How to Improve Governance

How to Improve Governance

Author: David Ferranti

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2009-09-01

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0815703538

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In recent years, the developing world has seen a burst of efforts to reduce corruption, increase transparency and accountability, and improve governance. Needless to say, this is an important and encouraging development. However, the lack of a reliable compass to describe where a country is at a given moment—and where it could be heading in the absence or acceptance of proposed reforms—can result in disastrous missteps. The unfortunate absence of such a guide has helped lead to innumerable failed governments or ineffective regimes. This important book aims to fill that void. How to Improve Governance emphasizes the need for an overall analytical framework that can be applied to different countries to help analyze their current situations, identify potential areas for improvement, and assess their relative feasibility and the steps needed to promote them. A country-specific analysis needs to be comprehensive, in the sense that it includes the four concepts of transparency, accountability, governance, and anticorruption throughout the calculus. Without such an analytic framework, any reform attempt is likely to flounder for lack of a shared understanding of the underlying problems and of the feasible reforms. The book gives special emphasis to the potential for civil society groups to play a stronger role in holding governments accountable for their use of public resources, and to the importance of developing politically feasible, prioritized country strategies for reform. "Whether one looks at how to increase domestic demand for good governance, how to make government more accountable to the public, or how to build democratic processes that deliver results, the underlying issues are essentially the same.... As development actors of various types... seek to help, more and more of them are calling for a clearer conceptual framework to guide their efforts."—From the Introduction


Towards Improving Governance

Towards Improving Governance

Author: S. K. Agarwal

Publisher: Academic Foundation

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9788171886661

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Compiled to identify both sound and unproductive practices while suggesting advancements for India's governance, this volume seeks to analyze India's efforts made towards progress and to eradicate corruption. Containing previous exemplary initiatives and information about public-domain tools, this resource deals with the perception of governance in India and its status in the monopolistic services including the four major ones--the police, judiciary, income tax, and property registration. This account also discusses citizens' charters, the right to information, e-governance, social audits, report cards, and the integrity pact as means for positive development.


Improving Governance

Improving Governance

Author: Laurence E. Lynn Jr.

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2001-04-05

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781589013452

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Policymakers and public managers around the world have become preoccupied with the question of how their goals can be achieved in a way that rebuilds public confidence in government. Yet because public policies and programs increasingly are being administered through a complicated web of jurisdictions, agencies, and public-private partnerships, evaluating their effectiveness is more difficult than in the past. Though social scientists possess insightful theories and powerful methods for conducting empirical research on governance and public management, their work is too often fragmented and irrelevant to the specific tasks faced by legislators, administrators, and managers. Proposing a framework for research based on the premise that any particular governance arrangement is embedded in a wider social, fiscal, and political context, Laurence E. Lynn Jr., Carolyn J. Heinrich, and Carolyn J. Hill argue that theory-based empirical research, when well conceived and executed, can be a primary source of fundamental, durable knowledge about governance and policy management. Focusing on complex human services such as public assistance, child protection, and public education, they construct an integrative, multilevel "logic of governance," that can help researchers increase the sophistication, power, and relevance of their work.


High Performance Boards

High Performance Boards

Author: Didier Cossin

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2020-06-22

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 1119615658

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A comprehensive guide to transforming boards and achieving best-practice governance in any organisation. When practising good governance, the board is the vital driver of organizational success, while fostering positive social impact and economic value creation. At all levels, executives around the world are faced with complexities rising from disruptive business models, new technologies, socio-economic changes, shifting political circumstances, and an array of other sources. High Performance Boards is the comprehensive manual for attaining best-in-class governance, offering pragmatic guidance on improving board quality, accountability, and performance. This authoritative volume identifies the four dimensions, or pillars, which are crucial for establishing and maintaining best-practice boards: the people involved, the information architecture, the structures and processes, and the group dynamics and culture of governance. This methodology can be applied to any board in the world, corporate or non-profit organization, regardless of size, sector, industry, or context. Readers are introduced to a fictitious senior board member – an amalgamation of board members from well-known organisations – and follow her as she successfully handles real-life challenges with effective governance. Drawn from the author's 20 years of practice and confidential work with boards across the world, this book: Demonstrates how high-performance boards innovate and refine their practices Discusses examples of board failures and challenges, including case studies from both for-profit and non-profit organisations including international organizations and state-owned agencies or even ministries Provides a proven framework to create best-in-class governance Includes a companion website featuring tools for board assessment and board practice High Performance Boards has inspired more than 3000 board members around the world. This book is essential reading for professionals and managers interested in governance and board members, senior managers, investors, lawyers, and students of governance.


Improving Water Policy and Governance

Improving Water Policy and Governance

Author: Cecilia Tortajada

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1317985567

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Old forms of governance in both public and private sectors are becoming increasingly irrelevant because of rapidly changing conditions. Because of these changes, both governance processes and the scope of the institutions through which power is exercised throughout society may have to undergo a radical break with the past and prevailing models of governance. Water sector is an integral part of the global system. Consequently, its governance processes and the institutions responsible for its management must change as well in order to cope with the current challenges and potential future changes. Because of these current and future changes, water governance may have to change more during the next 20 years compared to the past 2000 years, if societal expectations are to be successfully met. All these changes will make water governance more complex than ever before witnessed in human history. Improving water governance will require good and objective analyses of case studies from different parts of the world as to what has worked, why and the enabling environments under which good governance has been possible. The present volume analyses case studies of good water governance from different parts of the world, and for different water use sectors. It concludes with an analysis of the critical issues that should be considered for water governance and a priority research agenda for improving water governance in the future. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development.


