World Governance Index

Background

Creating a set of indicators for the World Governance Index (WGI) is a comprehensive and complex process. The objective is to measure a modern concept that, despite its historical roots, is currently applied in certain frameworks and implemented by identified entities. Although there is agreement on diagnosing its challenges, it is still far from being fully "stabilized".

Drawing from the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which was unanimously adopted by heads of state and government in 2000, a team of researchers from the Forum for a new World Governance (FnWG), consisting of Gustavo Marín, Arnaud Blin, and Renaud François, concentrated their research on five core concepts that outline the application framework of world governance and represent key objectives to be achieved by 2015:

• Peace / Security
• Democracy / Rule of Law
• Human Rights / Participation
• Sustainable Development
• Human Development

What is the purpose of a WGI?

The research team considered its mission with two goals in mind:

• The first was to create a World Governance Index (WGI) providing an overall picture of world governance at time T based on data obtained for the 179 countries included in the survey. The WGI combines 5 indicators, each made up of 13 sub-indicators, each of those made up of 37 indexes. These indexes were selected from among the best available databases. They are all provided by recognized sources, well known for their quality, seriousness, and reliability.

• The second goal is to motivate world-governance actors to consider the resulting WGI and the relative importance of the different indicators. This should allow them to identify the "key" or "pilot" indicators that will set up the conditions for good world governance and, more importantly, guarantee their sustainability. The ultimate goal of this study is part of a long-term process. On the basis of the situation described by the WGI and of its diagnosis, it should allow actors in charge of governance to raise the right questions in order to consider solutions.

Methodology and databases

The 37 indexes constituting the WGI have been set on a scale from zero to one, a scale similar to the one developed by the United Nations Development Programme for its Human Development Index (HDI).

Although some of the indexes used (only 4 out of the 37) were drawn from databases that had not been updated since 2007, the 2008 World Governance Index nevertheless reflects the state of world governance in 2008.

The regional rankings are inspired from UNDP classification. The 179 countries surveyed in this study —microstates were deliberately not included in this list – were grouped into six regional subgroups:

• Africa
• European Union / OECD
• Latin America / Caribbean
• Asia / Pacific
• Arab World
• NIS / Central Asia / Balkans

Sources

World Governance Index: PDF document, 81 pages.

References

References

1. "Worldwide Governance Indicators". World Bank.
2. "Worldwide Governance Indicators". World Bank.
3. "Worldwide Governance Indicators". World Bank.
4. See [[Global governance#Usage. the first chapter of Global Governance on Wikipedia]].
5. This includes organizations like the [[United Nations]] and the [[Bretton Woods system. Bretton Woods institutions]].
6. Among many similar diagnoses, see for example: [http://www.earthsummit2002.org/es/issues/Governance/whatgov1.pdf World Humanity Action Trust (2000), "Governance for a Sustainable Future", Reports of the Commissions of the World Humanity Action Trust, Russell Press Ltd., Nottingham (UK), p. 30] {{Webarchive. link. (2016-06-12 ; [http://pohara.homestead.com/Encyclopedia/Volume-3.pdf (2009), O'Hara, P.A. (ed.), "Public Policy and Political Economy", ''International Encyclopedia of Public Policy - Governance in a Global Age'', Vol. 3, Perth]; "[[Environmental governance]]" on Wikipedia; [http://www.ft.lk/2011/01/14/current-global-governance-systems-lack-capacity-to-deal-with-global-risks/ "Current global governance systems lack capacity to deal with global risks" in ''Daily Financial Times'', Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. Colombo (Sri Lanka), January 14, 2011] {{Webarchive). link. (March 3, 2016 ; etc.)