Governance – A Simple Attempt to Measure

The ultimate objective of all human efforts is the attainment of happiness and welfare. Economic growth primarily concerns with the sustained rise of aggregate output, per capita or real per capita output. But economists opined that the process of growth is only a means not the end, actually ‘end’ is human development. Human development is growth with social justice that is removal of poverty, unemployment and inequality. But most governments put excessive concentration on growth and miss the people for whom such growth is meant. Sustained economic growth is necessary for a steady improvement in the quality of life, but growth itself does not automatically lead to better life for the majority, since growth is value neutral. It does not carry any in-built mechanism to translate itself into human development. It does not ensure the podium of equal opportunity for all. Here lies the importance of ‘governance’ to percolate the gains of growth to the lowest layer of society, or equitable disposal of the fruits of growth among the people. The concept of governance is not new. It is as old as human civilization. The word governance simply means the process of decision making and the process by which the decisions are implemented (or not implemented). Governance can be used in several contexts, such as corporate governance, international governance, national governance and local governance. The term ‘government’ and ‘governance'are some times confusing. Governance is about government, but it has a broader meaning. It is normally the role of the government to have the final word on how best to serve the interests of the community. It is now rightly acknowledged that the main reasons of human deprivation throughout the world are not just economic, these problems go hand in hand with social and political factors also. The latest concept of development is to build human capabilities, enlarge human choices, secure environment where citizens can live with dignity and equality, here lies the importance of governance. Governance is defined in terms of good or poor perspective. Though there are many opinions regarding ‘good governance’, but simply it can be defined as, a good governance serves the citizens by safe guarding territorial integrity of the state and securing individual security, rule of law and the delivery of services ranging from education, health to livelihood and food security. In this paper an attempt has been taken to get a rule of thumb idea about the quantitative measurement of governance.