Technical Framework for Discussing Governance Indicators Matthew Sudders Policy Analyst, DFID
What is an indicator? • A thing, especially a trend of fact that indicates the state or level of something • A device for providing specific information on the state or level of something. Source: Oxford English Dictionary ,
From Issue to Indicator • What data can we get?
• What is the issue? – Input – Process – Output
• How can we get data? – Who does the monitoring? – What is their role and values?
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Objective Internal Perception External Perception Discrete scales Additive measures Proxies Composite measure Normative assumptions
Indicator attributes • • • •
Validity Reliability Measurement bias Transparency of production
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Representativeness Variance truncation Information bias Aggregation problems
3 Golden Rules • Use a range of indicators • Use an indicator as a first question – not a last • Understand an indicator before you use it. 0
Governance Indicators: A Users’ Guide
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• Publicly available • Enable cross-national comparisons • Provide information about their methodology