Measuring governance performance - Post 1991 Ethiopia

Abstract

The new institutional arrangement, ethnic federalism, adopted since 1991, has helped nation nationalities and people of Ethiopia to administer themselves and develop; promote and protect their distinctive socio-cultural and linguistic identity. Parallel to the establishment of the federal system, various legal and other programs of reforms to enhance good governance and democracy have been initiated and undertaken by the government of Ethiopia. In effect, the objective of this particular paper is to critically analyze good governance performance as per the World Bank Governance Indicator Framework. To address this secondary data source-analysis of relevant documents-was utilized. The paper has found out the following results: Shrinking political landscape has made citizens to develop a kind of attitude that their vote has no power to bring any difference and the political culture “democratic centralism†has made elected government to be accountable for the party channels, instead of ensuring accountability for their constituencies. Perceptions of political and economic marginalization, the existence of huge youth unemployment and resource competition continue to spark conflicts across the country negatively impact peace &security and economic development. Huge interference of politics in the civil service, the highly politicized nature of the public institution, the lack of skilled human personnel, the prevalence of corruption and weak political commitment and weak and vulnerable governance institutions challenged government effectiveness. Poor regulatory quality coupled with state led development orientation has hampered the development and involvement of the private sector particularly in the manufacturing sector. Currently, at all levels of government there is subversion of judicial independence to political interests and in effect one can observe the prevalence of rule by law instead of Rule of Law. Due to lack of democratic culture, the erosion of the rule of law, party monopolization of the economy, as well as the politicization of the civil service, the incidence of grand and petty corruption is on the rise and it continues to be perceived as a pervasive problem. However, the new reformist government since April 2018 initiated ground breaking political, economic, administrative and legal reform to ensure democracy, good governance and development in the country. The paper has an important implication for stakeholders like policy makers, civil society and aid donors who recognize that the quality of governance is fundamental for the success of development program and livelihood improvements. Further, scholars can use the result of this study in their empirical research on the cause and consequences good governance in Ethiopia.