This Guide is intended to respond to an increasing demand from UNDP Country Offices and a wide range of national stakeholders for guidance on the multiplicity of tools and methods that are being used to measure, assess and monitor governance at the local level. The Guide uses the term ‘local governance’ to cover the range of governance issues that exist at the local level, including decentralisation of policies and processes, the roles and inter-relationships of different actors and institutions, local democracy and local government performance.

The Guide combines a discussion of theoretical/conceptual issues relating to local governance with a review of past and ongoing local governance assessment initiatives. The proliferation of different assessments and indicators has resulted in some confusion about which tools to use, how they should be applied and their weaknesses and strengths.

The Guide is essentially made up of two parts; the first part outlines what is meant by local governance and describes the kinds of issues, concepts and priorities for local governance that existing measurement and assessment tools tend to focus on. This first part also provides guidance on challenges and opportunities for assessing local governance. The guidance is based on direct feedback from users of assessment tools, a distillation of good practices, and four illustrative case study examples.

The second part is the Source Guide, which is an inventory of existing assessment tools and methodologies. At present, there is no resource that offers a global overview bringing together all existing approaches, tools and methods in this area. The Source Guide is structured in a way to provide detailed information on each tool, including: history, objectives, applicability, the types and sources of data used, methodology used, key actors/stakeholders involved, the results reporting format, the gender and poverty focus (if it has one), strengths and weaknesses, the coverage, timeline, the assumptions in the method, contact details and any supplementary tools/guidelines related to the particular instrument. The purpose of compiling and organising this information is to provide local governance actors and other stakeholders engaged in strengthening governance at the local level with a resource that can be drawn on for developing new assessment tools or adapting existing assessment approaches to their specific contexts. It is important to note that the Guide does not provide a new measurement or assessment methodology and it does not propose any kind of a blueprint.

The Guide is an important component of UNDP’s body of guidance on measuring and assessing democratic governance, developed as part of UNDP’s programme on Governance Assessments. This programme supports nationally owned processes for assessing and measuring democratic governance and aims to facilitate the development of tools which have broad-based national ownership, are pro-poor and gendersensitive, and are designed to identify governance weaknesses and capacity gaps.

What is the purpose of the Guide?
The purpose of this Guide is to compile existing knowledge on decentralization and local governance measurement and provide a platform for understanding and navigating the array of assessment tools that exist, focusing on particular issues such how to select amongst the existing (or decide to design a new set of) local governance indicators; how to deal with the preparation and launching of an assessment; how to ensure the most inclusive process in implementing an assessment; how to ensure that the assessment is rigorous and scientifically sound; what to do with the results; and how to address problems of sustainability.

Who is the Guide for?
This Guide is primarily for local and national stakeholders that are involved in local assessment initiatives, and those who are working for relevant international, national and local development partners involved in such endeavors. These include government officials, civil society organizations, media organizations, and multilateral and bilateral agencies.