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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...

governance reform

Did the financial crisis kill the governance reform agenda?

Submitted by Alfredo on Wed, 2009-05-27 09:36

A few days ago, Dani Rodrik opened an interesting discussion with his post "How the financial crisis has killed the governance reform agenda."  Basically what he says is that "we need to downplay the role of improved governance as a causal mechanism for economic growth." 

His main argument is that the financial crisis in the US did not only undercovered issues of capture and corruption in this country -as Simon Johnson and Dani Kaufmann have argued- but also showed that it is possible to be corrupt and rich at the same time.  Based on this evidence and on his previous belief that the causal relation between governance and growth was never proofed to be strog, he concluded that even though governance reform is a good thing to do, it should not be confused for a growth strategy.

From Assessment to Practice: Action Planning for Governance Reform

Submitted by Susana on Fri, 2008-07-11 19:23

Developing countries increasingly recognize the importance of monitoring governance in order to identify institutional vulnerabilities and take measures to strengthen the effectiveness of their governments. With that in mind, the World Bank Institute recently brought together 30 members of government and civil society from Benin, Burundi, Cameroun, and the DRC to learn from each other and the experiences of various countries with governance and anti-corruption initiatives -from assessment to implementation.

Through prolonged engagement via videoconference before meeting face to face in Kinshasa, DRC, the participants shared experiences about the challenges and opportunities they face for governance reform  and talked about how to harness the power of data to push reforms.

Daniel Kaufmann from WBI discussed the links between governance and growth and lessons learnt from an empirical perspective in Africa: even in a shorter term, African countries can benefit from improvements in governance and the control of corruption in the form of increases in income per capita, he pointed out.

How Citizen Feedback Strengthens Governance Reform in Francophone Africa

Submitted by Boris on Thu, 2008-07-10 16:31

Citizen feedback is helping many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa improve their overall governance and fight corruption. That good news was shared by some 90 representatives from government, civil society, the private sector, and the media from Francophone Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital of Kinshasa, and the DRC provinces of Bandundu, Katanga, and South-Kivu, who came together in Kinshasa to learn from each other and exchange their experiences.

 

 see video in French here