Worldwide Governance Indicators

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Categories: Political corruption | World Bank

2005 World Map of the Corruption Index, which measures the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among businesses, public officials and politicians. Colors range from green (top quartile) to yellow (middle high), orange (middle low) and red (bottom quartile).

Based on a long-standing research program of the World Bank, the Kaufmann-Kraay-Mastruzzi Worldwide Governance Indicators capture six key dimensions of governance (Voice & Accountability, Political Stability and Lack of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption) between 1996 and present. Sometimes referred to as the "KK", "KKZ" or "KKM" indicators, they measure the quality of governance in well over 200 countries, based on close to 40 data sources produced by over 30 different organizations worldwide and are updated on an annual basis since 2002.

The governance indicators represent a major contribution to the growing research on empirical studies of governance which have provided activists and reformers worldwide with advocacy tools for policy reform and monitoring. The indicators, and the underlying data behind them, reinforce the experiences and observations of reform-minded individuals in government, civil society, and the private sector, that good governance is key for development. Their growing recognition of the link between good governance and successful development has stimulated demand for monitoring the quality of governance across countries and within individual countries over time. Virtually all of the individual data sources underlying the aggregate indicators are, along with the aggregate indicators themselves, publicly available. This large collection of detailed individual and aggregate indicators covering a decade is one of the world’s largest publicly-available compilations of data on governance.

The Worldwide Governance Indicators are a compilation of the perceptions of a very diverse group of respondents, collected in large number of surveys and other cross-country assessments of governance. Some of these instruments capture the views of firms, individuals, and public officials in the countries being assessed. Others reflect the carefully considered views of NGOs and aid donors with considerable experience in the countries being assessed, while others are based on the assessments of commercial risk-rating agencies.