Trends of local governance in Timor-Leste : suco governance performance scale (SGPS)

The program aims to: (1) support credible, peaceful, and fair suco council, municipal, and national elections and (2) enhance the capacity of newly elected suco councils to strengthen citizen participation in village governance. To achieve these aims, the GEC project addresses capacity building efforts of 148 suco councils, or village-level government units of Timor-Leste, in the four districts of Oecusse, Bobonaro, Ainaro, and Baucau over a period of three years. The project implemented a uniquely tailored Suco Governance Performance Scale (SGPS) in all participating sucos, as well as across sucos in the control districts of Ermera and Manatuto. The SGPS provides clear performance measures and enables partner councils to track performance improvements year-to-year. The SGPS uses Focus-Group Dialogues (FGDs) to collect data from suco councils to document and assess how well they are currently fulfilling their both new and traditional mandates. The SGPS is a valuable tool for government and non-governmental organizations to assess suco council performance on a regular and ongoing basis. The following report provides an analysis of the project"s SGPS data collected during the three-year project while highlighting strengths, weaknesses and suco governance trends. This is complemented by a discussion of the interventions and other factors that may have impacted changes in performance from the baseline and midline assessment conducted one and two years" prior. (Excerpt)