Governance That Can Deliver

Formal rules work best when they match shared expectations about how others will behave. Rules and norms change together, which is part of why the same reform can work in one place and disappoint in another.

David Sloan Wilson and colleagues have applied Elinor Ostrom's design principles, drawn from communities that governed shared resources for generations, to neighborhoods, a school and workplaces. ProSocial World, which Wilson co-founded, trains groups to use them. The Charter Cities Institute has published a governance handbook and model laws for new cities. The Africa Urban Lab helps city governments plan for rapid growth within the money and authority they have. Katharina Lima de Miranda and Dennis Snower built the SAGE dashboard, which sets GDP per capita beside indexes of solidarity (people's ties to one another), agency (their control over their own lives) and environmental sustainability. UNDP's Human Development Report Office is developing a Nature Relationship Index, which would rank countries on their progress toward a world where people and nature both thrive.