Document Abstract
Published:
2004
Urban governance index: conceptual foundation and field test report
Developing the Urban Governance Index
UN-HABITAT’s Global Campaign on Urban Governance supports the implementation of the Habitat Agenda and contributes to the eradication of poverty through improved urban governance. The Urban Governance Index (UGI) has been developed in line with the campaign’s advocacy and capacity building strategies.
At the global level, UGI will be used to demonstrate the importance of good urban governance in achieving broad development objectives, such as the Millennium Development Goals and those in the Habitat Agenda. At the local level, it is expected to catalyse local action to improve the quality of urban governance.
This report synthesises the important findings and recommendations from various campaign events on developing the UGI, field test results, the suggestions and feedback from participating and partner cities and the experience of the Global Campaign on Urban Governance and the Global Urban Observatory.
Both a top-down and bottom-up approach is applied for developing the index.
Five principles of good urban governance, i.e. effectiveness, equity, participation, accountability and security that were adopted in the UN-Inter-Agency meeting in 2001, formed the framework for developing indicators for the UGI. Given the Campaign’s emphasis on the actors, mechanisms, processes and institutions (i.e., a governance approach) to create more inclusive or exclusionary cities, an attempt is made to carefully develop the UGI that emphasises on process indicators.
Among the highlights of the report are:
At the global level, UGI will be used to demonstrate the importance of good urban governance in achieving broad development objectives, such as the Millennium Development Goals and those in the Habitat Agenda. At the local level, it is expected to catalyse local action to improve the quality of urban governance.
This report synthesises the important findings and recommendations from various campaign events on developing the UGI, field test results, the suggestions and feedback from participating and partner cities and the experience of the Global Campaign on Urban Governance and the Global Urban Observatory.
Both a top-down and bottom-up approach is applied for developing the index.
Five principles of good urban governance, i.e. effectiveness, equity, participation, accountability and security that were adopted in the UN-Inter-Agency meeting in 2001, formed the framework for developing indicators for the UGI. Given the Campaign’s emphasis on the actors, mechanisms, processes and institutions (i.e., a governance approach) to create more inclusive or exclusionary cities, an attempt is made to carefully develop the UGI that emphasises on process indicators.
Among the highlights of the report are:
- development of index has made progress after modification, inclusion and exclusion of indicators
- the methodology in arriving at the UGI has been participatory with feedback from participating cities as one of the most important elements to propose changes in defining indicators and improving the quality of the UGI
- during the process of evaluation, the emphasis has been on the performance of respective sub-index, rather than only the aggregation of the UGI.
- it would be prudent to follow a more step-by-step approach for a sustained application of UGI in urban management
