and the University of Ghana, as well as key business people, civil society organisations and the mass media were also involved. The data-procurement method was two-fold: the first used questionnaires to solicit participants responses to questions on what their own understanding of good governance was, and to rank the five good governance principles identified by the Secretariat; the second involved focus group discussions with the sole purpose of identifying the indicators. Data results Rather than reporting everything that transpired at the workshop, what follows is an analysis of our data, with a particular focus on identifying what constitutes good governance, and its attendance indicators, from the standpoint of Ghanaians. Good governance as seen from the perspective of the participants With the aid of a qualitative questionnaire, participants were asked to define good governance in their own words. The answers that emerged (see Table 1) were remarkably similar to the Secretariat s own definition. Moreover, the recurrence of such themes as leadership, management of resources, the exercise of power for the public good and the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, among others, clearly points to the importance of stewardship of public resources in the theorisation of good governance by many of the participants. The prudent management of a country s affairs for the well-being of its citizens was also an important tenet of good governance in the minds of many of the participants. Again, to effectively ward off any potential criticism of the Secretariat imposing its own principles on member countries, participants were asked to identify which principles, if any, they would like to add to, or subtract from, the five principles of good Table 1 Selected definitions of good governance by Ghanaians Using formal and informal means to achieve positive public good for citizens of a country in terms of the political, social, economic and religious spheres of the country Achieving authority through acceptable means and exercising such authority in a responsible manner Government by the people and for the people at all levels of interaction The presence of democracy i.e., constitution, separation of powers, right institutions of governance plus good leadership, prudence in economic management, transparency, dialogue and participation A process of social engagement between the rulers and the ruled in a polity A government that is accountable to the people and has zero tolerance for corruption; there is good governance when citizens own the process of governance and abide by the laws meant to protect life The judicious management of a country s resources human and material, among other things Having structures and systems in place for the transparent delivery of services Having an orderly government that can bring about peace, prosperity and development of a country Commonwealth Good Governance

3 G o v e r n a n c e, t h e C o m m o n w e a l t h c o n t e x t Local government workshop, Ghana governance identified by the Secretariat (accountability, transparency, predictability, participation and capacity/capability). Interestingly, none of our participants thought it prudent to eliminate any of the five principles. However, a few offered some additional principles to the list see Table 2. Without engaging in any hair-splitting semantics here, one can reasonably contend that most of the principles added by our participants, including impartiality, equality and fairness, inclusiveness, decentralised government, gender equality, education and efficiency, can very well be subsumed under the Secretariat s principles of participation and capacity. Arguably, only the last two principles suggested by the participants environmental sustainability and ownership seem to add a novel prescience to the Secretariat s theorisation of good governance. This revelation is crucial. For one thing, any assertion of good governance in the absence of environmental sustainability and grassroots ownership of the process of governance is difficult to defend, at least theoretically. Indeed, it is surprising how most of the prevailing ideas of good Table 2 Suggested principles of good governance to be added to the Commonwealth Secretariat s list Impartiality Equality and fairness Inclusiveness Decentralised government Gender equality Education Efficiency Environmental sustainability Ownership Governance principles governance, including those of the Secretariat, the World Bank and the UNDP, have all overlooked the issue of environmental sustainability in this era of green. Thus, it would serve the Secretariat very well to add environmental sustainability to its principles of good governance. What are the indicators of good governance? At the heart of the exercise was an effort to gather the views of Ghanaians on what they see are the key indicators of good governance, based on the Secretariat s five principles (accountability, transparency, predictability, participation and capacity/capability). It is instructive to note from the outset that for the purpose of identifying the indicators, the five principles were seen as broad theoretical constructs, with some of them overlapping with others in their underlying meanings. And, given their inherent theoretical abstractions, each of the five principles was deemed to harbour more than one basic theme, with the various themes, in turn, having their own corollaries. What follows are the results of the focus group discussions to extract the key indicators of good governance from each of the five principles in turn. 1. Accountability Defined by the Secretariat as the ability of ordinary citizens to hold elected and appointed officials responsible for their decisions and actions, accountability serves two main purposes: 1. It is a mechanism for checks and balances, bringing the might of elected officials under public scrutiny. 2. It helps to ensure that government officials operate more effectively and efficiently. Armed with this basic definition, together with their personal insights informed by their own experiences in Ghana, participants 16 Commonwealth Good Governance 2010

