WORLD-BANK ON GOVERNANCE - A CRITIQUE

The World Bank - given its visibility, resources, prestige and leverag e - is, in course of time, capable of distorting the word 'governance' to make it acquire the kind of ideology-laden, question-begging conno tation which it has injected into it. If this goes uncontested, debate on governance will be marginalised by being confined to the narrow an d warped terms set for it by the Worm Bank. This has already happened with 'economic reforms' and 'structural adjustment', two other mantras in the World Bank's vocabulary.