Digital Governance

Digital Governance

Author: Michael E. Milakovich

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-09-27

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 1000456218

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The application of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) to reform governmental structures and public service is widely and perhaps naively viewed as the 21st century "savior", the enlightened way to reinvigorate democracy, reduce costs, and improve the quality of public services. This book examines the transition from e-government to digital governance in light of the financial exigencies and political controversies facing many governments. The chapters concentrate on strategies for public sector organizational transformation and policies for improved and measurable government performance in the current contentious political environment. This fully updated second edition of Digital Governance provides strategies for public officials to apply advanced technologies, manage remote workforces, measure performance, and improve service delivery in current crisis-driven administrative and political environments. The full implementation of advanced digital governance requires fundamental changes in the relationship between citizens and their governments, using ICTs as catalysts for political as well as administrative communication. This entails attitudinal and behavioral changes, secure networks, and less dependence on formal bureaucratic structures (covered in Part I of this book); transformation of administrative, educational, and security systems to manage public services in a more citizen-centric way (covered in Part II); the integration of advanced digital technologies with remote broadband wireless internet services (Part III); and the creation of new forms of global interactive citizenship and self-governance (covered in Part IV). Author Michael E. Milakovich offers recommendations for further improvement and civic actions to stimulate important instruments of governance and public administration. This book is required reading for political science, public administration, and public policy courses, as well as federal, state, and local government officials.


OECD Public Governance Reviews Improving Governance with Policy Evaluation Lessons From Country Experiences

OECD Public Governance Reviews Improving Governance with Policy Evaluation Lessons From Country Experiences

Author: OECD

Publisher: OECD Publishing

Published: 2020-06-23

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 9264829822

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Policy evaluation is a critical element of good governance, as it promotes public accountability and contributes to citizens’ trust in government. Evaluation helps ensure that decisions are rooted in trustworthy evidence and deliver desired outcomes. Drawing on the first significant cross-country survey of policy evaluation practices covering 42 countries, this report offers a systemic analysis of the institutionalisation, quality and use of evaluation across countries and looks at how these three dimensions interrelate.


The Essential School Board Book

The Essential School Board Book

Author: Nancy Walser

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13:

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The Essential School Board Book highlights effective practices that are common to high-functioning boards around the country--boards that are working successfully with their superintendents and communities to improve teaching and learning.


Employing Recent Technologies for Improved Digital Governance

Employing Recent Technologies for Improved Digital Governance

Author: Ponnusamy, Vasaki

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2019-12-27

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 1799818535

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The digital divide, caused by several factors such as poverty and slow communication technologies, has offset the progression of many developing countries. However, with rapid changes in technology, a better collaboration among communities and governance based on the latest research in ICT and technology has begun to emerge. Employing Recent Technologies for Improved Digital Governance is an essential reference source that provides research on recent advances in the development, application, and impact of technologies for the initiative of digital governance. The book has a dual objective with the first objective being to encourage more research in deploying recent trends in the internet for deploying a collaborative digital governance. The second objective is to explore new possibilities using internet of things (IoT) and cloud/fog-based solutions for creating a collaboration between the governance and IT infrastructure. Featuring research on topics such as intelligent systems, social engineering, and cybersecurity, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, government officials, ICT specialists, researchers, academicians, industry professionals, and students.


Hyperlocal

Hyperlocal

Author: Jennifer S. Vey

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2022-10-25

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 0815739583

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An examination of how the (hyper)local is the locus of real change Many of America’s downtowns, waterfronts, and innovation districts have experienced significant revitalization and reinvestment in recent years, but concentrated poverty and racial segregation remain persistent across thousands of urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods. The coronavirus pandemic magnified this sustained and growing landscape of inequality. Uneven patterns of economic growth and investment require a shift in how communities are governed and managed. This shift must take into account the changing socioeconomic realities of regions and the pressing need to bring inclusive economic growth and prosperity to more people and places. In this context, place-based (“hyperlocal”) governance structures in the United States and around the globe have been both part of the problem and part of the solution. These organizations range from community land trusts to business improvement districts to neighborhood councils. However, very little systematic research has documented the full diversity and evolution of these organizations as part of one interrelated field. Hyperlocal helps fill that gap by describing the challenges and opportunities of “place governance.” The chapters in Hyperlocal explore both the tensions and benefits associated with governing places in an increasingly fragmented—and inequitable—economic landscape. Together they explore the potential of place governance to give stakeholders a structure through which to share ideas, voice concerns, advocate for investments, and co-design strategies with others both inside and outside their place. They also discuss how place governance can serve the interests of some stakeholders over others, in turn exacerbating wealth-based inequities within and across communities. Finally, they highlight innovative financing, organizing, and ownership models for creating and sustaining more effective and inclusive place governance structures. The authors hope to provoke new thinking among place governance practitioners, policymakers, private sector leaders, urban planners, scholars, students, and philanthropists about how, why, and for whom place governance matters. The book also provides guidance on how to improve place governance practice to benefit more people and places.