There is a substantial body of knowledge about federalism, decentralization, and multilevel governance, but this knowledge base remains highly fragmented. Researchers and practitioners approach the subject from different disciplines—including political science, public administration, public finance, economics, law, urban development, and international development—and often use different concepts, terminology, indicators, and units of analysis.
By providing a common point of access to complementary datasets, methodologies, country information, and analytical tools, the Global Observatory aims to make it easier to understand and compare how multilevel governance systems are organized and how they function in practice.
Bringing MLG data together
The global community of practice working on decentralization, localization, and multilevel governance is diverse not only in its disciplinary perspectives, but also in the institutions and organizations that shape and contribute to the field. National and subnational governments, international organizations, development partners, universities, research institutes, local government associations, and civil society organizations all generate valuable evidence and practical knowledge. Yet their data and analytical tools are spread across numerous platforms and are often difficult to discover, compare, or use together.
The Global Observatory on Multilevel Governance (Global MLG) seeks to connect these different perspectives rather than replace them with a single approach. The Observatory provides a common platform through which users can discover complementary sources of evidence, understand what different datasets and methodologies measure, identify their strengths and limitations, and use them together to develop a more complete understanding of multilevel governance.
From data to understanding
Multilevel governance cannot be adequately understood through any single indicator. The structure of each multilevel public sector is unique and needs to be well-understood, along with the institutional depth of subnational institutions. Political and electoral institutions, administrative authority, functional responsibilities, and key features of the overall system of intergovernmental (fiscal) relations all matter.
The Global MLG Observatory therefore brings together evidence that allows users to examine multilevel governance from different perspectives—from the basic architecture of government and the autonomy of subnational institutions to expenditure and revenue assignments, intergovernmental finance, democratic governance, and relations among levels of government.