Transparency and openness arefundamental elements of institutional development. Recentevents in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) havehighlighted the importance of openness and transparency ingovernance-government processes, decisions, and expendituresthat are visible to public scrutiny and voice for citizensin decisions affecting their access to basic services andeconomic opportunities. This applies to higher educationjust as much as it does to social and financialinstitutions, corporations, and public agencies.Institutions that are governed fairly, openly, and honestlyimprove the lives of individuals, enhance innovation, andfunction more effectively than closed and secretiveorganizations. Measuring governance and quality of servicedelivery is central to improving education outcomes. Thisreport addresses how university governance has been assessedand compared in 100 higher education institutions (HEIs) inseven countries in MENA, using an instrument that takes intoaccount the underlying principles of transparency, openness,accountability, and voice and participation of stakeholdersin decision making. The key role played by universitygovernance in the improvement of education quality has beena focus of attention in MENA countries for the past threeyears. HE ministers and policy makers expressed theirspecific need to benchmark university governance at aseminar held in December 2009 at the Center forMediterranean Integration (CMI) in Marseille. The results ofthis exercise to benchmark university governance in 100universities in seven countries in MENA and the implicationsthey have for policy changes at the national andinstitutional levels are discussed in this report.
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