Crises have opened avenues to change and have often shown the way to progress and reform. Examples abound world-wide. Crises have proved beneficial when citizens and governments have taken pains to explore the lessons they may yield and listen to the messages that they contain. The goal in this article is to open a debate which sheds some light on the sources of our current deep malaise and tries to make some sense of the direction which international agencies, and governments at large, would be advised to follow. This article represents the outgrowth of the experience of years of public service on both the national level and, since January 2009, at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Though it does not pretend and should not be construed to represent the views of the UNDP on major global issues, it inevitably reflects the fruit of long hours of work on its behalf, in several parts of the world. Unlike some other inter-regional organizations, the UNDP encompasses all Member States in its remit. For obvious reasons, however, its workaday operations are more directly related to the concerns of developing countries. In democratic governance, which is a major area of UNDP activity, the countries and the regions that are currently undergoing a rapid course of change stand out for consideration. The author of this article has been intensely involved in consultations over this process. Accordingly, what follows reflects, to some extent, the sum of this experience. It happens that my watch has seen years of deep crises, both natural and man-made. Indeed, some of these crises have also demonstrated the measure and the progress of globalization. Events in one part of the world were soon replicated in others. Thus, the uprising in Tunisia soon spread to Libya and Egypt. The financial meltdown, which began in the US, in September 2008, has already migrated to Europe and has not stopped there. In the words of Timothy Geithner, the American Treasury Secretary, addressing the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Hawaii, in November 2011, ‘We are all directly affected by the crisis in Europe’ (New York Times, 2011c: A7). Though so far its effects have not been evenly felt across the board, this and other crises have shown that the countries that fared better and have been better able to weather the storm but also reap the benefits that come with globalization, were those whose state authorities and local government structures displayed a higher degree of competence, preparedness, commitment and professionalism.