The Mo Ibrahim Foundation presents the 2010 Index on governance in Africa

Today in Nairobi, Kenya, a panel from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation presented the 2010 Index on good governance in Africa.

Here are the numbers' presentation:
http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org/en/section/the-ibrahim-index/scores-and-ranking

The Foundation says the overall governance performance scores in Africa are 'driven by gains in economic and human development but undermined by democratic recession'.

The 2010 Ibrahim Index indeed shows recent gains in many countries in human and economic development but declines in political rights, personal safety and the rule of law. The Index assesses the delivery of public goods and services to citizens by governments and non-state actors across 88 indicators.

The Mo Ibrahim Founadtion's Founder and Chair said ‘The 2010 Ibrahim Index gives us a mixed picture about recent progress on governance across the continent. While many African citizens are becoming healthier and have greater access to economic opportunities than five years ago, many of them are less physically secure and less politically enfranchised.’

The 2010 Index shows both areas of progress and setbacks in governance between 2004/05 and 2008/09 (the most recent period assessed):

- Overall governance quality remains largely unchanged from previous years, with a continental average score of 49.
- However, this average masks large variation in performance across countries. Angola, Liberia, and Togo have all seen significant improvements in governance performance scores.
- Furthermore, there are large differences in trends across the various categories of the Index.
- In both Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development there have been improvements in many African countries. Importantly, no country has declined significantly in these categories.
      o In Sustainable Economic Opportunity, 41 African states improved; ten of these were significant.
      o  In Human Development, 44 of Africa’s 53 countries progressed driven by improvements in most countries in the Health and Welfare sub-category. Two of the improvements in Human Development were significant.
- This progress is not mirrored in Safety and Rule of Law and Participation and Human Rights.
     o In Safety and Rule of Law, 35 African states have declined; five of these were significant declines.
     o In Participation and Human Rights, although the results were more mixed, almost two-thirds of African countries declined in the Participation and Rights sub-categories.
     o Analysis of the performance of countries in the Gender sub-category shows some progress.
Considering these results, Salim Ahmed Salim, Board Member of the Foundation and former Secretary-General of the Organisation of African Unity, said:
 ‘We must ensure that the political side of governance in Africa is not neglected. We have seen from evidence and experience across the world that discrepancies between political governance and economic management are unsustainable in the long term. If Africa is going to continue to make progress we need to pay attention to the rights and safety of citizens.’

The Index Director, Dr Hania Farhan, also insisted that the Index should be used as a 'Powerful Tool' for governments to look closer at their political and economic development, and that it will not in any case give any judgment on the African countries' situation.