Transparency and governance in the land sector: two sides of the same coin?

This blog, written by ODI's Anna Locke, discusses land governance and transparency definitions, initiatives and key lessons. The post is part of Wikiprogress' spotlight on governance. 

Land transparency has been on the public agenda again since the G8 summit in June this year. Two events in the same week in October showcased the issue: the Open Government Partnership annual summit in London (which publicised the recent Open Government Guide on Land), and the Global Soil Week conference in Berlin, which dedicated a session to partnerships for responsible land governance – an issue that is rarely discussed by soil scientists. 

A couple of things hit me from these recent discussions. First, the public discussion has broadened from land transparency to land governance. The G8 communique published in June does not refer to a land transparency initiative as such but talks about ‘global activities to improve land tenure governance’. 

Transparency served as an immediate umbrella to bring together different initiatives in a very short time in the run-up to the G8 summit 2013 but seems to have been a launch pad rather than the end point. Similarly, the Open Government Guide on Land focuses on land governance while acknowledging the need for transparency, participation and accountability at the heart of open government. 

I welcome this broader agenda as it provides more of a framework to see how transparency can effect meaningful change.

However, at the risk of being pedantic on this issue (I have form on this– see my blog on the World Bank conference) once again, I want to pin down the terms of the debate and look at the underlying assumptions. It is important to make sure that we are all talking about the same thing, particularly as we prepare for an ODI Roundtable on the whole issue of Land Transparency in December.

First, definitions

What is land governance? The Open Government Guide on Land defines it as a series of processes, including recognition, registration and enforcement of land tenure rights, land-use administration, management planning and taxation, information provision and dispute resolution.

It then identifies the elements that characterise good governance: governments should help to ensure that these processes are ‘clear, transparent and fair… [with] human rights of citizens protected’; that they include‘accountable decision-making about how best to use land… improving the openness’[of those processes, I assume]; and that they ensure ‘consultation with those potentially affected by changes… [which] can help communities and households protect their rights’. 

The Guide suggests the Land Governance Assessment Framework (LGAF) mechanism launched by the World Bank as the main reference point for a baseline evaluation of the state of land governance. The LGAF measures governance in five thematic areas: legal and institutional framework; land use planning, management and taxation; management of public land; public provision of land information; and dispute resolution and conflict management. In turn, the main reference point for the LGAF is the World Bank’s definition of governance as the ‘manner in which public officials and institutions acquire and exercise the authority to shape public policy and provide public goods and services’. 

I would be more specific on two things. Yes, the discussion of land governance highlights the issue of how institutions can carry out the work of land titling, registration and administration. But it also needs to look at how they take and implement decisions on land – who takes part in decisions on land allocation, use and management, and how different interests in competing social and economic functions of land are reconciled. That goes beyond consultation. Indeed, it goes to the heart of the political economy of decision-making and the power relations that are involved. This is recognised implicitly in the Open Government Guide in its recommendation for participatory land and resource use planning. 

And what is the role of the private sector in all of this? Does the shift (back?) from transparency to governance mean a refocusing on governments, instead of the broader private sector actors targeted under pre-G8 discussions? These have been targeted directly through efforts to increase contract disclosure and public provision of information on holdings.

Second, what is the relationship that is assumed between transparency and governance? 

The G-8 Communique talks about the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure as ‘providing global policy guidance for good land governance and transparency’. So are they of equal importance or does one feed into the other?

The Open Government Guide takes the transparency of processes as a central element that feeds into governance (openness and accountability are others). The LGAF recognises the role of transparency in promoting better governance in the land sector, particularly in land-use restrictions, valuations, expropriation, the transfer of public to private land and in levying fees for different services provided by governments. Its emphasis on the provision of information, particularly through registries and cadastres, is the starting point for transparency in any form. 

The work of ODI (ADP,PoGo) and others, such as Global Witness, on transparency reveals a growing recognition of the importance of transparency for good governance. But it also shows that transparency is not enough, on its own to achieve the standard of governance in the land sector that we are striving for. This was also acknowledged in the Berlin discussions in October.

So, what can we take away from this? I see three key lessons.

1. Yes, the shift to a broader perspective on land governance is useful. But we need to acknowledge areas of agreement and difference on what we mean by governance, particularly in the presence of conflicting interests in land processes, and recognise the role of the private sector. 
2. We need to be clear about the role of transparency in promoting good governance – transparency and governance are not two sides of the same coin although progress on one depends on progress in the other. 
3. And finally, let’s carry the debate on the pathways from transparency to accountability to meaningful change into the debate on governance. This means talking about the content, timing and transmission of information; mechanisms and timescales to ensure meaningful participation and consultation; and getting accurate indicators that measure impact, not just processes.

All of these will issues were discussed at the ODI Roundtable on Land Transparency at ODI on 10 December 2013.

- Anna Locke

*The blog first appeared on 20 November 2013 on the ODI blog site. 

This post features the author's personal view and does not represent the view of ODI.    

