Working Paper 4. Designing a local governance performance index: a problem-solving approach in Tanzania

This working paper details the process of creating a Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI) in Mvomero and Kigoma-Ujiji Districts of Tanzania.  This document is the fourth of the working papers produced in the framework of the Holding local government to account: Can a performance index provide meaningful accountability? project. This is a three-year DFID-ESRC funded project on the process of designing and implementing a local government performance index through collaborative research in Tanzania, with the aim of understanding whether such an index could improve local governance, accountability and service delivery.

The research found that a LGPI has the potential to do these things, but as a tool for collaborative problem-solving working, and not as a mechanism of external judgement and quantification. As such the main recommendation for the use of the LGPI are:

• Be cautious about accountability myths
• Work with political and systemic realities
• Untangle blame and accountability
• Be a collaborative problem-solving tool