Countries by Government Effectiveness: Standard Error

Ranking 2023

Analysis

This metric measures the standard error associated with each country's Government Effectiveness score as published in the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), indicator code GE.STD.ERR, for the data year 2023. A higher standard error indicates greater uncertainty around the point estimate, meaning a higher value on this ranking corresponds to less precise measurement. The source note defines the underlying data as follows: 'The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) are a research dataset summarizing the views on the quality of governance provided by a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries. Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, mo.' The unit is an absolute value. Coverage is strong: 205 countries have data, all from within the last 7 years, and 100% of datapoints are classified as official. The viability check identified 24 extreme outliers using a 3-sigma threshold, and the data range spans 0.20 to 0.51, a spread of 160%.

The top of the ranking is dominated by small territories and microstates with limited survey coverage. Nine countries share rank 1 with a value of 0.513: American Samoa, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Bermuda, Guam, Monaco, San Marino, St. Kitts and Nevis, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Nauru and Palau share rank 10 at 0.495, and Greenland ranks 12th at 0.493. These high standard errors reflect that fewer data sources contribute to estimates for small or territorially dependent jurisdictions, resulting in wider confidence intervals around their governance scores. Further down, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines share rank 13 at 0.424, and a cluster of seven small Pacific and island states including Fiji, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Tonga, and Tuvalu share rank 17 at 0.414.

A notable anomaly appears mid-ranking: several large, well-resourced countries with extensive survey coverage rank near the bottom of this metric, meaning their governance estimates carry relatively low standard errors. Australia, Canada, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States all share rank 71 with a value of 0.278. Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Sweden share rank 91 at 0.264. At the lower end of the standard error range, Ghana holds rank 205 with a value of 0.197, the most precisely estimated governance score in the dataset. Countries such as Nigeria (rank 191, 0.213), Congo, Dem. Rep. (rank 194, 0.209), and Cameroon (rank 195, 0.208) also show relatively low standard errors despite being frequently cited as data-scarce environments, which may reflect the aggregation of multiple survey sources in large-population countries.

This metric measures estimation uncertainty, not governance quality itself, so rankings here cannot be interpreted as reflecting how well-governed a country is. Standard error values are sensitive to the number and diversity of underlying data sources: countries with fewer respondents or fewer applicable surveys will mechanically produce higher standard errors. The identical values shared across many countries at each rank indicate that the WGI methodology applies standardized error values to groups of countries, rather than computing fully individualized estimates for each. This limits the granularity of cross-country comparison. Additionally, small territories included in this dataset may not be independently governed jurisdictions, which affects the comparability of their standard errors to those of sovereign states. The 24 extreme outliers flagged at the 3-sigma threshold warrant particular caution in interpretation.

Methodology

Data source: World Bank World Development Indicators, indicator code GE.STD.ERR, data year 2023. The metric reports the standard error of each country's Government Effectiveness estimate from the Worldwide Governance Indicators. Per the source note, the WGI are 'a research dataset summarizing the views on the quality of governance provided by a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries. Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. This includes the process by which governments are selected, mo.' Values are absolute figures; a higher value indicates greater measurement uncertainty. Coverage: 205 countries with data, all within the last 7 years (100% recency), 100% official data quality. The dataset contains 24 extreme outliers as identified by a 3-sigma threshold. The range runs from 0.197 (Ghana, rank 205) to 0.513 (nine countries tied at rank 1), a spread of 160%. Average year-over-year change is 3.9%. Tied ranks reflect standardized error values applied to country groupings within the WGI methodology.

Sources

• World Bank