This pact reasserts the commitment of the government to good governance and it sets out a number of activities to be pursued through July 2007 in ten key areas. These include efforts related to: free and fair elections, anti-corruption, anti-money laundering, procurement, the Office of the AuditorGeneral, civil service reform, decentralisation and the role of non-state actors (notably the private sector and civil society), the creation of a more conducive investment environment, implementation of the extractive industries transparency initiative and better public service delivery in health and education. The Pact also commits the four budget support donors to further harmonisation around the government’s programme”. Enforcement of the governance agenda is consequently exercised by the donor community through inclusion of governance requirements in the programmes of assistance agreed with the country; establishing them as conditionalities and trigger requirements for release of funds; providing technical assistance to ensure the performance of these elements of the programme, including provision of personnel in some cases. We may note in passing that action on all these requirements is in progress and the related programmes are in varying stages of implementation. Civil society is also becoming increasingly important in trying to put pressure on government to deliver on governance issues. In the Sierra Leone context, special mention may be made of the Campaign for Good Governance, the Civil Societies Organisation, the 50/50 Group, the Lawyers Centre for Legal Assistance (LAWCLA) and other bodies. A recently established chapter of the Institute of Directors pays particular attention to the improvement of corporate governance.

Hyden and Court in their 2002 Discussion Paper, Governance and Development, relate the  BIS Review 109/2007  1  emergence of this dimension of governance to the changing paradigms in thinking on development. They trace the evolution of development thinking from the emphasis on projects to programmes, then to policies, and the latest recognition that in addition to these, politics is also important. The inclusion of the political dimension in development practice has altered the development landscape, prompting intrusion into aspects of policy earlier deemed beyond the limits of donor activity; with concomitant protests of violation of sovereignty and related controversies. The concept of governance arising from this process is not precise in meaning. Despite attempts at distinguishing between the political, economic and administrative aspects of governance, its analytic and operational dimensions, and its constitutive and distributive elements, in the final analysis governance is essentially all-embracing in its essence. It percolates through the entire fabric of the political, economic and social life of a nation. Recognition of this is reflected in the diversity of definitions given to the concept. While it may be too time-consuming to provide a sampling of these definitions, the flavour of the concept can be savoured from the following statement of Vivien Collingwood of Nuffield College, Oxford in the paper, Good Governance and the World Bank.