A new approach to the measurement of service delivery is introduced.
The Service Delivery Underperformance Index (SDUI)
adapts the Alkire and Foster (2011) methodology used for poverty
measurement to measure the underperformance, or multiple inadequacies,
in service delivery. The index satisfies numerous properties.
It focuses on underperformance, satisfies dimensional monotonicity,
subgroup decomposability, and decomposability by dimensions
and indicators. Dimensions and indicators that could be used
to populate the index are discussed, referencing past work that has
shown the negative impact of the poor delivery of services on health
and education of individuals. It is demonstrated how the Alkire and
Foster (2011) methodology is applied to calculate the index using
facilities as the unit of analysis. Significance and robustness of the
resulting rankings are discussed.