The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between gov-ernance indicators developed by the World Bank and global competitiveness measured by the World Economic Forum. The findings show that most of the governance clusters have a significant influence on the global competitiveness. It is further discovered that government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption are influencing governance indicators for countries from Europe, South and Central America and Asia, while for countries from Africa the global competitiveness seems to be least influenced by all six governance dimensions.