Technical Framework for Discussing Governance Indicators

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Technical Framework for Discussing Governance
Indicators

• Matthew Sudders
• Policy Analyst, DFID

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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

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From Issue to Indicator

• What is the issue?
• Input
• Process
• Output
• How can we get data?
• Who does the monitoring?
• What is their role and values?

• What data can we get?
• Objective
• Internal Perception
• External Perception
• Discrete scales
• Additive measures
• Proxies
• Composite measure
• Normative assumptions

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Indicator attributes

• Validity
• Reliability
• Measurement bias
• Transparency of production

• Representativeness
• Variance truncation
• Information bias
• Aggregation problems

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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.

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Governance Indicators A Users Guide

• Publicly available
• Enable cross-national comparisons
• Provide information about their methodology