4 S e l e c t i n g g o v e r n a n c e i n d i c a t o r s were asked to identify what they see as indicators of accountability. As can be seen from Table 3, two main themes emerged in conjunction with the indicators of accountability from the perspective of participants. The first relates to de jure indicators of accountability, mainly pointing to the related rules and regulations in the books. Here, the availability of the Whistle Blowers Act, the Procurement Act, the Audit Services Act and the Asset Declaration laws for top government officials were the main concern. We must stress that we were able to establish at the workshop that Ghana does have all of these accountability-related legislative instruments in its judicial books. The second major theme of accountability deals with oversight and enforcement institutions and protocols. For this theme, the issues raised included having an independent judiciary, freedom of the press, and having an efficient and effective fraud investigation unit in the police service. Other general indicators identified included government officials taking responsibility for their actions, government adhering to the rule of law, and government taking prompt action when things go wrong. The swiftness with which the government takes responsibility for its actions, or explains itself to the people when necessary, was also deemed very important by many of the participants. 2. Transparency Conceptualised by the Secretariat as the public s access to, and knowledge of, the rules, regulations, policies and operations of those oppositions of power, transparency is fairly close to, if not a prerequisite, of accountability. Members of the public obviously have to know what is amiss (via existing mechanism of transparency) before they can seek accountability. Given this conceptual interconnection, it came as no surprise that the two main themes that emerged in the analysis of the indicators of transparency were very similar to those of accountability. As with accountability, Table 4 shows that participants identified a number of de jure indicators of transparency, including the presence of the Freedom of Information Act, access to the Information Act, anticorruption laws, and laws and regulations regarding lobbying and political donations. In addition, several indicators were identified under the general theme of oversight, enforcement and institutions. These included enforcing existing rules and regulations on transparency and anti-corruption laws, having institutions in place to ensure transparency, and enforcing stringent sanctions for the infringement of transparency rules. Other indicators suggested by the participants included having properly documented government policies and procedures, having an independent electoral commission, and having a less corrupt police force. 3. Predictability Also known as the rule of law by the Secretariat, the principle of predictability relates to the existence of laws, regulations and policies to facilitate the smooth running of society. Additionally, predictability refers to the fair and consistent application of existing laws and regulations. For the principle of predictability to have any real value, a nation s legal system should be in a position to exact sanctions to penalise or deter infringements through an impartial and independent judicial system. Table 3 Indicators of accountability Table 4 Indicators of transparency Theme 1: Good laws of accountability Whistle Blowers Act Procurement Act Audit Service Act Financial Administration Act Asset Declaration laws for top government officials Access to information laws Theme 2: Oversight and enforcement institutions and protocols Independent judiciary Freedom of the press in Ghana Stringent sanctions associated with enforcement or accountability laws Effective Auditor-General s Department Effective and efficient fraud investigation unit in the police service Others Government officials taking responsibility for their actions Government taking prompt actions when things go wrong Government officials explaining their actions when necessary Government officials being good custodians of public resources Government adhering to the rule of law Theme 1: Laws and regulations Freedom of Information Act Access to Information Act Full Disclosure Act Anti-corruption laws Lobbying properly formalised Proper laws and regulations regarding political donations Government institutions with proper codes of conduct Theme 2: Oversight, enforcement and institutions Properly enforced rules and regulations of transparency Anti-corruption laws Institutions in place to ensure transparency Transparent sanctions properly applied in cases of infringement Effective institutions or procedures for open scrutiny of government actions Others Making political donations transparent Government policies and procedures properly documented Having an independent electoral commission Freedom of the press Effective electoral commission Commonwealth Good Governance

