The Andean countries, a region with abundance of natural resources and other valuable assets, exhibit a variety of governance problems that hinder its potential for social peace, stability and economic prosperity. Their empirical governance record, based on historical and recent data, although varies from country to country has been characterized by political instability, considerable frequency of constitutional reforms, presidential crisis, volatility of democratic institutions and violence. In turn, the empirical evidence on quality of institutions put the Andean region in a relatively modest place in international rankings of (survey-based) indices of voice and accountability, rule of law, regulatory burden, control of corruption, political instability and violence although improvements are also detected in some of these governance dimensions. Institutional reform, in a broad sense, is needed to ensure the basic conditions of economic development.