(RPG-006) “MEASURING LOCAL GOVERNANCE”

How should we measure success or failure in local governance? Whatever method we are going to use, it should be based on a set of standards, so that the performance of one locality would be comparable with other localities, both nationally and internationally.

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In the language of the United Nations, “access” is the most popular buzzword. Simply put, success or failure of governance is measured in terms of how much access people have to public services and human rights. On top of this singular buzzword, “human development” and “human security” are the dominant themes, indicating how much importance the world body is placing upon the importance of people’s welfare.

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As we are in search of standard measures, it is a good time to be reminded that as a member of the UN, we committed to the attainment of our Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of objectives that aim to increase the access of our citizens to public services. Instead of inventing a new set of standard measures from scratch, we should just push for the compliance of all localities with these MDGs.

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To illustrate my point, allow me to use my favorite example which is access to clean potable water and sanitary toilets. It is disgusting to note that even in Metro Manila; many people do not have access to these two inter-related services.

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It appears that with the popularity of bottled water, our local authorities have taken for granted that this norm of delivery is already normal and acceptable. The truth is, bottled water is very expensive, and many people could not afford it. Not unless clean potable water is delivered to our households, we will certainly fall short of our water access goals under the MDGs.

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Without standard measures, local authorities will continue to outdo each other in making self serving claims about how good their governance is. We should stop this wrong practice and put order to the process of measurement.