From BT today.
The report says voice and accountability not good. However,
measures used are subjective and not based on objective data so
credence is imv somewhat diminished.
Published May 10, 2005
S'pore slips, but still high in political governance
By and large, its scores on most indicators are in the top rung in
World Bank study
By ANNA TEO
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(SINGAPORE) The political governance ratings of Singapore have
slipped somewhat over the past decade or so, according to a World
Bank study. But few among the 209 countries covered in the research
have made good progress, and Singapore probably remains among the
top ten for good governance.
Of the study's six governance indicators - updated every two years
from 1996 to 2004 - Singapore's ratings have clearly fallen over
the period in four of them.
These are: voice and accountability (which tracks civil liberties,
and political and human rights); rule of law (measuring the quality
of contract enforcement, the police, and the courts, including
independence of the judiciary); regulatory quality (reflected in
market-unfriendly policies); and government effectiveness
(competence of the bureaucracy and quality of public service
delivery).
On the other two factors - political stability and control of
corruption - Singapore's ratings have fluctuated: the 'scores'
improved from 1996 to 2000, then fell sharply before picking up a
little last year.
The World Bank report, released yesterday in Washington, focuses on
the broad global and regional trends over the period, with no
specific comments on individual countries. Neither does it provide
precise overall country rankings, though each country can track its
own progress on each indicator over the study period, and for each
indicator, inter-country comparisons and rankings can be
made.
[b]By and large, except for 'voice and accountability', Singapore's
ratings for the other five indicators are in the top-ranked 90th
percentile - that is, 90 per cent of countries rank below. In the
2004 study, Singapore's 2.44 corruption rating - meaning
non-corruption, of course - is second only to Finland's (2.53),
though Iceland is only a whisker behind with 2.43.
In most cases, the ratings fall between minus 2.5 and plus 2.5,
with the higher figures indicating better governance. But, 'under
very specific circumstances, a country's rating might exceed these
thresholds', the World Bank report says. 'This simply means that
the country has an extremely poor record (below minus 2.5) or
extremely good record (above 2.5) in that specific governance
indicator.'
The other indicator where Singapore has consistently scored above
2.0 is government effectiveness, where it notched up a high 2.59 in
1998. This has now fallen to 2.25 in the 2004 ratings, but that is
still - jointly with Switzerland with the same score - the highest
among all countries.
Singapore's latest regulatory quality rating of 1.87 is behind Hong
Kong (1.89) and Luxembourg (2.02).
And if Singapore is widely seen to be highly politically stable, at
least six other economies - Iceland, Luxembourg, Finland, the
Cayman Islands, Norway and New Zealand - score well above
Singapore's 1.48.
Only on the 'accountability' factor has Singapore fared poorly,
slipping back into negative territory in the latest ratings.
The study - by Daniel Kaufmann, director of global governance at
the World Bank Institute, and Aart Kraay, lead economist in the
bank's research group - uses subjective measures rather than
objective indicators. This is because objective data is 'almost by
definition impossible to obtain' in many of the key dimensions of
governance, such as corruption or the confidence that property
rights are protected, the authors say.
Sources for the study include various organisations, such as Gallup
International, the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, and
the World Economic Forum.
According to the report, governance - which it defines as the set
of traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is
exercised - 'matters enormously'. The authors say: 'We find that a
country improving its quality of governance from a low level to an
average level can in the long term quadruple the income per capita
of its population, and similarly reduce infant mortality and
illiteracy. And the direction of causality is clear: it goes from
better governance to higher incomes, and not vice versa . . .
governance is not a 'luxury' good that only wealthier countries can
afford, (and) is not the automatic result of development . . . it
requires continuous political will and commitment, and difficult
work.'
According to Mr Kaufmann: 'In spite of a number of shining
examples, the fact is that, on average, neither the rich nor the
poor worlds have improved in their standards on governance over the
past eight years.'
On average, the quality of governance around the world has remained
stagnant. This 'sobering reality' ought to motivate collective
action, he adds, and this means abandoning interventions that do
not work, 'such as single-minded anti-corruption campaigns, and
focus on voice and transparency reforms instead'.