The World Bank has updated its Worldwide Governance Indicators database, providing a new global dataset covering governance conditions across more than 200 economies and extending comparable estimates through 2025.

The latest update, released on September 25, 2026, provides annual governance estimates covering the period from 1996 to 2025. The dataset is designed to allow researchers, policymakers and analysts to examine long-term changes in governance across countries and regions.

Six Dimensions of Governance

The Worldwide Governance Indicators measure six broad dimensions of governance.

These include Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence or Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption.

Rather than measuring a single aspect of government performance, the framework brings these different dimensions together to provide a broader picture of institutional conditions.

The indicators are presented in two forms: statistical governance estimates and scores on a 0-to-100 scale.

Data Covers More Than Two Decades

The latest dataset provides a long historical series beginning in 1996 and extending through 2025.

This long-term coverage allows changes in governance indicators to be examined over multiple decades rather than focusing only on the latest available year.

Historical estimates have also been recalculated to maintain consistency across the time series following changes to the methodology.

The data can therefore be used to study broad trends in governance and institutional development over time.

Multiple International Data Sources

The indicators are based on perception data collected from 35 cross-country sources.

These sources include household surveys, firm surveys and assessments from experts.

Combining multiple sources is intended to provide internationally comparable information about governance conditions.

Because the indicators are based partly on perceptions and assessments, the World Bank describes them as broad measures rather than detailed country-specific diagnoses.

Measuring Government Effectiveness

One of the six dimensions is government effectiveness.

This dimension is intended to capture perceptions concerning the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree to which public institutions are viewed as effective in carrying out government functions.

Such information can be used alongside other economic and social statistics when examining development outcomes.

Rule of Law and Regulatory Quality

The database also includes indicators related to the rule of law and regulatory quality.

The rule-of-law dimension covers perceptions concerning areas such as confidence in institutions and the enforcement of rules.

Regulatory quality focuses on perceptions of the government’s ability to formulate and implement policies and regulations that support private-sector development.

These indicators provide an additional perspective on the institutional environment in different economies.

Political Stability and Accountability

Political stability and the absence of violence or terrorism form another component of the dataset.

The Voice and Accountability indicator captures aspects related to citizens’ participation, freedom of expression, freedom of association and the extent to which governments are viewed as accountable.

These measures allow researchers to examine governance from both institutional and citizen-oriented perspectives.

Control of Corruption

The sixth dimension focuses on control of corruption.

The indicator captures perceptions concerning the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including different forms of corruption.

The data can be used to examine changes over time and compare broad governance patterns across economies.

Why the Data Matters

Governance indicators are widely used in research examining the relationship between institutions and economic and social development.

The updated dataset can help researchers identify long-term patterns and investigate how institutional conditions have changed across countries.

However, the World Bank cautions that the indicators are broad and should not be treated as a complete diagnosis of a country’s governance system.

Country-specific policy analysis requires more detailed information and underlying data.

A New Global Reference Point

The September 2026 update adds another year of comparable governance information and maintains the long historical coverage of the WGI database.

With data extending through 2025, researchers can examine developments over more than two decades using a common framework.

The updated indicators are expected to remain an important source for global development research, international comparisons and analysis of institutional trends.

The dataset also demonstrates the growing role of internationally comparable statistical information in understanding governance, development and public-sector performance around the world.