A quick glance around the world will show us that running a country well is not easy. In our own continent Argentina has suffered a financial meltdown due to years of improvident policies, Venezuela seems headed for an internal confrontation due to an aggressive and populist style of government which is willing to override any 'obstacles' in its path without reference to the usual constitutional and democratic norms, and Colombia where governments are tormented by and seem unable to resolve long standing threats from guerrilla movements and the drug cartels. Brazil under President Cardoso has been an example of good government, restoring Brazil to some level of financial stability and prosperity.

Further afield, examples of bad governance are plentiful. In Africa and Asia there are several examples of corrupt, dictatorial or incompetent governments. Yet South Africa under Nelson Mandela set an example of exceptionally good governance, bridging a racial problem many had considered unbridgeable and destined to lead to civil war and at the same time showing a mature awareness of the need to protect and preserve the country's prosperity while aiming for gradual change.

There are more complex cases. Singapore under Lee Kwan Yew was an extraordinary example of purposeful development based on a massive investment in education though at the price of some degree of authoritarianism and a restriction of some human rights. Then there is the Republican Government of President George Bush in the United States of America which has embarked on a fundamental revision of nuclear policy which contemplates the possibility of a first strike and introduces a new level of radical insecurity in global politics. There can be good policies in a dictatorship and bad policies in a democracy.

The qualities required for good governance are not capable of simple definition nor will they enjoy consensus, posing as they do difficult issues of political science but there may be some agreement that at a minimum good governance requires that the leader and his team have the ability to make decisions, justify them publicly and implement them. Ideally, there should be a vision of some kind of social and economic development and a grasp of a reasonable level of information about the country and its resources that inform the vision and the decision making.

In our own case and that of many other former colonies the imperial power, though itself possessing sophisticated governmental resources, saw the world and its colonies from its own standpoint, thus in practice severely curtailing the indigenous development of the colonies which was always seen as subservient to its own development. In the global movement for colonial freedom that started in the forties the political skills that were at a premium were those of protest and calls for change. After independence, translating those skills into the ability to manage, develop and build did not prove easy and because partly of social lag old attitudes of protest are still prevalent.

The development of a stable, prosperous and progressive country has proved much more difficult than many had imagined would be the case. At independence there was the illusion that we could solve our problems quickly under our own steam. Gradually it is dawning on us that the evolution of good governance and a settled policy is a complex process that takes time. The old skills of protest have to be replaced by new skills of management, responsibility and maturity.

There are no simple answers to the problems of government anywhere, it is a process that requires understanding and regular revision (there are many responsible critics of the mechanisms of the British and American systems of government) but at least we are now more aware as a nation that the problems exist, which is itself a kind of progress.