Follow Us:
Governance
The most well-formulated capacity development intervention will flounder in the face of an unsupportive institutional environment. Witness the slow pace of reconstruction in areas hit by natural disasters and other humanitarian crises, even when abundant financial, logistical and technical resources may be on offer from the international community. To bring about sustainable change, capacity development practitioners need to navigate an array of external and internal factors that determine current capacity and influence the prospects for further improvements.
Governance comprises the "mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences." (UNDP 1996). In this context, good governance is the creation of an economic, political and social environment that is participatory, transparent and accountable, effective, equitable and that promotes the rule of law. Furthermore, good governance "ensures that political, social and economic priorities are based on broad consensus in society and that the voices of the poorest and the most vulnerable are heard in decision-making over the allocation of development resources.".
This section focuses on highlighting existing analytical frameworks and approaches to help practitioners in incorporating the governance dimension in their work.
Featured Article
Interview: Riding the green wave
Elizabeth
Dipuo Peters, Minister of Energy, Republic of South Africa
South Africa’s path to universal energy access
South Africa is on track to achieve near-universal access to energy by 2015, a remarkable achievement given that 15 years ago, only 30% of the population had access to electricity. Minister Elizabeth Dipuo Peters, explains how they did it.
More- Search Terms:
- casestudies
- africa
- policy
- institutional development
- south-south cooperation
Recent Articles
Moving beyond strategy to implementation: Africa Capacity Indicators Report (ACIR) 2012
13 April 2012
The African Capacity Building
Foundation (ACBF) launched the second of its flagship annual reviews on the state of capacity
development in Africa on 3rd April. This year's report is devoted to the theme of capacity
development in agricultural transformation and food security. One of the highlights is Ghana's
upgrading to the 'High' category of the ACI composite index. The composite index measures the
policy environment, processes for implementation, development results at country level and capacity
development outcomes. In 2011 there were no countries classified under the 'High' category.
Eldis governance assessments CDROM now available: Request your free copy!
23 March 2012
Since 2008 the
Eldis project at IDS Knowledge Services has hosted an online resource library,
The Eldis
Governance Assessments dossier as part of a long-term partnership with the UNDP Global
Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments. To mark the end of this collaboration Eldis
collated a selection of documents from the library on to a CDROM. The disc contains over 200
resources from a range of different experts, institutions and organisations that work in the field
of governance assessments. It is designed to provide detailed, practical information drawing upon
evidence about what works, and identifying innovations in approaches, policy and practice. Eldis is
trying to identify potential users for the CDROMs by means of a short survey (click
here to download). If you would like to receive a copy, or to nominate possible beneficiaries,
please fill in the questionnaire and send it by email to Jason Collodi, Eldis Governance Editor (j.collodi@ids.ac.uk).
Islands of integrity: Identifying positive outliers
16 March 2012
Why have some public organizations or sectors seen a reduction in corruption (or a greater
reduction than might be expected) while others have not? What explains the differences across or
within countries and sectors? What are the political processes that drive corruption reduction and
what policy lessons can be learned from studying cases where it has happened? This paper, the first
in a series on this topic, is part of a project that seeks to try to answer those questions, and is
being undertaken by the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP) in conjunction with Transparency
International (TI). The paper outlines the way in which a ‘long list’ of cases has been identified
by a careful statistical analysis of TI’s Global Corruption Barometer (GCB)
New APPP Policy Brief: Support to local problem-solving - Lessons from peri-urban Malawi
29 February 2012
Malawi
currently faces severe economic and political constraints, placing additional pressure on town and
city governments which, even in normal times, are incapable of providing public goods such as
health and public security well or consistently. To obtain them at all, people rely on a variety of
non-state actors, including ‘town chiefs’ (informal leaders), NGOs, churches and political parties
as well as, to some extent, themselves. This policy brief from the UK-based Africa Power and
Politics Programme, published in February 2012, explores the major bottlenecks that undermine the
provision of public goods to people living in Malawi’s townships.
Strengthening pastoralist voices in Tanzania
14 February 2012
This booklet, and its accompanying DVD, reports on the ‘Strengthening Voices’ project,
underway in two districts in northern Tanzania. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of
pastoralist communities and local governments to shape strategies for adaptive environmental
management and poverty reduction in Tanzania’s drylands. At the core of the project is a training
course that explains the economic and ecological processes at the heart of pastoral systems -
clarifying the rationale that underpins pastoral livelihood strategies.The course is based on a
similar initiative that has been field-tested and run in the Sahel region of West Africa since
2000.
Greening Development: Enhancing Capacity for Environmental Management and Governance
02 February 2012
This new publication from OECD (February 2012) outlines a number of steps to be considered
when building capacity for greening national development planning, national budgetary processes and
key economic sector strategies. The report identifies the key actors to be engaged in the
decision-making processes, outlines possible capacity needs and suggests how these can be
addressed.
Other Topics
Essential Readings
-
Nils Boesen (2010), Institutions, Power and Politics: Looking for change beyond the boundaries, the formal and the functional, in Ubels, J., N. Acquaye-Baddoo and A. Fowler (eds) Capacity Development in Practice, Earthscan, pp. 145-156
-
Resource Corner on Enabling Environment - Incentive Systems, Drivers of Change, Political Context (LenCD)
-
Scaling up local and community driven development: A real world guide to its theory and practice (World Bank, 2009)
-
World Governance Indicators 1996-2009
Featured Community
Participatory Governance Exchange
PG Exchange is a global online platform for knowledge
development, sharing and learning on participatory governance (PG). An initiative of CIVICUS:
World Alliance for Citizen Participation, the aim of the platform is to empower citizens to
participate in processes of public decision-making that affect their lives. The platform brings
together a global community of participatory governance practitioners and experts through a
variety of online discussion groups. Among the resources available on the PG Exchange portal are a
wide range of participatory governance practices and tools and an online calendar of participatory
governance events around the globe. Click
here to join the community of practice
and/or learn more.
Related Blogs
Supporting domestic accountability: why quick fixes won't work
In an interesting review... read more »
The road to Busan: How does capacity development fit into the coming aid effectiveness debates?
On 29 November-1 December 2011 the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness will take place in Busan, Korea. It will be a political, multi-stakeholder event of up to 2000... read more »
More Blogs