Administrative capacity, political process, and SDG performance: Evidence from the MENA region

This study examines whether the relationship between governance capacity and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) performance differs across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), non-GCC Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and the rest of the world. It also identifies which dimensions of governance are most strongly associated with SDG progress within the MENA region and whether these relationships vary across individual SDGs. The analysis uses an unbalanced panel of up to 165 countries covering 2016–2023. Governance is measured using the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators and is disaggregated through principal component analysis into two theoretically distinct dimensions: administrative capacity, comprising government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption; and political process, comprising voice and accountability and political stability. Two-way fixed-effects models with country and year effects are estimated, controlling for GDP per capita, foreign aid, and natural-resource rents. The results identify a “Gulf premium”: within-country improvements in administrative capacity are associated with stronger gains in aggregate SDG performance in GCC countries than in non-GCC MENA countries and the rest of the world. The differential is positive throughout but is not significant at the 5% level when 2023 is excluded or when the aggregate index is recomputed from the goal-level scores, so its magnitude remains imprecisely estimated. Within the MENA sample, control of corruption emerges as the strongest positive governance correlate of SDG performance, whereas political stability shows a negative association after accounting for the other governance dimensions. Results for individual SDGs further reveal that governance effects differ considerably across development domains. These findings demonstrate that the governance–SDG relationship is context dependent and that administrative capability can support rapid SDG implementation in high-capacity states. However, administrative strength should be complemented by participatory, accountable, and adaptive institutions to promote more inclusive and durable sustainability transitions.