Still, the downfall of Mr. Anwar shows how outside economic forces can sunder the political culture of even a well-governed country.

President Bush's foreign aid program aimed at reducing poverty in well-governed developing countries announced its second-largest grant yesterday.

His theory, shared by many development experts, was that well-governed countries would not waste aid, but would use it to spark economic growth and reduce poverty.

This Swedish excess seemed the only sensible response to European behavior that made the U.S. appear, if only fleetingly, a well-governed country.

They note that the United States has tripled aid to Africa to $3.2 billion since Mr. Bush took office, with initiatives to tackle AIDS and to assist well-governed countries.

All that said, in the right circumstances aid can be tremendously effective, especially in well-governed countries - Mozambique is an excellent example.

The Union needs to abide by its own legal framework and particularly the EU security strategy, which underlines 'the need to have a wealth of well-governed countries on its border'.

'It's a wealthy, well-governed little country.'

The Philippines ranked second in Asia's clean and well-governed countries.

The activists and the Bush administration now agree that large-scale aid should be directed not only at highly impoverished but also well-governed countries - those with strong "internals."