African Good Governance index

News Release
For immediate release – 6 October 2008

Ethiopia falls one place as performance declines in latest
Ibrahim Index of African Governance

Newly published data shows that two thirds of sub-Saharan African countries have improved governance performance, with notable progress in participation and human rights

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA: The 2008 Ibrahim Index of African Governance published today by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation shows that between 2005 and 2006 Ethiopia’s overall score declined to 50.9 out of 100, as the country fell one place to rank 31st out of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 countries.

According to the Ibrahim Index’s comprehensive measures of governance performance, Ethiopia’s scores have fallen in three out of the five categories; Safety and Security; Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption; and Participation and Human Rights. Ethiopia’s scores in the other two categories -
Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development – have improved.
Category 2007 score
(out of 100)
2008 Score
(out of 100)
2008 Ranking
(out of 48)

Safety and Security 75.2 72.8 35
Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption 49.1 47.9 31
Participation and Human Rights 44.3 40.4 37
Sustainable Economic Opportunity 40.4 40.5 25
Human Development 51.0 52.7 23

The most notable decline was in Participation and Human Rights, in which Ethiopia’s score fell by 3.9 points. Another notable movement was in Human Development in which Ethiopia’s score rose by 1.7 points.

Within the Horn of Africa, Djibouti was the only country to improve its score with respect to last year.

Somalia again occupies bottom place in the Ibrahim Index. No country from the Horn of Africa
featured in the top half of the Ibrahim Index. Ethiopia ranks second out of the four countries in the region but is top of the region for Sustainable Economic Opportunity. Ethiopia outperforms neighbouring Eritrea overall and in the Human Development; Sustainable Economic Opportunity; and Participation and Human Rights categories.

The Ibrahim Index indicates that two thirds of sub-Saharan African countries have improved their governance performance during the last year. Liberia, the fastest riser, ranks 38th with a change in score of 10.4 points to give a score this year of 48.7.

Participation and Human Rights is the category with the largest improvements, with 29 countries demonstrating progress. Many of these have demonstrated improved participation in elections generally deemed free and fair by international observers. However many issues remain across the continent in this area particularly with regard to women’s rights. A majority of countries also recorded
improvements in the categories of Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption; Human Development;

and Sustainable Economic Opportunity between 2005 and 2006.
For the second year running, Mauritius tops the Ibrahim Index, scoring 85.1 this year. Membership of the top five remains unchanged and is comprised of Seychelles, Cape Verde, Botswana and South Africa all of which score over 71.0.

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance is a comprehensive ranking of sub-Saharan African nations according to governance quality. The Ibrahim Index assesses national governance against 57 criteria that capture the quality of services provided to citizens by governments.

The focus is on the results that the people of a country experience. These criteria are divided into five overarching categories which together make up the core obligations which governments have to their citizens.

The full Board of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation convened in Addis Ababa, the home of the African Union, to make the announcement this morning. Mo Ibrahim, the founder and Chairman of the Foundation, says:

“Obscured by many of the headlines of the past few months, the real story coming out of Africa is that governance performance across a large majority of African countries is improving. According to this comprehensive analysis, progress is being made across the continent against a range of key governance indicators.

I hope that these results will be used as a tool by Africa’s citizens to hold their
governments to account, and stimulate debate about the performance of those who govern in their name”.

Mary Robinson, a member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation Board who has previously served as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and President of Ireland, says:
“It is particularly fitting that during the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights we are seeing the most notable improvement in governance take place within the category of participation and human rights. More sub-Saharan African countries than ever are holding democratic elections, and I am hopeful that this will help form the platform for continued progress across the continent”.

• The press conference to launch the 2008 Ibrahim Index is taking place at the Sheraton Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 10am EAT / 7am GMT on Monday 6 October
• The full data of the 2008 Ibrahim Index of African Governance will be published on the Foundation’s website at 10am EAT / 7am GMT on Monday 6 October
www.moibrahimfoundation.org/index
• A full media resource page including country specific press releases, photos, audio
clips and interviews, as well as background material is available for all media at
www.moibrahimfoundation.org/media
For further information or to request an interview, please contact:

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:
Risha Chande
chande.r@moibrahimfoundation.org
+44 7980 925 407
Internationally:
Robert Watkinson
robert.watkinson@portlandpr.co.uk
+44 207 842 0149

Notes to editors

1. The Ibrahim Index of African Governance was created in recognition of the need for a comprehensive and quantifiable method of measuring governance performance in sub-Saharan Africa, and has been designed to:

• Provide a tool for civil society and citizens to hold governments to account
• Stimulate debate on governance, particularly by providing information about leadership performance
• Provide a diagnostic framework to assess governance in sub-Saharan Africa

2. For regional analysis, Ethiopia is compared to countries in the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Ethiopia,
Eritrea, Somalia).
3. The Ibrahim Index is a progressive and responsive tool that that will evolve to accommodate
feedback and critiques from various stakeholders such as citizens, civil society, business,
governmental and non-governmental organisations, as well as taking into account economic and
social transformation that may affect the governance context in sub-Saharan Africa. First
published in September 2007, the Ibrahim Index assesses the quality of governance in sub-
Saharan Africa every year, making it a valuable reference tool for people across the continent to gauge the effectiveness of national leadership over a period of time.
4. The 2008 Ibrahim Index is based on data from 2006, the last year with reasonably complete available data for nearly all sub-Saharan Africa countries. A time lag in indices of this nature is standard practice. This is mainly due to problems with data collection and availability and the Ibrahim Index, with its two year time lag, is more up-to-date than many other indices.

