• Analysis, scores and results

Analysis, scores and results

This discussion reviews key issues in worldwide governance, and presents recent empirical evidence.

Focusing on defining and unbundling key governance components, such as rule of law, voice and accountability, corruption control, and state capture, the authors provide evidence which suggests a sobering picture: on average, there appears to be scant progress worldwide in recent times in improving rule of law and governance; controlling corruption; and in improving institutional quality, although there is clearly a variance across countries.

Further, recent empirical research points to the private sector as influencing public governance, thereby challenging traditional notions of the functioning of politicians, public policy and the public sector, and on the conventional determinants of the investment climate.

The authors posit that the interplay between the elite’s vested interests and the political dynamics within a country, in turn affecting governance and corruption, has often been under-emphasized in program design. These call for revisiting conventional approaches to promote institutional reform.

The authors argue instead for greater external accountability, with a larger role for

• transparency mechanisms;
• empirically-based monitoring tools; and,
• 'voice' and incentive-driven approaches to provide checks and balances on traditional public institutions, empower non-traditional stakeholders, ameliorate state capture, and level the unequal 'influence' playing field.

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