Philippine Governance Indicators Survey Tools

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Philippine Governance Indicators Survey Tools

• Prof. Mila A. Reforma
• National College of Public Administration and
  Governance
• University of the Philippines
• (UP-NCPAG)

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Background

• UNDP commissioned the UP-NCPAG to undertake a
  project called Philippine Governance Indicator
  Survey Tools
• Component 1 Users Guided of National Governance
  Measurement Sources
• Component 2 Survey of Indicator Users

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The Team

• We organized a team of experts which includes key
  stakeholders from the National Statistical
  Coordination Board (NSCB)
• Steering Committee was organized and NCPAG was
  designated as convenor

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Preliminary Stages

• Inventory survey of data and indicator sources or
  institutions engaged in providing governance
  indicators in the Philippines
• Preparation of a Users Guide of these indicator
  sources
• Survey of which indicators are used and not used
  by national decision makers in their work

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Consultation Workshops and Roundtable Discussions

• Stakeholders from
• the executive and administrative branches of the
  government
• the legislative branch
• civil society
• the academe and
• other public and private organizations involved
  in using and developing indicators

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Issues and Concerns

• May 2006 Consultation Workshop
• Dissemination of information and awareness
• Budget concerns as regard to monitoring of impact
• Inputing weights on different aspects
• Not rights-based
• Inconsistency in practical application
• Lack of familiarity with methodology
• Reliability and accuracy
• Credibility, impartiality and objectivity
• Sustainability
• Acceptability and accessibility
• Transparency, timeliness and validity
• Multiplicity of indicators systems
• Non-convergence of indicator system/lack of
  harmonization
• Absence of governance benchmarks

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Issues and Concerns (contd)

• From Roundtable Discussions
• How to determine which are governance indicators?
  
• No uniform monitoring system that addresses the
  information needs of the stakeholders
• Needed information not available
• Too many requirements being asked by the
  governance indicators producers before providing
  the requested data

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Issues and Concerns (contd)

• From Roundtable Discussions
• There are too many efforts by different agencies
  to come up with governance indicators and
  monitoring polls but there are few attempts of
  assessing these tools
• No measure of objectivity of existing governance
  indicators
• Different agencies came up with their own
  measurement/indicator/gauge of governance (i.e.
  rule of law, anti-corruption, transparency)
• No integrated/harmonized monitoring system
  between different government agencies

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Issues and Concerns

• No institutionalized governance indicators
• What is governance indicators?
• Good Governance Indicators vs. Good Governance
  Outcomes
• Proliferation of indicators
• No agreement

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Project Component 1 Users Guide

• Conducted a mapping exercise of governance
  indicators sources in the Philippines by
  producing a Users Guide of Governance
  Indicators.

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• The Users Guide is a preliminary initiative that
  seeks to provide stakeholders
• an overview of existing governance indicator
  sources in the Philippines
• guidance on how to use the sources compiled
• inventory of governance indicator sources in the
  country and
• available data to apply national sources to
  complement global indexes.

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• The preparation of the Guide is a joint effort
  between the National College of Public
  Administration and Governance (NCPAG) of the
  University of the Philippines, Diliman and the
  National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) of
  the Republic of the Philippines with assistance
  from the UNDP Oslo Governance Center.

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• The Guide presents and assembles, whenever
  available and allowable, data on the institutions
  generating possible governance indicators
  information, their location and contact numbers,
  how they generate data, how the indicators they
  use are determined and measured, and the
  frequency by which these are released.

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Format

• The Guide follows the format established by the
  United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and
  the European Commission which released a similar
  publication in 2004 entitled Governance
  Indicators A Users Guide.

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• Much of the data included in the guide are
  publicly available information on the Philippines
  and can be located in the websites of the
  institutions and producers which is also listed
  in the source guide.

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• As in the UNDP-EC Guide, the choice of indicators
  sources included and listed in this Guide
  followed the following criteria
• Have a clear Governance data aspect
• Have data available
• Open to national comparisons
• Provide some information on their methodology
• Available on the Internet with Websites, and in
  English
• Sources requiring payment for access were not
  included

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• In trying to generate data and information, a
  significant problem was also recognized early on
  during the research in the preparation of this
  Guide.
• There are some institutions and organizations in
  the Philippines that do not release or issue out
  data regularly at periodic intervals, i.e.,
  quarterly, annually or biennially.

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• This means that these institutions would
  sporadically release indicator measuring data on
  and off, but would be dormant for some time, and
  may again be activated suddenly.
• The Users Guide provides information, whenever
  available and allowable, of the indicators
  sources following the UNDP-EC format.

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• The Users Guide does not specify or prescribe
  governance indicators to be adopted by public and
  private institutions.
• The Users Guide presents a preliminary listing
  or compilation of governance indicator generating
  sources.
• The listing is by no means comprehensive but the
  initiative can be reinforced by a continuing
  mapping of indicator sources.

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• New data and entries may have to be added to the
  Users Guide as other institutions generate and
  release new governance indicators.
• The indicators used and established by these
  institutions may be considered as potential
  national indexes or criteria that can be adopted
  in identifying any set of acceptable criteria to
  serve as barometers for good governance.
• There is a need to tentatively identify valid and
  reliable indicators that measure good governance
  objectively and can be made acceptable to various
  sectors of society.

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Project Component 2

• Survey of Governance Indicators Users

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Project Component 2 Survey of Governance
Indicators Users

• Respondents
• 50-150 policy/decision makers
• General Purpose
• To assess the extent to which governance
  indicators are being used
• To determine whether there are differences on how
  sources are applied at various levels of
  government

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Lessons Learned

• Many indicators are available but public
  awareness is low
• There is a need to inform the public of possible
  sources of indicators identified by the survey

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Lessons Learned (contd)

• Information provided by the different sources are
  mostly piecemeal and disjointed
• There is a need to produce a Good Governance
  Index which may be composed of
• Transparency Index
• Anti-Corruption Index
• Participatory Development Index
• Performance Index
• General Public Integrity Index
• There is a need to examine how these indices can
  form part of a Good Governance Index

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Challenges

• Getting the various agencies to get together and
  converge their efforts to developing
  performance indicators
• Developing quantifiable (objective) measures of
  good governance considering that, in one sense,
  good governance has been considered by some as
  soft or intangible and difficult to quantify
  in relations to traditional quantitative
  indicators.

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Challenges (contd)

• Generating acceptance of and sustaining the use
  of governance indicators
• Developing governance indicators that would
  cut-across various levels of government
  (national and local)

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Next Steps

• Continue to build on the sources of indicators to
  be included in the Users Manual based on sources
  identified in the survey
• Assessing the existing capacities of national
  data collection agencies and statistical system

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Next Steps (contd)

• Designing a program to strengthen national
  capacities especially in the area of data
  collection focusing on national and local policy
  makers.
• Development of a composite index of governance
  indicators that can be picked up from existing
  list

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Thank you!