Part IV Communicating findings 13.4.4. Governance indicators In addition to the qualitative methods outlined above, there are a number of initiatives that attempt to take a more quantitative approach to measuring contextual factors. They could also be a relevant source to cite under step four of OPERA. For example, the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) report aggregates individual governance indicators for six dimensions of governance: (1) Voice and accountability; (2) Political stability and absence of violence; (3) Government effectiveness; (4) Regulatory quality; (5) Rule of law; and (6) Control of corruption. These aggregate indicators combine the views of a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrialized and developing countries. They are based on 32 individual data sources produced by a variety of survey institutes, think tanks, NGOs, international organizations and private sector firms. Data on the WGI is available for 215 economies from 1996 onwards. Similarly, the Resource Governance Index scores and ranks 58 countries based on the degree of transparency and accountability in their oil, gas and mining sectors. This index explores four key questions: Does the prevailing legal and institutional framework support transparency and accountability? What information is published about the resource sector? What safeguards are in place to promote integrity in its governance? Is the broader institutional environment conducive to accountability? Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer is another useful tool. It is the world’s largest public opinion survey on corruption, collecting the views of over 114,000 people in 107 countries on 12 questions on corruption. While these indicators can be helpful in some cases, it is also important to bear in mind that concepts like “rule of law” and “regulatory quality” are complex concepts that are open to different interpretations and different perspectives. By summarizing these concepts in a number, a lot gets hidden, especially biases and assumptions about what makes “good governance”. For example, the World Bank publishes “Doing Business” rankings, which score countries on how they regulate business. They have been heavily criticized by social justice advocates for awarding some countries with high points when those countries have fewer regulations on the purchase of land, lower corporate tax rates and policies that can facilitate land grabs and resource exploitation. 13.5. IN PRACTICE: RESEARCHING CONTEXTUAL FACTORS Quantitative data alone is not enough to draw conclusions about a State’s human rights performance. Some degree of qualitative analysis is needed because it helps explore the contextual factors that influence “why” a situation is the way it is. For this reason, it is important to identify and reflect on these factors before making a final assessment of a State’s compliance with its human rights obligations. As noted above, it is likely that some these factors will have been identified from analysing the data previously collected for your research. In some cases, therefore, it may only be necessary to brainstorm how these different issues fit together so that you can explain them more clearly in your report. In other cases, these broader contextual factors might be so fundamental to the issue that your NHRI is investigating that additional research is needed. If this is the case, there are a number of approaches that can be used to conduct further research into these contextual factors, including: secondary literature searches; community consultations: key informant interviews; power mapping; capacity gap analysis; political economy analysis; and governance indicators. Which approach is best in a particular context will depends on the goals and objectives of your monitoring activity and the capacity of your NHRI. Chapter 13: Evaluating contextual factors | 135