The data from earlier years are still relevant since the course of progress over time provides the most important analyses of governance changes in a country, and this movement can still be charted with a two year delay.

5. The authors of the Ibrahim index have retrospectively revised the scores and rankings for previous years to reflect newly available data.

6. The Ibrahim Index is produced by Professor Robert Rotberg, Dr Rachel Gisselquist and their team at the Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, under contract for the Foundation Board.

Professor Rotberg is supported by an advisory council of African academics and corporate leaders. Full details of the team are available at www.moibrahimfoundation.org/index

7. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation was launched in October 2006 and is committed to supporting great African leadership.

It was founded by Mo Ibrahim, one of Africa’s most successful business
entrepreneurs, and has the support of a number of world leaders, including Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, and Amartya Sen. The Foundation aims to stimulate debate around, and improve the quality of, governance in Africa.


8. The Foundation also confers the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, the largest annually awarded prize in the world. The Prize Committee, chaired by Kofi Annan, awards US$5 million to a former African Executive Head of State or Government who has demonstrated excellence in leadership during their time in office. In October 2007, Joaquim Chissano, the former President of Mozambique, became the inaugural Ibrahim Laureate.

The next Ibrahim Laureate will be announced on 20 October 2008.
9. Journalists wishing to be updated about Foundation activities, including the upcoming announcement about the winner of the Ibrahim Prize, should send an email to Risha Chande, chande.r@moibrahimfoundation.org
www.moibrahimfoundation.org
Country
Safety and Security
Rule of law, transparency
and corruption
Participation and
human rights
Sustainable economic
opportunity
Human development
Ibrahim Index of
African Governance
Rank
Appendix A: The Ibrahim Index of African Governance
The 2008 Index is based on data from 2006, the last year with reasonably complete
available data for nearly all sub-Saharan African countries.
Angola 82.0 38.4 29.0 32.9 34.4 43.3 44
Benin 86.1 52.3 81.1 36.9 56.2 62.5 13
Botswana 75.0 81.6 87.4 58.2 68.0 74.0 4
Burkina Faso 86.1 56.5 70.1 30.3 48.4 58.3 20
Burundi 62.0 48.3 60.4 35.9 43.3 50.0 35
Cameroon 77.7 43.3 54.7 44.7 56.5 55.4 25
Cape Verde 100.0 86.1 77.7 47.2 62.6 74.7 3
Central African Republic 46.7 42.7 60.2 34.9 33.2 43.6 43
Chad 51.5 40.1 29.8 25.6 22.5 33.9 46
Comoros 94.4 52.8 73.1 37.5 51.5 61.9 14
Congo 68.5 43.5 48.6 48.7 57.1 53.3 28
Congo, Democratic Republic 52.8 24.3 14.7 26.3 30.7 29.8 47
Côte d'Ivoire 75.2 36.0 22.6 42.9 51.6 45.6 42
Djibouti 86.0 43.6 55.6 36.8 54.0 55.2 26
Equatorial Guinea 86.0 43.3 32.2 48.5 36.0 49.2 36
Eritrea 81.0 56.6 10.6 35.4 48.8 46.5 41
Ethiopia 72.8 47.9 40.4 40.5 52.7 50.9 31
Gabon 100.0 56.4 61.2 61.6 67.8 69.4 8
Gambia 86.0 54.7 42.5 40.5 52.2 55.2 27
Ghana 86.1 72.7 80.2 47.3 64.3 70.1 7
Guinea 80.3 51.0 25.4 32.3 50.0 47.8 40
Guinea-Bissau 80.5 34.6 75.2 23.3 45.8 51.9 30
Kenya 63.3 56.0 63.3 48.6 64.5 59.1 17
Lesotho 75.0 69.3 75.5 42.9 53.7 63.3 12
Liberia 58.8 26.8 87.9 36.9 33.2 48.7 38
Madagascar 86.1 57.3 74.9 39.4 44.3 60.4 16
Malawi 86.1 64.0 69.1 40.7 59.7 63.9 11
Mali 77.8 50.0 74.7 31.4 45.8 55.9 23
Mauritania 71.0 58.8 30.8 36.8 56.5 50.8 32
Mauritius 91.7 80.5 92.2 71.4 89.9 85.1 1
Mozambique 86.1 50.4 70.4 36.7 41.7 57.1 22
Namibia 83.3 76.7 75.3 57.4 61.6 70.9 6
Niger 86.1 51.7 79.4 27.6 32.5 55.5 24
Nigeria 63.7 48.2 44.1 40.7 45.9 48.5 39
Rwanda 98.4 46.0 69.5 37.7 43.6 59.0 18
São Tomé and Príncipe 100.0 55.6 83.4 41.5 61.1 68.3 9
Senegal 85.4 66.2 81.7 42.3 54.9 66.1 10
Seychelles 83.2 80.4 76.9 70.0 88.4 79.8 2
Sierra Leone 79.6 37.3 69.8 27.1 31.8 49.1 37
Somalia 38.8 8.2 6.4 26.0 15.2 18.9 48
South Africa 61.1 78.1 86.3 63.5 68.7 71.5 5
Sudan 29.0 29.8 12.0 42.2 58.0 34.2 45
Swaziland 69.4 56.9 28.8 46.5 49.2 50.2 34
Tanzania 83.3 59.6 65.4 43.4 56.4 61.6 15
Togo 77.2 47.1 44.2 42.0 54.4 53.0 29
Uganda 75.1 55.8 61.0 42.2 57.4 58.3 19
Zambia 77.8 60.5 66.6 43.0 43.5 58.3 21
Zimbabwe 75.1 44.6 41.9 38.8 51.7 50.4 33