Asia and the Pacific

In recent decades, many countries in Asia have experienced high rates of economic growth. This has raised two central issues with regard to democratic governance in the Asia-Pacific region: Assessing the role of democratic governance in achieving economic growth, and dealing with the new set of challenges that such growth poses to democratic governance.

 

Demand for country-led governance evidence lies in finding answers to these two central questions. There exists demand for governance evidence to improve management and efficiency of public administration and services, ultimately aimed at reaching development targets. Secondly, demand is growing for governance evidence to deal with new as well as old challenges, and to take into account citizen aspirations of democratic governance.

 

In Asia and the Pacific, central and local governments, think tanks, research institutes and NGOs have inspired home-grown solutions based on the need to strengthen the use of evidence in decision making and to make decision making more inclusive.

 

A particular trend in the region is found in performance-based budgeting, where local governments compete for funding based on their performance. The resulting competition between cities and provinces is expected to enhance overall performance.