The 2011 Ibrahim Index of African Governance was released recently by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. The top five countries on the index in descending order are Mauritius, Cape Verde, Botswana, Seychelles, and South Africa, while the last five countries on the index in descending order are Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Chad, and Somalia.
The index is based on four main indicators:
- Human Development: This indicator deals with the following areas – welfare; education; and health. According to the 2011 index, while there has been a general improvement in this indicator through increased investments, there is a greater need to focus on the youth population especially in areas of education and healthcare. It was also observed that regardless of the increased investment, inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the way investments are made still prevails
- Stable Economic Opportunity: This indicator deals with the following areas – public management; business environment; infrastructure; and rural sector. Across the continent, majority of the countries improved in this indicator.
- Participation and Human Rights: This indicator deals with the following areas - participation; rights; and gender
- Safety and Rule of Law: This indicator deals with the following areas – national security; personal safety; accountability; and state of law
Some of the highlights in the report include:
- Sierra Leone: Sierra Leone is the second country that demonstrates statistically significant improvement in overall governance quality over the past five years. The country also gained in all the four indicators
- Liberia: Liberia is one of the two countries to show statistically significant improvement in overall governance quality over the past five years. This has been achieved through improvements in all four categories of the Index and 13 out of 14 sub-categories.
- Libya: Libya was one of the countries that showed a disconnect between performance in the various categories/indicators. Libya is ranked in the bottom half of the Index in 2010. Libya shows imbalance in performance between Human Development and Participation and Human Rights. In Libya’s case the imbalance is extreme with the country ranking in the top ten for Human Development and in the bottom three for Participation and Human Rights. Libya’s performances in Safety and Rule of Law and Sustainable Economic Opportunity are also weak in relation to Human Development.
Africa needs more access to data, in order to benchmark its progress and performance, more importantly as it’s a developmental state, the usefulness and acclaim of this index amidst its weakness in data attests to this fact. There is need to applaud the work of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which has dedicated its work to the progress of governance in this country, it is with this we look forward to a continent with increased access to information and data, as well as good governance.
Good luck to the Democratic Republic of Congo, as they prepare towards their election (The country ranked 50th out of 53 countries), we hope the elections are peaceful.
You can assess the Index by using the following link
