Office of Democracy & Governance: Performance Indicators
 The promotion of democracy is a complex, dynamic process only partially understood. It is not always easy to know if democracy in one place has advanced over short periods of time. And results can be mixed. A country might exhibit a more independent judiciary, for example, the same year that legislative committee hearings are closed to the public.
Despite inherent difficulties, USAID is committed to “managing for results” and the reasonable monitoring of democracy and governance programming through the use of performance indicators.
Performance monitoring is a necessary part of good program management. The 1994 Government Performance and Results Act gave the Agency an official impetus to improve monitoring techniques. The next year, USAID adopted a strategic framework for its core activities: economic growth, democracy, population and health, environment, and disaster relief.
Under the Agency goal “Democracy and Good Governance Strengthened,” for example, the strategic framework describes four objectives: 1) Strengthened rule of law and respect for human rights, 2) More genuine and competitive political processes, 3) Increased development of a politically active civil society, and 4) More transparent and accountable government institutions. Note how these track closely with the DG Office’s own internal organization by technical area.
To consider ways to measure these broad objectives, the DG Office began an ambitious effort in 1996 to develop a menu of performance indicators for the democracy sector. The DG Office convened four working groups of political scientists, methodologists, USAID field officers, representatives from the World Bank, and NGO staff to elaborate indicators under each agency objective. They devised approximately 350 candidate indicators for use by USAID mission personnel and partners attempting to measure the relative success of country democracy and governance strategies.
The results are included in the Handbook of Democracy and Governance Program Indicators.
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