African Governance Making Progress: Ibrahim Index of African Governance | Africa | DW

The 2020 Ibrahim African Governance Index (IIAG) has named Mauritius, Cape Verde, Seychelles, Tunisia and Botswana as the countries with the highest scores of 2019. Angola and Somalia remain at the bottom but on a path of constant improvement.

The report released on November 16 by the London foundation states that for the 10th consecutive year, Mauritius held its top spot in 2019 while Somalia remained last due to security challenges in parts of the country posed by militants from al-Shabaab.

Despite these challenges, Somalia has improved its governance score since 2010, thanks to improved infrastructure and increased gender equality, among other things, according to the report.

“60% of Africans live in countries where governance is better in 2019 than in 2010,” according to Nathalie Delapalme, executive director of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation (MIF).

“However, since 2015, this progress has slowed down, which is a bit worrying,” Delapalme told DW in an interview.

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Human development is growing, the rule of law is falling

The IIAG is a tool that measures and monitors governance performance in 54 African countries annually.

The framework includes four categories: security and the rule of law, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunities and human development. In 2019, human development was the highest score of the four governance categories.

The foundation defines governance as the provision of political, social and economic public goods and services that every citizen has the right to expect from their state. Over the past decade, the dimensions of governance have followed divergent paths. That is to say, while there has been an increase in infrastructure improvement, economic opportunities and human development, there is a decline in the rule of law and security.

Cause for concern

Some high-ranking countries, such as Mauritius, Botswana or South Africa, however, still currently at 1st, 5th and 6th respectively, have been following a worrying path of deterioration since 2015.

Conversely, some of the lower ranks such as Gambia (16th), Ivory Coast (18th) and Zimbabwe (33rd) are among the top five improvers of the decade. Somalia, in 54th place, is the seventh most improved country in the past decade.

In addition to a balanced approach to advancing governance, the rule of law, justice, inclusion and equality appear to be the main common denominators among the best performing countries.

“Somalia, which is at the bottom of the index, has shown signs of improvement over the past decade, and Angola is among the top five trending countries,” Delapalme said.

The majority of Africans are dissatisfied with their government

In more than half of the countries surveyed, citizens are less satisfied with their country’s governance performance than they were ten years ago. For most countries, the deterioration in public perception of overall governance has even worsened since 2015. As digital rights have also been violated and internet closures are on the rise in Africa, there has been a decline in information sharing .

“The analysis of our results was that there was general dissatisfaction among African citizens when it came to providing governance in their countries, and the level of satisfaction is ten years worse,” said Camilla Rocco, head of research. at the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. .

“Citizens are the recipients of leadership and public governance, and governance performance assessment must be rooted in outcomes for citizens and cannot rely on official and expert assessment data alone,” Rocco told DW.

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COVID-19 challenges

The foundation recognized that governments across Africa face unusual challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has impacted their performance. However, the report shows that the continent went through a decline in security long before COVID-19, and the pandemic worsened an already alarming situation in terms of election interference, reduced space for civil society, increased repression and unrest. politicians . COVID-19 has also put the health gaps of countries across the continent in the spotlight.

“The current COVID-19 pandemic is obviously worsening and threatening those who have made progress, especially in the economic sector,” Delapalme noted. While the first index reports focused primarily on traditional public services, such as security or education, the 2020 report now encompasses new areas such as healthcare accessibility and inequalities. It also highlights the problems of discrimination based on ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

Ibrahim Index: A Fair Evaluation?

In recent years, African governments have accused the Mo Ibrahim Foundation of only publishing negative reports on their state of affairs. However, the foundation says its findings are based on information gleaned from several research groups. “It is not an evaluation entirely done by the foundation. We are just presenting a dashboard that consolidates the data from 38 different sources,” said Delapalme, “so it is a collective evaluation. All countries share the indicators that we are using. So I think that is a fair and impartial evaluation “.

The report ranks Ivory Coast among the best promoters of the past decade despite the electoral violence of recent years and political divisions among its politicians. However, says Delapalme, “The Ivory Coast has made good progress over the past decade based on human development and economic opportunity.” He added that the 2020 index reflects the year 2019, so it doesn’t consider what happened this year.