5 G o v e r n a n c e, t h e C o m m o n w e a l t h c o n t e x t As can be seen from Table 5, three main themes emerged out of the multiplicity of predictability indicators suggested by our participants. These themes relate to rules and regulations, education and institutions, and enforcement. The indicators identified under rules and regulations are de jure measures dealing with the presence, or otherwise, of the rule of law, an Ombudsman and an alternative dispute-resolution system in Ghana. As a burgeoning democracy, the rule of law is something the government espouses religiously; as to whether the talk of the rule of law translates into practice is another matter hence the emphasis on the word espouses. The presence of an Ombudsman was also confirmed by the workshop participants, as was the availability of an alternative conflict-resolution mechanism. From what was gathered from the workshop, the latter is commonly available through the traditional chieftaincy and other customary power hierarchies in the country. Our participants were quick to point out that without public education on the rule of law, governance cannot be readily predictable. In addition to the existence of predictability-related rules and regulations and education, the availability of enforcement mechanisms was important to participants. Under the latter theme, participants also identified security issues relating to private property, as well as having an independent judiciary, a competent police force and properly enforced property rights. Beyond these three major themes, a number of related indicators surfaced: Table 5 Theme 1: Rules and regulations The rule of law Ombudsmanship Alternative dispute-resolution system Theme 2: Education and institutions Citizens being reasonably aware of what constitutes the rule of law Necessary facilities for civic education Ongoing civic educational campaign on the rule of law Theme 3: Enforcement Security for private property Decreasing level of crime Adequate compensation for those in charge of enforcing the rule of law Competent judiciary Necessary resources for the police force to perform well Competent police force Enforced property right Timely judicial trials Others Indicators of predictability Adherence to the rule of law Sense of better personal security Adherence to fundamental human rights Clear rules and regulations on business practices People aware of what the rule of law is government adherence to the rule of law, human rights principles, and clear rules and regulations on business practices. 4. Participation The Secretariat sees the principle of participation as one of the cornerstones, if not the foundation, of democratic good governance. Among other avenues, participation or the meaningful and unbridled involvement in governance by all segments of society can occur by way of voting, public consultation or through the exercise of freedom of speech. For participation to be complete, all segments of society must have equal opportunity to take part in governance. Thus, particular attention needs to be given to those who traditionally lack power among the population, including women, children and those who constitute the minority (in the sense of power relations) in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and other social locations. Table 6 highlights the three main themes that were deduced from the data on participation stakeholders of participation, forms of participation and sustainability of participation. Under Table 6 Theme 1: Stakeholders of participation Women having equal and fair chance of participating in governance in Ghana Gender mainstreaming regulations Ethnic minority having equal chance of participating in governance at all levels Rural people having an equal and fair chance of participating in governance Young people having a say in decision-making Effective local governance across the country Theme 2: Forms of participation Continuous dialogue between government and the people at all levels of governance Ordinary people having the chance to participate in governance beyond mere voting Credible peoples participation in governance Citizens having a real chance to influence key decisions of governance Having a regular consultative process in Ghana People in all parts of the country adequately represented in government Those in positions of power open to diverse views Citizens feeling a sense of ownership to the government Reasonable access to people in positions of power People being hired on merit People generally respecting of authority Theme 3: Sustainability of participation Reliable institutions for participation at all levels of governance Indicators of participation Mechanisms for people to influence what affects them Allowing people to be involved in decision-making through regular pubic forums 18 Commonwealth Good Governance 2010

6 S e l e c t i n g g o v e r n a n c e i n d i c a t o r s stakeholders, participants identified indicators that deal with such issues as women having an equal and fair chance to participate in governance, rural people having a say in decision-making, ethnic minorities having an equal chance of participating in governance or government institutions, and the effectiveness of local government institutions. Two groups of stakeholders that are conspicuous by their absence on the list are disabled people and sexual orientationbased minorities. As with many African countries, the latter group is highly clandestine due to stigmatisation, and this has created a scenario of out-of-sight and therefore out-of-mind among many in Ghana. However, considering that people who are disabled (both mentally and physically) continue to receive some attention from authorities in Ghana, their absence from the list of stakeholders was somewhat surprising. The second major theme, forms of participation, also threw up a wide range of indicators, including continuous dialogue between government and the people at all levels of governance, and ordinary people getting the chance to participate in governance beyond voting. Other indicators deal with citizens having a real sense of ownership with regards to governance, having reasonable access to positions of power, and being generally respectful of authority. Under the theme of sustainability, three main indicators were identified. These were the reliability of institutions for participation at all levels of governance; mechanisms for citizens to influence decisions that affect them; and the opportunity for people to be involved in the decision-making process through participation in regular public forums. 