The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project reports aggregate and individual governance indicators for over 200 countries and territories over the period 1996–, for six dimensions of governance:

  • Voice and Accountability
  • Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism
  • Government Effectiveness
  • Regulatory Quality
  • Rule of Law
  • Control of Corruption

These aggregate indicators combine the views of a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries.  They are based on over 30 individual data sources produced by a variety of survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and private sector firms.

What is Governance?
Governance consists of the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised.  This includes the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them.

The WGI are produced by:

  • Daniel Kaufmann, Nonresident Fellow, Brookings Institution, and President Emeritus, Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI)
  • Aart Kraay, World Bank, Development Economics
Financial support from the Knowledge for Change Program of the World Bank is gratefully acknowledged.  The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) are a research dataset summarizing the views on the quality of governance provided by a large number of enterprise, citizen and expert survey respondents in industrial and developing countries.  These data are gathered from a number of survey institutes, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and private sector firms.  The WGI do not reflect the official views of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, the Brookings Institution, the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.  The WGI are not used by the World Bank Group to allocate resources. For more information on data access and terms of use, please click here.
2021