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A blog about Governance and Development for All

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This is the World Bank's blog on governance and anti-corruption. It aims at providing a space for debate and knowledge sharing on this critical field of development. | Learn more...

May 2008

What we talk about when we talk about governance

Submitted by Joel on Wed, 2008-05-28 11:12

The word "governance" was made up by the donors.  In most countries I have worked in there is no satisfactory translation for the word governance.  Indonesians sometimes use the expression "tata pemerintahan yang baik" but that's such a mouthful that most people, regardless of how little English they actually know, end up just sprinkling the English word governance into their Indonesian sentences.  I can't tell you how many times in governance seminars, governance workshops and governance conferences in all of the countries I have worked in, someone invariably stands up, takes a self-satisfied sigh and says, "And what exactly do you mean by the word governance?" Before I came to the World Bank, I taught political science for years at Columbia and Harvard and yet I never came across the word governance in any serious academic literature (and to this day, you will rarely find the term in any major political science journals).  And yet here I am in Jakarta as a "Governance Adviser."

Governance for All: welcome to the blog

Submitted by Kaufmann on Thu, 2008-05-22 19:04

The past decade has witnessed a sea change in the public's awareness of governance issues. These were no longer seen through the prisms of  ethics or politics: they became everybody’s business.

This explosion in interest has occured in both developed and developing countries. It has also permeated the donor community, including the World Bank – where, until the mid nineteen nineties, the subject was still officially taboo.

Since then, significant progress on governance has taken place in some countries and institutions, in contrast with others. Many aid agencies have integrated good governance and anti-corruption in their programs. Evidence was gathered, research was carried out, reforms were implemented, and some  lessons were learnt -- yet many more remain to be learnt.

The governance puzzle is far from solved; many questions are waiting to be answered. Others are subject to ongoing debate.  At the same time, the evidence increasingly points toward one basic finding: good governance does matter. It matters for development, for growth, and for poverty alleviation. 

Yet this finding is only the beginning of a long quest for knowledge. We still need to learn whether governance matters more in particular countries or institutions, or whether it only matters in the longer term. Whether it influences other major determinants of development. Which concrete factors and measures account for improved governance and corruption control. Which practical measures work better than others. Why some countries and institutions have improved, others deteriorated, and others just stagnated.  For instance, is developing stronger institutions to put some checks and balances on the executive more important than adopting anticorruption decrees and laws?

Moving the Bank's Governance Agenda Forward

Submitted by Sanjay on Thu, 2008-05-22 08:47

A lot has been going on recently at the World Bank in the area of governance. Some of that has been taking place at the institutional level.  Following extensive public consultations in nearly fifty countries, the Bank has developed and adopted a new Governance and Anticorruption (GAC) strategy and implementation plan last year.  So what will be different, as a consequence of this? I envisage five key areas where the Bank will need to change the way it approaches governance issues: 

First at the country level, a key emphasis will be placed on systematically addressing governance issues in the Bank assistance strategy with its client countries (the Bank calls these the Country Assistance Strategies, or CAS).  The Bank identified 26 pilot countries for this systematic exercise, a principal priority of which is to facilitate learning among teams working with these countries. 

Second, the Bank is mainstreaming governance in all its sectoral work, building on successful existing programs: for instance, transferring school grants directly to school councils in Mozambique, publicizing bidding information in Pakistan’s water sector, developing transparent and collaborative governance arrangements in the pharmaceuticals and construction sectors in the way of EITI, and encouraging systematic use of existing actionable governance indicators such as the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) indicators.