The time is ripe for evidence

This blog, written by Rebecca Kilburn & Michael Frearson (RAND), is about the increasing commitment to use more child well-being evidence when making policy-related decisions. The post is a part of the Wikiprogress December Series on Governance.

Earlier this year, the European Commission renewed its commitment to promoting child well-being and made a recommendation entitled ‘Investing in children – breaking the cycle of disadvantage’ as part of the Social Investment Package to promote that goal. One of the guidelines was to strengthen the use of evidence-based policy. This particular recommendation is noteworthy, because it represents one of the first times that the European Commission has specifically advocated the use of evidence in policy making.
 
The field of education initiated several research synthesis projects early in the century, including the Best Evidence Encyclopedia and the What Works Clearinghouse in the US. More recently, the European Commission established the online European Platform for Investing in Children (EPIC), which screens and summarises evidence-based information related to children and their families across the EU and also provides a pan-European mechanism for individuals to share lessons learned in child policy and practice.

The demand for information about what works in the field of child and family services has grown due to the desire to ensure that tighter budgets are used effectively, coupled with the greater accountability that decision-makers face. In the early 1990s when the Cochrane Collaboration began gathering and pooling medical studies, an analogous project in the field of child and family policy would have been unthinkable due to a dearth of studies that would have met the criteria for high-quality evidence. But now there is a growing supply of research accumulating to inform child and family policy, and that research is increasingly meeting high standards of evidence. It employs rigorous methods, such as randomised trials, and there is now a sufficient quantity and quality of evidence to enable the aggregation of evidence-information in a systematic way.

As the supply of rigorous studies in the field of child and family policy has grown, so too have the resources that summarise evidence-based information for decision makers. In the United States, at least nine evidence-based practice platforms (EBPs) present information and EBP resources that include evidence that relates to child and family services there. In the EU, EPIC provides information on policies and practices which can help children and families cope with the current challenges which emerged due to the European economic climate. A central component of this project is an online repository of evidence-based practice. The ‘Practices that Work’ section of EPIC gathers, reviews and summarises evidence on effective strategies across the 28 member states.

Today’s austerity measures are unprecedented in the history of the EU. In 2013, EU leaders cut its seven-year budget for the first time ever. Additionally, major stakeholders such as Eurochild have noted that the well-being of children across the EU has deteriorated in the last year as result of the economic crisis. Recognition of the impact of the financial crisis on children, and the lingering austere economic climate, has led public and private supporters of child and family services to further scrutinise expenditures. Decision makers want to ensure that their limited funds are being used for policies and services that are effective. At the same time that funding for child and family services has come under strain, policymakers at all levels of government have also been subject to greater accountability than in the past.

Decision makers now have much easier access to a growing amount of evidence-based information related to children’s issues than in the past. A number of considerations can help put this information to best use:

First, even though the supply and quality of evidence-based information is greater now than ever before, it is not necessarily the case that evidence-based information should be given more weight than other factors that contribute to decision making. Evidence is an important piece of the policy making puzzle, but other factors, such as political considerations, values, funding and experience will necessarily also need to contribute to decision making. Innovation also matters greatly, as does facilitating the exchange of experience and practical lessons learned. Still, evidence has a place at the policy making table, and platforms such as EPIC are but one of the strategies for making evidence more useful for decision making.

Second, the supply and quality of information is highly variable across sub-fields of child policy. In an age of burgeoning availability of information, decision makers can take advantage of evidence platforms to help understand what is the ‘best available evidence’ that relates to children’s issues.

Third, decision makers will need to adapt evidence to meet local conditions, as evidence from around the EU is generated in differing contexts. The User Registry located within the ‘Practices that Work’ section of the EPIC website enables the capture of a number of practices and information on innovative practices to be shared with users and stakeholders. In doing so, it recognises that a variety of approaches may be chosen by stakeholders and practitioners.

Finally, decision makers can contribute to better policy making by sharing experiences and innovations in children’s policy, aggregating lessons learned in using evidence in the same way that the research evidence itself is aggregated. Evidence-based platforms (EBPs) such as EPIC recognise the importance of collective experience with features to capture and share this type of information in addition to aggregating the research evidence.

 A way forward may be for not-for-profit organisations and charities to encourage funders (be they government or alternative sources) to increase the share of funds available for evaluations. This approach would help meet requirements to provide evidence from evaluations where it is needed, and strengthen the evidence base. In countries such as the United States, approaches to evaluations have shifted from a pass/fail typology to a focus on Continuous Quality Improvement and program improvement. Evidence-based platforms favour such an approach, which can help individual programs and entire fields of intervention to become more effective through evaluation and evidence.

Dr Rebecca Kilburn is the co-Principal Investigator of the European Platform for Investing in Children project at RAND. She served as Director of the Promising Practices Network (PPN) on Children, Families and Communities for nearly 15 years. In this capacity, she helped develop the evidence criteria and processes used to conduct reviews, and she has overseen hundreds of systematic reviews of child and family programmes. During her 20 years at RAND, much of Dr Kilburn’s research has examined the effects of public and private investments in childhood. 