5. Capacity Seen as the ability to achieve desired policy outcomes, capacity (or capability) comes in many forms: institutional, organisational, administrative, infrastructural, technological etc. Defined this way, capacity clearly occurs in tandem with participation, as rightly noted by one of the participants. According to Table 7, three major themes emerged under the principle of capacity. The first, administrative and institutional, has indicators that probe into the nation s public institutions being competent enough to deliver good governance, having adequate monitoring and evaluation systems in place to promote good governance, and procedures to empower ordinary people to expect and demand good governance. The second theme, human resources, also deals with a wide range of issues, such as stakeholders having the necessary education and competency to participate in key decision-making, government hiring on merit, and civil servants having the necessary training and professional development to enhance capacity. The third theme, infrastructure and technology, yielded indicators that seek to measure whether people have the necessary technological resources to carry out their assignments properly i.e., the level of competency among civil servants with regards to information and communications technology (ICT), and the availability of an up-to-date ICT infrastructure in government institutions. Unsurprisingly, the two adverbs that featured most with regards to capacity and capability were effectively and efficiently. Table 7 Theme 1: Administrative and institutional Public institutions competent enough to deliver good governance Adequate monitoring and evaluation systems in place to promote institutional capacity Government institutions having adequate performance management systems (pms) in place Effective procurement systems to promote good governance Procedures in place to empower people at the grassroots level to demand and expect good governance Theme 2: Human resources Stakeholders have the necessary education and competency to be involved in key decision-making Government hiring on merit Competent civil service Civil servants having the necessary training to perform efficiently Civil servants undertaking regular training and professional development Civil service being less corrupt Those in power having the skills to govern effectively Government having the capacity to sustain good governance Theme 3: Infrastructure and technology Government workers having the technological resources to carry on their assignments efficiently Level of computer literacy, or ICT competence, among civil servants The use of s, the internet and other ICT innovations common among public officials and other workers in the formal sector Indicators of capacity Up-to-date ICT infrastructure in government institutions Which of the five principles was deemed most important by participants? In an effort to roughly gauge the relative importance of the five principles of good governance in the minds of the workshop participants, one of the questions in our questionnaire involved giving 100 good governance points (or GGPs) to each of the respondents and asking them to distribute the points among the five principles, based on order of importance. Table 8 sums up the rankings derived from the 12 respondents who fully participated in this exercise. (We must note that some participants did not assign all their 100 points, so the total does not add up to 1,200 GGPs.) Without question, one can hardly make any strong generalisation with data derived from merely 12 respondents. Still, the result of this simple exercise is quite telling in its identification of capacity as the most important principle among the five identified by the Commonwealth Secretariat. The importance of capacity in general, and institutional capacity in particular, in the minds of our participants, surfaced in other contexts. For example, when asked Commonwealth Good Governance

7 G o v e r n a n c e, t h e C o m m o n w e a l t h c o n t e x t Table 8 The most important principle to participants Rank Principle Good Governance Points (GGPs) 1st Capacity 290 2nd Participation 255 3rd Accountability 240 4th Transparency 230 5th Predictability 115 Total number of GGPs 1170 to provide any comments or suggestions at the end of the questionnaire, some took the opportunity to reiterate their belief that capacity is the most important of all. As one participant puts it Institutional capacity is the mainstay of democracy. Another emphatically noted that the basis for democracy and sustainable development lies in the strength and autonomy of governance institutions. Similarly, given the chance to either add to, or subtract from, the Secretariat s five principles, one participant observed that Institutional capacity or organisational infrastructure should stand alone, as most of the other principles depend on it. Another intriguing finding from Table 8 relates to the fact that participation is second only to capacity in the rankings. This seems to corroborate our earlier finding that the two principles of capacity and participation are normally in tandem. In which of the five principles is Ghana performing best? In the very last data-procurement exercise at the workshop, participants were asked to identify, by show of hands, the principle in which Ghana is performing best, based on their personal observations. The ensuing rankings are summarised in Table 9. While the result from this voting is unscientific, it still points to the growing involvement, or at least an increasing sense of participation in governance among many Ghanaians. This is not surprising, given the prevalence of freedom of speech, with the proliferation of privately owned newspapers and radio and television stations across the country since the mid-1990s. