The “governance index” is related to potential effectiveness of any governmental response during and after exposure to climate stress in 2010. Generally well-structured governmental institutions are able to enhance the resilience of its members and citizen promoting adaptation strategies and action. The index results from the first cluster of the Principal Component Analysis preformed among 18 potential variables. The analysis identifies seven dominant variables, namely “openness to external assistance”, “regulatory quality”, “government effectiveness”, “voice and accountability”, “failed state”, “perceived corruption” and “criminal rate”, assigning equal weight of 0.1525 except to “criminal rate” that retrieve a weight of 0.085. Before to perform the analysis “criminal rate” was log transformed to shorten the extreme variation and then all variables were score-standardized (converted to distribution with average of 0 and standard deviation of 1; inverse method was applied for “criminal rate”) in order to be comparable. All the variables are country base and the tabular data were linked by country to the national boundaries shapefile (FAO/GAUL) and then converted into raster format (resolution 0.5 arc-minute). The variable “openness to external assistance” was compute as the average values of the period 2008-2012 of the KOF Index of Globalization that serves as a proxy for a country’s level of global integration. It uses data on three dimensions of globalization (economic, social and political) to create an overall globalization score between zero and 100 that measures a country’s level of integration in the global system. The variables “regulatory quality”, “government effectiveness” and “voice and accountability” are gathered from the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators, considering the average of the period 2008-2012. “Regulatory quality” captures perceptions of the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development. “Government effectiveness” captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies. “Voice and accountability captures perceptions of the extent to which a country's citizens are able to participate in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, and a free media. The “failed state” variable is based on the average 2008-2012 of the fragile state index that is a compilation of 12 socio-economic and political variables made by the Fund for Peace. It aims to capture the vulnerability to any kind of stress of a certain state. The “perceived corruption” variable is based on the homonym index published by Transparency International (NGO) averaged from 2008 to 2012. It assesses the level of corruption using qualitative surveys. Finally the “criminal rate” records the average rate (per 100,000 people) of unlawful death, as defined and assessed by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, in the period 2008-2012. A country with a higher degree of global integration will be better positioned to obtain disaster assistance from the international community. Autarkic or less well-integrated countries may be less able or willing to receive outside assistance in the event of extreme weather events. Such assistance could take the form of aid from bilateral or multilateral donors or international humanitarian organizations, or it could be in the form of remittances from overseas family or diasporas of the affected population. The Worldwide Governance Indicators define the level of expected assistance to citizens to better coping and manage with climate stressors and disaster events in situations measuring the good governance degree of a state. The failed state index measures the state ability to implement adaptation strategies measuring its vulnerability. People living in countries with higher level of corruption are thought to have more difficulties recovering from climate change impacts, due to limited governmental support reaching affected population compared to states with lower level of corruption. Corruption can further be of particular importance when it comes to the distribution of and access to emergency relief resources. Finally the criminal rate is included because violence severely limits a government’s ability to deliver assistance and indicate a lack of authority by central government.

This dataset has been produced in the framework of the “Climate change predictions in Sub-Saharan Africa: impacts and adaptations (ClimAfrica)” project, Work Package 4 (WP4). More information on ClimAfrica project is provided in the Supplemental Information section of this metadata.