The Smart Governance Index – A New Alternative to the World Governance Index
The Smart Governance Index – A New Alternative to the World Governance Index

Summary/Abstract: Measuring governance performance, in particular of different countries, is indispensable for increasing its effectiveness, efficiency and quality. There were developed many such indicators, but they are rather unilateral. The WGI, launched in 2008 by the Forum for a new World Governance and covering 179 countries of the world, made up of 5 aggregate indicators, is possibly the first attempt to build such a complex and in the same time practical index. Unfortunately, the WGI wasn’t updated since 2011, although it would be very useful both for theoreticians and practitioners. We propose an alternative index – the SGI, calculated for 151 countries in 2010 and 155 countries in 2015, made up of 10 sub-indexes. Both the WGI and SGI aren’t perfect, but are good analytical tools for governance actors / players. While the WGI is based on the idea of sustainable development, the SGI suggest smart development focused on knowledgeintensive factors. Considering this paper’s limitations, we selected a sample of 6 countries and 7 regions for comparison and exemplified 10 best and 10 worst performers for both indexes. We concluded that top performers are the most developed countries, in particular Scandinavian ones, while the least developed African and Asian states have the poorest ranks. On the other hand, a weak score even of a sub-index may result in losing overall leadership, as in case of the USA or Japan. Moreover, negative phenomena, like wars or crises, can make countries bottom performers, e.g., Afghanistan or Syria.

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