# **1. Introduction**

Excessive bureaucratic complexity in interactions with governments can be a significant obstacle for citizens accessing basic services and exercising their civil rights. Excessive bureaucracy can also retard progress toward the goals of eliminating poverty and promoting shared prosperity. For example, the compliance burden generated by administrative rules has the effect of restricting access to political rights. Voter registration issues account for a large percentage of nonvoters during elections (Alvarez et al. 2008). Administrative barriers reduce enrollment in social programs and access to health care (Currie 2004; Moynihan and Herd 2010). Legal issues can prevent households from connecting to public utilities such as water and electricity (Banerjee et al. 2008). These are just a few of the issues that can arise from inefficient bureaucratic procedures.

Governments are organized differently. Some impose cumbersome bureaucratic procedures, while others aim to streamline and simplify the burden on citizens to meet their responsibilities and to access the goods and services to which they are entitled. However, there are currently little to no comparable, cross-country data available to assess the extent of regulatory burdens or to generate a stimulus for reform.

While the effect of bureaucratic burden on the private business sector is measured and constantly monitored by governments who regularly consult the World Bank’s _Doing Business_ database, to date little attention has been paid to the effects of bureaucracy on the lives of private citizens. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the cost (either monetary or cognitive) of key interactions such as voting, obtaining identification, registering a birth, or accessing health care have the potential to limit a citizen’s access to basic rights and freedoms that should be universally guaranteed. The most vulnerable groups in the population are most at risk for infringement on access and rights. Drawing upon 78 participatory poverty assessments (PPAs) in different countries, the 2000 report _Voices of the Poor_ remarked that “poor people’s interactions with representatives of the state leave them feeling powerless, unheard, and silenced” (Narayan et al. 2000, 65). The report found that “the poor experience many barriers in trying to access government-provided services. These include bureaucratic hurdles, rules and regulations, the need for documents, and difficulties in accessing information” (Narayan et al. 2000, 65). When bureaucracy imposes excessively complicated procedures to access public services or state entitlements, the poor are more likely to be affected as more affluent and more educated citizens can better manage their way around the rules or more easily bear the costs of compliance. Simplifying the procedures and reducing the costs associated with citizen-government interactions would therefore empower the poor to take better advantage of the services and rights to which they are entitled.

This paper presents pilot results from a new World Bank project, _Living Life_ . The project developed and tested a methodology to collect data on the bureaucratic complexity in citizen-government interactions that is essential for accessing basic services and for exercising fundamental rights and civic duties.

First, the paper discusses the current knowledge gaps and the project’s contribution to the existing literature and evidence. Second, the paper presents the results from pilot data collected in four countries: Chile, Ghana, India, and Vietnam. Finally, the paper discusses lessons learned and next steps for improving its methodology and expanding data coverage to a larger number of countries.

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