RP not doing enough for good governance

The Philippines’ progress in governance and anti-corruption over the past decade failed to make improvements and was still behind its neighboring countries, the World Bank reported.

In its Worldwide Governance Indicators 1996 to 2008, the Washington-based lender said the Philippines scored a negative 0.75 in control of corruption last year, down from 0.18 posted in 1996.

But, the country’s score in control of corruption last year was a slight improvement from the negative 0.79 posted in 2007.

The indicators measure six broad dimensions of governance, such as voice and accountability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption.

The indicators cover 212 countries and territories in the World Bank’s 1996, 1998, 2000 reports and also in it annual reports from 2002 to 2008.

The indicators are based on several hundred variables measuring perceptions about governance drawn from 35 separate data sources to capture the views of tens of thousands of survey respondents worldwide. The bank also polled thousands of experts in the private sector and in non-government organizations.

Other Asian countries, like Thailand, scored better than the Philippines in their anti-corruption efforts last year with negative 0.38; Malaysia, 0.14; Vietnam, Indonesia, negative 0.64; and Singapore, 2.34. The Philippines also has better score compared to Vietnam, which rated negative 0.76.

In terms of government effectiveness, the Philippines scored zero last year from 0.04 in 2007; political stability, minus 1.41 from minus 1.31; rule of law, minus 0.49 from minus 0.54; regulatory quality, minus 0.05 from minus 0.13; and voice and accountability, minus 0.2 from minus 0.16.

Effective vs. poverty

The World Bank reported that better governance helped in the fight against poverty and improves living standards. “When governance is improved by one standard deviation, infant mortality declines by two-thirds and incomes rise about three-fold in the long run.”

On average the quality of governance around the world has not improved much over the past decade, the World Bank said.

But Aart Kraay, co-author of the report and lead economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank, said the good news was that some countries were recognizing and responding to governance challenges, and were showing strong improvements that reflect concerted efforts by political leaders, policymakers, civil society and the private sector.

The Worldwide Governance Indicators is a research project initiated by Kaufmann and Kraay in the late 1990s, and is now coauthored by Massimo Mastruzzi of the World Bank Institute.

The authors define governance as the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes how governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them. –Darwin G. Amojelar, Senior Reporter, Manila Times