 Dr Michael Frearson is a Research Leader for education and skills at RAND Europe. He has more than 15 years’ experience working with schools, further and higher education and work-based learning. Michael has directed research on children, young people, employment and skills and conducted high-profile evaluations of flagship public policy interventions for children and young people, such as the Play Pathfinders and Play Builders programme and the Learner Home Access to Technology programme (for the UK Department for Education).   

This blog first appeared as on 2 December, 2013 on the Alliance for Useful Evidence website, as well as a RAND Europe technical note. 

Government at a Glance: Well-being and quality of public service provision

This blog, by Wikichild co-ordinator Melinda George, takes a look at the well-being aspects and the quality of public service provision in the OECD's "Government at a Glance 2013" report. The post is part of Wikiprogress' December spotlight on governance. 

Last month, the OECD’s Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate (GOV) launched its flagship publication “Government at a Glance 2013”. The report presupposes that governments are expected to take into consideration the well-being of their citizens when making policy decisions. Trust in government has been identified as essential for well-being and social cohesion, and the report looks intensely at citizens’ trust in their government. This trust “represents the confidence of citizens and businesses in the actions of government to do what is right and perceived as fair” and can be established through ensuring citizens’ well-being through service provision.

The second and the final chapter in the OECD’s “Government at a Glance 2013” report both provide a first attempt to measure the quality of key public services in a comparable way. As a Special Feature, the reports analyses four key public services which OECD member countries’ governments provide to their citizens: education; health care; justice; tax administration. The quality of these services is measured using several indicators for each service (viz. affordability; timeliness; reliability; efficiency; cost-effectiveness; satisfaction), chosen as a result of data availability and comparability across OECD member countries. The report also looks at the availability of public services via online channels, which can facilitate access to a wider range of users, provide convenience and reduce costs.

Below are the graphs from the report regarding quality of public service provision for the four services analysed.

Education

“Government performance assessment is particularly crucial in sectors such as education and health care that are fundamental to citizens’ well-being,” states the report. Affordability can be a major barrier to accessing public services, such as tertiary education. The OECD’s “Education at a Glance 2013” report looks at tuition fees and financial aid to assess the affordability of education in member countries (slide 1, see below). To measure efficiency, the report compares national cumulative expenditure per student with student performance (slide 2). The report looks at the public Net Present Value (NPV) of schooling, by comparing total benefits of education (i.e. economic returns) to costs, to determine the cost-effectiveness of education (slide 3). Finally, the World Gallup Poll surveys the levels of satisfaction with the education system and schools in 2007 and 2012 (slide 4).

 Health Care

Looking at out-of-pocket expenditures by income group is how the report determines affordability of health care in countries (slide 1). To determine timeliness of health care, wait time for both seeing a specialist and undergoing an elective surgery were measured (slide 2). Five elements were considered in the report to establish the reliability of health care (i.e. patients’ rights and involvement) (slide 3). The report looks at the average length of stay (ALOS) in hospitals to determine the health care systems’ efficiency (slide 4). In order to assess cost-effectiveness, the report compares improvements in life expectancy to total health expenditure per capita (slide 5). The report also looks at Gallup World Poll survey results for the question “In the city or area where you live, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the availability of quality health care?” (slide 6).

  

Justice Sector

The share of cases which received legal aid helped specify the affordability of judicial services in a country’s justice sector (slide 1). Trial length is a common indicator of timeliness in the justice sector and is the indicator used in this report (slide 2). To indicate the efficiency of a country’s justice sector, the report looked at the cost of trial compared to the national average trial length (slide 3). While no question was asked in the Gallop survey regarding satisfaction with the justice sector, the report does include the results from the question about confidence in the local police force (slide 4).

Tax Administration

To determine the timeliness of the tax administration, the report considered the average processing time for personal tax returns (slide 1). Whether a country has a formal or administrative approach to specify the rights and obligations of tax payers can influence whether citizens’ rights are ensured, which affects the tax administration’s reliability (slide 2). The tax administration’s efficiency was decided by comparing the annual costs of administration to the total revenue collected (slide 3).

Online Services

The report states that “online channels can facilitate access to a wider range of users and provide a greater convenience, while also reducing costs” (pp. 154). Therefore, an increase in online public service provision and use could greatly affect how well a government is serving its citizens. Looking at the percentage of business which have e-government uptake (slide 1) and the percentages of citizens’ uptake across age groups (slide 2) provides a clearer picture of the efforts a government is making to serve.

While measuring citizens’ trust in their government has been one way to determine the well-being aspect of governance, this report provides a more cross-cutting approach and a better picture of the relationship between citizens and state. While the picture is far from complete and measurements are missing in several countries, it at least is a sizeable step towards comparing governments' involvement in improving the quality of citizens’ lives. One thing was clear from the report’s findings: satisfaction with these services is higher than confidence in national government by a considerable amount of percentage points. In this case, we should continue moving beyond measuring trust in governments, as it alone may not indicate the quality of a government.

 - Melinda George