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The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 1997, defined governance as “the exercise of economic, political and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels. It comprises the mechanisms, processes and institutions, through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences.”
In 1993, the World Bank defined governance as the method through which power is exercised
in the management of a country’s political, economic and social resources for development.
In simple words, Governance is the process and institutions through which decisions are made and authority in a country is exercised. Governance can be used in several contexts such as corporate governance, international governance, national governance and local governance.
Thus governance focuses on the formal and informal actors and institutions involved in decision-making and implementing those decisions.