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the principles of transparency and accountability, which many of our participants found woefully lacking in Ghana, as in many other African countries where corruption remains a persistent development problem. Even though the results are not that scientific, the wide gap Table 9 Ranking the five principles Ghana s performance Ghana s relative performance in the five principles Ranking Principle Number of Votes (N = 46) 1st Participation 31 2nd Capacity 13 3rd Predictability 2 4th Accountability 0 5th Transparency 0 between the votes for participation on the one hand and accountability and transparency on the other, leaves little to the imagination as to the relative performance of Ghana in these principles of good governance. Conclusion With the Secretariat having developed a well-grounded theorisation of good governance with its own principles, it is only apposite to see how well this conceptualisation holds up under empirical scrutiny. Interestingly, the findings indicate that the views and perceptions of Ghanaians agree largely with the Secretariat s own on the subject. Indeed, the definitions of good governance offered by participants were not much different from Commonwealth Secretariat s. There was an overwhelming consensus on the merit of the Secretariat s five principles of good governance accountability, transparency, predictability, participation and capacity/capability. None of our participants found reason to drop any of the Secretariat s five principles when given the chance to do so; while most of the principles they did wish to add to the Secretariat s list could very well be subsumed under the existing five, upon close analysis. Two additional principles suggested by the participants environmental sustainability and ownership could enhance the Secretariat s ideas on good governance, and it is strongly recommended that the Secretariat further strengthens its principles with these additional two, or at least aspects of them. For Ghanaian participants, the most important principle seems to be capacity or capability, with some asserting emphatically that capacity is the bedrock of democratic good governance, and others suggesting that institutional capacity is too important to be subsumed under a generic principle of capacity. Additionally, it is clear from the workshop that any effort to empirically measure capacity should seriously consider paying special attention to issues of effectiveness and efficiency. Another lesson deduced on the measurement indicators is the fact that transparency and accountability are the two good governance principles that are most lacking in Ghana, according to the participants. This is not surprising, given that corruption continues to plague the politico-economic scene of Ghana, as in many other African countries. Finally, given a forum to talk about good governance, many of the participants seized the opportunity to air their political grievances and misgivings about the ruling government. It was only after carefully articulated clarification that we were able to steer the participants towards the fact that the workshop was mainly an academic exercise, seeking to identify the indicators of good governance, and not a government-bashing forum. Subsequent workshops would benefit considerably from such pointed clarification. Finally, we must stress that the workshop in Ghana was a really worthwhile exercise, capable of enriching our knowledge base on good governance and its measurement indicators, and we strongly urge the Secretariat to replicate it in other member countries. 20 Commonwealth Good Governance 2010

8 S e l e c t i n g g o v e r n a n c e i n d i c a t o r s References Besançon, M. (2003). Good Governance Ranking: The Art of Measurement. World Peace Foundation, Cambridge, Massachusetts. DFID. (2006). Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance work for the Poor. DFID, London. Grindle, M. S. (2007). Good enough governance revisited. Development Policy Review. 2007, 25 (5): Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A. and Mastruzzi, M. (2009). Governance Matters VIII: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No Koranteng, R. (2009). What does governance mean for the Commonwealth? The Past, Present and Future. The Commonwealth Yearbook pp Nexus Strategic Partnerships, London. OECD (2001). Governance in the 21st Century. OECD, Paris. Mensah, J. (ed.) (2006). Understanding Economic Reforms in Africa: A Tale of Seven Nations. Palgrave, New York. UNDP (1997). Governance for Sustainable Human Development. UNDP, New York. Weiss, T. G. (2000a). Governance, good governance and global governance: Conceptual and Actual Challenges, Third World Quarterly Vol. 21, No 5, pp World Bank (2000). Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth. The World Bank, Washington, DC. Commonwealth Good Governance