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ToolBOX
Good Governance for Local Development – GOFORGOLD Index
Purpose:
This tool aims to provide a snapshot of governance at the sub-national level, and more specifically, to help in monitoring governance situation in the provinces, districts, municipalities, and villages against benchmarks and governance indicators.
Types of data used:
GOFORGOLD will use data such as national and city statistics and regulations; and available administrative data on population, budgets and procedures. Like the UGI promoted by UN-HABITAT, all data will be converted into quantitative data of two types - single numbers (expressed by averages, means, rations, percentages) and binary variables (expressed by 0/1 assessments).
Methodology:
The GOFORGOLD indicators and reporting system is composed of 25 indicators
Indicators will be collected with the support of actors such as municipal representatives
Region:
Asia and the Pacific
Area of Governance:
Local Governance and Decentralization
Pro-poor /gender sensitive aspects:
A few specific indicators on gender equality have been included in GOFORGOLD. These include, “percentage of women councillors”, “public forum for women” and “affirmative action for women,” i.e. the presence or absence of a policy for programmes which takes into account the women in development. In addition, wherever possible, all the GOFORGOLD indicators are disaggregated by sex, e.g.: voter participation, number of civil servants, conflict resolution, protection against crime and violence, security of land tenure and land use, etc.
There is a specific indicator related to poverty which aims to assess the presence or absence of a policy or programmes which takes into account the needs of the poor households. In addition, for some indicators, results can be disaggregated by income levels to provide information on the relationship between poverty and the local governance.
Example indicators:
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Table 6: Principles and indicators for the GOFORGOLD Index
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REPRESENTATION
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PARTICIPATION
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1. Elected Councils
2. Elected Village Leaders / Municipal Mayors
3. Voter Turn-out and Voter Participation by Sex
4. Women Councillors
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5. Public Forum for Women, Youth and PWDs
6. Existence of Civic Groups
7. Citizen’s Capacity to Engage in Decision-making
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ACCOUNTABILITY
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TRANSPARENCY
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8. Anti-Corruption Policy
9. Control by Central Government
10. Independent Audit
11. Codes of Conduct
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12. Facilities for Citizens Complaints
13. Right to Public Information
14. Public Review of Budget and Financial Reports
15. Formal Publication of contracts/tenders
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EFFECTIVENESS
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SECURITY
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16. Total Sub-National Budget and Expenditure
17. Predictability of transfers in Local Government Budget
18. Total number of Civil Servants
19. Published performance Delivery Standards
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20. Conflict Resolution
21. Protection Against Crime and Violence
22. Territorial Boundaries
23. Security of Land Tenure and Land Use
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EQUITY
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24. Affirmative Action for the Poor
25. Affirmative Action for Women
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Where to find this tool:
Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS)
Actionability:
The system allows for comparison across sub-national government levels as well as highlights the strengths and weaknesses of a local government so that a more focused support and technical assistance for provinces, districts, and municipalities can be directed by Independent Directorate for Local Governance in Afghanistan.
Complementarity:
The index is largely based on input data, such as: "Is there an anti-corruption policy?" and "is there an independent audit?" and does not take a deeper look at how well the anti-corruption policy is actually implemented or if there are actual political consequences of an independent audit if the audit identifies problems. However, there is some complimentarity between de jure and de facto indicators. For example, it looks at both the existance of civic groups, and also their capacity to engage in decision-making.