Measuring African Governance by Attributes or by Results?

A profusion of governance measures has emerged over the past decade. The major issue is whether governance should be understood only by its attributes (thus measured by process indicators) or also by its impact (thus measured also by outcome indicators). The article classifies the existing measures in three categories-indicators of governance and corruption, measures of civil liberties and human rights, specialized surveys-and discusses in greater depth the two comprehensive surveys: the World Governance Indicators, which are focused on the governance attributes of accountability, participation, transparency and rule of law; and the recent Ibrahim Index of African Governance, which includes in its 57 indicators useful outcome dimensions but also indicators weakly related to governance. Streamlining the Ibrahim Index to weed out these indicators will improve its clarity and utility and turn it into the standard measure of governance in Africa-perhaps also replicable for other regions.