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Briefing: State capacity in the post-2015 agenda
12 March 2014.
ESID’s latest briefing paper argues that state capacity indicators should be an integral component of the post-2015 development agenda. Authored by Kunal Sen, Matthias vom Hau and Pablo Yanguas, the paper builds on a workshop held at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on 20 November 2013, with such participants as Peter Evans, Phil Keefer, Francis Fukuyama, Brian Levy or Vivek Srivastava.
Here are some excerpts from the briefing:
The prevailing view in the international community is that the dimensions of governance that need to be captured in the post-2015 development framework are to do with the accountability of states, such as transparency, the rule of law and political participation. While these dimensions of governance are desirable goals and have intrinsic value, recent research shows that the dimension of governance that matters more for sustainable development is the capacity of the state to deliver on a wide range of development outcomes.
While there is certainly no ‘silver bullet’ for measuring such a multidimensional concept, there is a menu of plausible indicators for state capacity. … Data for most of these indicators is already available or requires simply expanding existing measures and filling gaps, not the systematic design and collection of new data.
Download the entire briefing paper: