Having seen its desperate importance and the great efforts of the government in achieving good
governance, this study stands to assess governance in public institutions making its topic ‘an
assessment of the prevalence of good governance in public institutions.’
The main objective of the study is assessing how far good governance is prevalent in public
sector institutions and the research was conducted on 11 public institutions purposefully selected
in Debre Birhan town. The study employed qualitative research methodology and data was
collected through questionnaire method and the data obtained both from public institution
employees and service users together with the information obtained through interview from
selected officials. The descriptive analysis made revealed that institutions are on the way striving
to achieve governance practically in their institutions. Based on the analysis conducted using five
core elements of good governance namely accountability, transparency, equity and equality,
effectiveness and efficiency and participation different achievements and failures were observed.
Frameworks and mechanisms for good governance implementation are found ready. The
necessity of engaging the society in full scale participation, the need for trainings, workshop,
seminars, on good governance, increasing implementing capacity of the institutions, the
necessity of using different mass medias including the regional mass medias for good
governance issues , struggling against corruptions are recommended for the failures in public
institutions in their run forward to achieve good governance
