|
By Darwin G. Amojelar, Reporter
The Philippines’ ratings in the world
governance indicators were poor compared to its Asian peers, dragged
by weak political stability and corruption control, according to a
World Bank report released on Tuesday.
In its Governance Matters 2008 report, the
Washington-based lender said the Philippines scored lower in the
overall Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) compared to its Asian
neighbors, but better than Vietnam and Indonesia.
The indicators capture six dimensions of
governance for more than 200 countries and territories in 2007. The
six dimensions are voice and accountability, political stability and
absence of violence or terrorism, government effectiveness,
regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption.
The World Bank organizes and synthesizes data
reflecting the views of thousands of stakeholders worldwide,
including respondents to household and firm surveys, and experts
from nongovernment organizations, public-sector agencies and
providers of commercial-business information.
The report said the Philippines scored 10th
percentile in political stability and absence of violence; control
of corruption, 22nd percentile; rule of law, 34th percentile; voice
and accountability, 43rd percentile; regulatory quality, 50th
percentile; and government effectiveness, 56th percentile.
The multilateral lender said the country scores
are in percentile ranks, with higher values indicating better
governance ratings. Percentile ranks indicate the percentage of
countries worldwide that score below each country. For example, the
bank said a country with a percentile rank of 70 has 70 percent of
countries scoring worse than it, and 30 percent of countries scoring
better.
In Asian countries, the report said, controlling
corruption in Singapore was higher at 96th percentile followed by
South Korea, 68th percentile; Malaysia, 62nd percentile; India, 47th
percentile; Thailand, 44th percentile; China, 31st percentile;
Vietnam, 28th percentile; and Indonesia, 27th percentile.
In terms of political stability and absence of
violence, the Philippines trailed other Asian countries, with
Singapore, 90th percentile; South Korea, 62nd percentile; Vietnam,
56th percentile; Malaysia, 52nd percentile; China, 32nd percentile;
India, 18th percentile; Thailand, 17th percentile; and Indonesia,
15th percentile.
The World Bank said good governance can be found
at all income levels, with some emerging economies matching the
performance of rich countries on key dimensions of governance. Over
a dozen emerging countries, including Slovenia, Chile, Botswana,
Estonia, Uruguay, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Mauritius and Costa Rica score higher on key dimensions of
governance than industrialized countries, such as Greece or Italy.
And in many cases, these differences are statistically significant.
But despite governance gains in some countries,
overall quality of governance around the world has not improved much
over the past decade, the World Bank report said.
Aart Kraay, co-author of the Worldwide
Governance Indicators and lead economist in the Development Research
Group of the World Bank, said the indicators and other efforts to
measure governance are useful in prompting public discussion of
governance challenges and successes.
“Better governance helps in the fight against
poverty and improves living standards. Research over the past decade
shows that improved governance raises development, and not the other
way around. When governance is improved by one standard deviation,
infant mortality declines by two-thirds and incomes rise about
three-fold in the long run,” Kraay added.
Policymakers and civil-society groups worldwide
use the governance indicators as a tool to assess governance
challenges and monitor reforms. Scholars researching the causes and
consequences of good governance also use them.
The World Bank said this year’s study is the
seventh update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators, a decade-long
effort by the researchers to build and update the most comprehensive
cross-country set of governance indicators currently available.
|
