This paper presents the latest update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories from 1996 to 2007. The WGI measure six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. The indicators are based on hundreds of individual variables from 35 data sources provided by 32 organizations, reflecting the views of public sector, private sector, NGO experts, and thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents. The authors report margins of error for each country estimate, which reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance. Despite these margins, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons and monitoring of progress over time. Over the past decade, a substantial number of countries have shown statistically significant improvements or deteriorations in at least one dimension of governance. The paper also describes the evolution of the WGI since its inception and highlights the benefits of expanding the number of data sources. The aggregate indicators and disaggregated individual indicators are available at www.govindicators.org.This paper presents the latest update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories from 1996 to 2007. The WGI measure six dimensions of governance: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. The indicators are based on hundreds of individual variables from 35 data sources provided by 32 organizations, reflecting the views of public sector, private sector, NGO experts, and thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents. The authors report margins of error for each country estimate, which reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance. Despite these margins, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons and monitoring of progress over time. Over the past decade, a substantial number of countries have shown statistically significant improvements or deteriorations in at least one dimension of governance. The paper also describes the evolution of the WGI since its inception and highlights the benefits of expanding the number of data sources. The aggregate indicators and disaggregated individual indicators are available at www.govindicators.org.