The New Zealand media has shown no interest in the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) published in June 2009 by the World Bank. This is surprising as a contributor from the Brookings Institute observed that:
“the all mighty countries in the G-8 are not the models of good governance; instead the Nordics and New Zealand are…”
The WGI measures six dimensions of governance:
- Voice and Accountability,
- Political Stability and Absence of Violence,
- Government Effectiveness,
- Regulatory Quality,
- Rule of Law, and
- Control of Corruption.
What is heartening is that New Zealand remains in the top ten ratings on all dimensions – (Sweden is the only other country in the top ten for all dimensions). The New Zealand ratings range from 4th for Control of Corruption to 10th for Government Effectiveness
The new WGI covering 212 countries is based on 35 different data sources, aggregating data from hundreds of disaggregated questions posed to tens of thousands respondents around the world.
The crux of President Obama’s speech to the Parliament in Ghana last week was that Governance is important if the problems of Africa are to be remedied.
On the WGI you can see that poor countries do not have to be poorly governed. Botswana stands out when compared with its neighbours.
