Ghana Improves In "voice & accountability"

... Significant Improvement Since 1996
The World Bank's new governance indicator report indicates that Ghana has recorded remarkable improvement in voice and accountability since 1996.

The report, which was released for 209 countries, called on government reformers and citizens to see governance as the key ingredient for sustainable development and sound investment climate.

This new call was coming on the heels of new reports from the bank, stating that the quality of governance around the world has remained stagnant and was posing a risk to accelerating poverty reduction.

According to the bank, a number of countries have improved rapidly in recent years, there was still need for leaders to set clear targets of good governance standards and tracking their progress.
In a statement, the bank's Director of Global Governance, Daniel Kaufmann, in a new research report developed an expanded and updated set of worldwide governance indicators covering 209 countries between 1996 and 2004, said "the study presents a new methodology to assess changes in governance over time, finding that over a short 6-8 year period significant improvements (and deterioration) have taken place in a number of countries."
These indicators are accountability, political instability and violence, government effectiveness, regulatory burden, rule of law and control of corruption.
According to the report, since 1996, countries like Ghana, Sierra Leone, Indonesia and Peru have recorded remarkable improvement in voice and accountability even as countries like Nigeria, Senegal, Mexico and Turkey have recorded same feat in lesser years of 1998-2004.
"in spite of the improvements in some countries, there have been at least as many countries where deterioration has taken place in many dimensions of governance, and many more where no significant change is apparent. Thus, on average the quality of governance around the world has remained stagnant, highlighting the urgent need for more determined progress in this area in order to accelerate poverty reduction," the statement.
According to Kaufmann, the Bank's Director of Global Governance, "in spite of a number of shining examples, the fact is that, on average, neither the rich nor the poor worlds have improved in their standards on governance over the past eight years. This sobering reality ought to motivate collective action in the next stage."
He pointed out the need for governments and reformers to distil the lessons of success and failures by abandoning interventions that do not work such as single minded anti-corruption campaigns and rather focus on voice and transparency reforms.
The bank affirmed its willingness to help countries and their development allies in civil society and donor community by providing governance indicators that would help "depoliticise" efforts to track the quality of institutions, support capacity building, improve governance and address corruption.
Defining the indicators, voice and accountability measures political, civil and human rights while political instability and violence measures the likelihood of violent threats to or changes in government including terrorism.
While government effectiveness measures competence of bureaucracy and quality of public service delivery; regulatory burden measures market-unfriendly policies.
Rule of law measures the quality of contract enforcement, the police, the courts/judiciary, independence, and incidence of crime and control of corruption take measure of abuse of public power for private gain, including petty and grand corruption(and state capture by elite).

... Significant Improvement Since 1996
The World Bank's new governance indicator report indicates that Ghana has recorded remarkable improvement in voice and accountability since 1996.

The report, which was released for 209 countries, called on government reformers and citizens to see governance as the key ingredient for sustainable development and sound investment climate.

This new call was coming on the heels of new reports from the bank, stating that the quality of governance around the world has remained stagnant and was posing a risk to accelerating poverty reduction.

According to the bank, a number of countries have improved rapidly in recent years, there was still need for leaders to set clear targets of good governance standards and tracking their progress.
In a statement, the bank's Director of Global Governance, Daniel Kaufmann, in a new research report developed an expanded and updated set of worldwide governance indicators covering 209 countries between 1996 and 2004, said "the study presents a new methodology to assess changes in governance over time, finding that over a short 6-8 year period significant improvements (and deterioration) have taken place in a number of countries."
These indicators are accountability, political instability and violence, government effectiveness, regulatory burden, rule of law and control of corruption.
According to the report, since 1996, countries like Ghana, Sierra Leone, Indonesia and Peru have recorded remarkable improvement in voice and accountability even as countries like Nigeria, Senegal, Mexico and Turkey have recorded same feat in lesser years of 1998-2004.
"in spite of the improvements in some countries, there have been at least as many countries where deterioration has taken place in many dimensions of governance, and many more where no significant change is apparent. Thus, on average the quality of governance around the world has remained stagnant, highlighting the urgent need for more determined progress in this area in order to accelerate poverty reduction," the statement.
According to Kaufmann, the Bank's Director of Global Governance, "in spite of a number of shining examples, the fact is that, on average, neither the rich nor the poor worlds have improved in their standards on governance over the past eight years. This sobering reality ought to motivate collective action in the next stage."
He pointed out the need for governments and reformers to distil the lessons of success and failures by abandoning interventions that do not work such as single minded anti-corruption campaigns and rather focus on voice and transparency reforms.
The bank affirmed its willingness to help countries and their development allies in civil society and donor community by providing governance indicators that would help "depoliticise" efforts to track the quality of institutions, support capacity building, improve governance and address corruption.
Defining the indicators, voice and accountability measures political, civil and human rights while political instability and violence measures the likelihood of violent threats to or changes in government including terrorism.
While government effectiveness measures competence of bureaucracy and quality of public service delivery; regulatory burden measures market-unfriendly policies.
Rule of law measures the quality of contract enforcement, the police, the courts/judiciary, independence, and incidence of crime and control of corruption take measure of abuse of public power for private gain, including petty and grand corruption(and state capture by elite).