ABSTRACT
The World Bank, the world’s most important multilateral development institution and a major player in the financing of development policies, has been at the forefront of discussions about issues of governance and development since the 1980s. During the 1990s and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Bank has consistently focused on the issue of governance and has set the global agenda on governance quality in the context of development policies and strategies. The Bank’s influence on the development agenda, which may stem less from the originality than the propagation of views, was captured appropriately by Gavin and Rodrik (quoted in Gilbert and Vines 2000: 19): ‘Once the Bank gets hold of an idea, its financial clout ensures that the idea will gain wide currency.’1
