ABSTRACT
During the 1990s, governance emerged as a catch-all term in both the study and practice of development. It can be defined generically as the prevailing patterns by which public power is exercised in a given social context. Official and non-governmental development agencies have sought to operationalize the idea of good governance by restructuring state bureaucracies, reforming legal systems, supporting democratic decentralization and creating accountability-enhancing civil societies. The notion of good governance should, in principle, refer to any mode of public decision making that helps to advance human welfare, however conceived. But because of the heavy influence of aid donors, governance has come to be associated with institutions designed to support market-led development.
