Over a dozen emerging countries, including Slovenia, Chile, Botswana, Estonia, U ruguay, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Mauritius, and Costa Rica sc o re higher on key dimensions of governance than industrialised countries such as Greece or Italy.
In many cases, these differences were statistically significant, said the report released Wednesday.
"Some countries, including some African nations, are making rapid progress in go vernance," said Daniel Kaufmann, co-author of the report and Director of Governa n ce at the World Bank Institute.
"Progress reflects reforms in those countries where political leaders, policy ma kers, civil society and the private sector view good governance and corruption c o ntrol as crucial for sustained and shared growth."
Between 2002-2007, the indicators show sharp improvements in governance, along w ith reversals.
Examples include strong improvements in voice and accountability in countries su ch as Ukraine and Haiti; improvements in political stability and absence of violence/terrorism in Argentina; and improvements in the war against corruption in Georgia and Tanzania.
However, despite governance gains in some countries, overall quality of governan ce around the world has not improved much over the past decade, the report noted .
Coinciding with countries that have done well, a similar number have experienced deteriorations in several governance dimensions, including Zimbabwe, Cote D'Ivoi re, Belarus, Eritrea and Venezuela.
In many other countries, no significant change in either direction is yet appare nt in recent years.
The indicators suggested that where there is commitment to reform, improvements in governance can and do occur.
Over the past decade, from 1998-2007, countries in all regions have shown substa ntial improvements in governance, even if at times starting from a very low level.
Examples include: Ghana, Indonesia, Liberia and Peru in voice and accountability ; Rwanda, Algeria and Angola in political stability and absence of violence/terr o rism; Afghanistan, Serbia and Ethiopia in government effectiveness; Georgia and the DR Congo in regulatory quality; Tajikistan in rule of law; and Liberia and Se r bia in control of corruption.
This year's study was the seventh update of the WGI, a decade-long effort by the researchers to build and update the most comprehensive cross-country set of gove rnance indicators currently available.
The indicators cover 212 countries and territories, drawing on 35 different data sources to capture the views of tens of thousands of survey respondents worldwi d e, as well as thousands of experts in the private, NGO, and public sectors.
Policy makers and civil society groups worldwide use the WGI as a tool to assess governance challenges and monitor reforms and by scholars researching the causes and consequences of good governance.
Better governance helps in the fight against poverty and improves living standards.
Research over the past decade showed that improved governance raised development and not the other way around.
When governance was improved by one standard deviation, infant mortality decline d by two-thirds and incomes rose about three-fold in the long run.
The report maintains that such an improvement in governance is within reach, since it is a fraction of the difference between the worst and best performers.
In the dimension of rule of law, for example, one standard deviation is all that separates the very low ratings of Somalia or Afghanistan from countries such as Kenya and Bolivia; or what separates these countries from countries such as Ghan a or Egypt; or in turn what separates Ghana or Egypt from Portugal or Estonia; or what separates these from the best performers such as Denmark or Switzerland.
Good governance has also been found to significantly enhance the effectiveness of development assistance in general and of World Bank-funded projects in particular.
Addis Ababa - 25/06/2008
Pana
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