Not only does the world continue to underperform on governance, but the more powerful economies do not necessarily show the best governance.
These are just some of the findings of a new version of the Worldwide Governance Indicators published by the U.S. Brookings Institution and World Bank this week.
The report which covers the 1996-2009 period uses a broad range of perceptions-based data sources to score and rank 213 countries on the following six core features of governance:
1) Voice and Accountability
2) Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism
3) Government Effectiveness
4) Regulatory Quality
5) Rule of Law
6) Control of Corruption
The report shows that although the governance scores of some countries rose compared to last year, the governance scores of the majority of countries surveyed either fell or stagnated.
It said much could be learned from good governance examples in countries outside the Group of 20 (G20) nations, noting that if an average of the governance ratings was taken for the G20 member countries, 75 countries from around the world would rank above the average rank of the G20 on Rule of Law, while 86 countries would rank above the average G20 score on Voice and Accountability.
"Being wealthy does not ensure high quality governance, just as being an emerging or developing economy does not automatically translate to poor governance," it said.
More than 30 developing and emerging economies have higher governance and anti-corruption scores than industrialised countries such as Italy (ranked 87 in Corruption Control) or Greece (ranked 82).
It said that industralised countries with higher levels of corruption as measured by the WGI have higher budget deficits -- a finding that suggests a strong link between corruption levels and financial stability in rich countries.
For example, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain - countries with substantial budget deficits - all perform poorly on corruption control with Italy and Greece performing particularly poorly.
Much like Transparency International's more well-known Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), this year's WGIs show that New Zealand, Singapore and the Nordic countries have the highest standards of governance and that countries such as Myanmar, North Korea, Afghanistan and Somalia are "in a governance crisis".
The major difference between the two sets of rankings is that the WGIs reflect governance perceptions in a broader sense whereas the CPI focuses solely on corruption. Although both sets of rankings are necessarily subjective because they rely on perceptions, their overall similarities suggest that where corrupt practices are allowed to take hold, other good governance indicators are likely to be weak.
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