Africa Governance Has Lost Momentum Due to Insecurity and Job Fears, Study

By Korir Isaac / Published October 29, 2018 | 11:17 am

Gains in governance in the majority of African countries have been greatly hampered by high unemployment rates and security fears, the annual Ibrahim Index of African Governance reports.

The report has noted that apart from some promising nations losing momentum, poor job creation and the business climate continue to deteriorate.

The study is closely scrutinized by Africa’s governments and it gives a ranking of countries in several developmental areas between the years 2008 and 2017.

According to the report, Africa has shown some progress but is only being led by a few nations, which have pulled up the average. However, “momentum continues to falter” in other countries.

The best progress is reported where there is peace, respect for the rule of law and where government transparency exists.

Kenya was among the countries that showed positive steps and it was ranked 11, eight spots up from the initial ranking of 19. Morocco, on the other hand also made some strides by moving from position 25 to 15. Notably, Ivory Coast realized the best progress by taking a huge leap from the 41st position to the 22nd position among all the ranked countries.

This is a huge step for Ivory Coast which had been marred by a period of civil and political unrest back in 2010 to 2011 where approximately 3,000 people lost their lives. The country recorded annual economic growth rates of close to 10 percent.

World Economic Forum has recognized Morocco as North Africa’s most competitive economy. Meanwhile, Kenya is still recuperating from the consequences of the 2007 elections.

Depending on their cumulative points across all indexes, Mauritius led with 79.5 points followed by Seychelles with 73.2, then Ivory Coast with 71.1, Namibia 68.6, and Botswana with 68.5 points.

Somalia was ranked the last with 13.6 points reason attributed to the clan warfare that has been rocking the country for the past three decades.

South Sudan was no better and it was ranked with 19.3 points, then Libya followed with 28.3 points. The latter experienced the biggest decline of -15.6 points following the fall of the monolithic regime of Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

Despite the lost momentum, the actual governance score for Africa only increased from 48.9 points on a 100-point scale in 2008 to 49.9 points last year.

Meanwhile, the most significantly noted decline was in personal safety with -6.1 points. National security, a separate category, lost 4.4 points. On the other hand, healthcare increased by 7.6 points but education lost ground since 2012 after initial improvements.

The results in the sectors were particularly perturbing considering how Africa’s population was expected to rise by 27.9 percent over the next decade, the report said.

Generally, the business environment which has been deteriorating in the past ten years lost 4.9 points whereas satisfaction with governments’ ability to create jobs fell by 3.1 points.

“Many African citizens are unhappy with the job creation performance of African governments,” read the report.

About Korir Isaac

A creative, tenacious, and passionate journalist with impeccable ethics and a nose for anticipated and spontaneous news. He may not say it, but he sure can make one hell of a story.

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