GovernAbilities: The nexus of sustainability, accountability and adaptability. Essential tools for successful governance in the 21st century

Governments today are challenged more than ever in three operational areas: pursuing sustainable development, being accountable to the public for the expenditure of taxpayer dollars, and anticipating and adapting to critical and cumulative risk.

Efforts within government to improve performance in these three core abilities of governance have been advancing largely independently over the past two decades, despite an apparent commonality in the basic principles and tools that drive them. The complexity and urgency of 21st century issues is an unforgiving place for uncoordinated efforts of such scale and importance.

This paper provides timely guidance to help governments at all levels improve their ability to effectively and efficiently pursue sustainability, accountability and adaptability. The common principles that underlie these governAbilities are highlighted along with a set of pragmatic tools that can be used to achieve them.