Mapping State Capacity in Africa: Measuring Scope, Strength and Reach

Matthias Kronke and Dr Vinothan Naidoo gave our May 21st seminar on "Mapping State Capacity in Africa:
Measuring Scope, Strength and Reach". The African state is frequently described as weak and unable to contribute to the development of its people. Yet, few attempts have been made to measure state capacity in a reliable and valid way from the perspective of the recipient of government services – the citizen. The researchers propose a novel citizen-centred measure of African states’ ability to provide the basic ingredients to human development. In doing so, they build on recent efforts of using survey data to measure state-ness and combine the three crucial dimensions of states: scope, strength and reach.