IG Index Must Measure Real Outcomes, Not Just Procedures

As India takes the IIAS presidency, healthcare, education, policing, and water delivery must form a credible global benchmark in any index.

By P SESH KUMAR

New Delhi, October 5, 2025 — If India’s proposed International Governance Index (IGI) is to avoid the fate of being dismissed as yet another glossy scoreboard, it must have teeth-domains that truly measure governance where it matters.

Let us attempt a draft framework that blends procedural governance with service-delivery outcomes, giving the index both legitimacy and utility. It should easily borrow from the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators, the Mo Ibrahim Index, OECD good practice, and the SDG framework, but could push further: should it not insist that governance is not merely about institutions on paper but about the lived experience of citizens.

Proposed Domains and Indicators

1. Political and Institutional Integrity

This domain should cover rule of law, corruption control, transparency in procurement, independence of judiciary, and parliamentary oversight. Indicators could include audit timeliness, court backlog clearance rates, publication of public contracts, and freedom of information implementation.

2. Voice, Accountability and Civil Liberties

Should measure freedom of press, civil society participation, electoral integrity, grievance redress, and citizen engagement. Indicators here might blend perception surveys with factual metrics like response rates to Right to Information (RTI) queries and voter turnout adjusted for inclusivity.

3. Government Effectiveness and Administrative Capacity

Should look at bureaucratic quality, fiscal prudence, and delivery efficiency. Data could include budget credibility (variance between budgeted and actual expenditure), backlog of audit objections resolved, procurement cycle time, and quality of e-governance platforms.

4. Public Service Delivery Outcomes (the missing heart)

Here governance could meet lived reality. Indicators could include:

Health: Infant and maternal mortality rates, immunization coverage, access to primary health centres.

Education: Female literacy rate, net enrolment and completion in secondary education, pupil-teacher ratios.

Law and Order: Crime resolution rates, police response times, survey-based perceptions of safety.

Poverty Alleviation: Share of population lifted above national poverty line in the last decade, coverage of social security transfers.

Infrastructure and Basic Services: Percentage of households with electricity, piped drinking water, digital connectivity.

5. Environmental Stewardship and SDG Progress: Governance cannot ignore sustainability. Indicators could track air and water quality management, renewable energy share, waste management effectiveness, and progress on climate resilience targets, aligned with SDGs 6, 7, 11, and 13.
6. Equity and Inclusion: Governance is hollow without fairness. This domain would measure gender parity in workforce participation, representation of marginalized communities in governance, and targeted schemes reaching vulnerable groups.

Architecture and Methodology

The IGI should have a tiered structure: Core Governance Domains (1–3): Institutional and procedural aspects.

Service Delivery and SDG Outcomes (4–6): Tangible impacts on people.

Each domain should carry transparent weights, subject to sensitivity testing, and all raw data, aggregation scripts, and methodology should be published in open access. Countries could also pilot subnational modules, enabling state- or provincial-level governance comparisons in federations like India, Nigeria, or Brazil.

Hardwire Domains into Blueprints

If IIAS and India’s presidency want this index to stand the test of time, they must hardwire these domains into its blueprint from the outset. The IGI must dare to measure the most politically sensitive but vital aspects: whether hospitals heal, schools educate, police protect, and taps deliver water. Without that, the IGI will be just another technocrat’s toy. With it, however, the index could become the first global benchmark that governments cannot dismiss, because it captures not only their paperwork and procedures but the pulse of their people.

(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)

International Governance Index and the Service Delivery Gap

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About The Author

pseshkumar

Sesh Kumar Pulipaka is a retired officer of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IA&AS), having served under the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. He has authored two books on CAG– ‘CAG- ENSURING ACCOUNTABILITY AMIDST CONTROVERSIES- an inside view’ and ‘CAG- WHAT IT OUGHT TO BE AUDITING’ in addition to a third book ‘The Sacred Sound Path- walking with Nada Brahma and my Guru’.
His career was marked by significant contributions to public sector auditing, reflecting his expertise in financial oversight and governance. As a 1982-batch IA&AS officer, he held various roles within the CAG’s framework, focusing on ensuring accountability in government financial operations.

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