Nigeria’s new leaders have a lot of catching up to do,to take the country out of its present quagmire, as a new survey positions Nigeria 39th on infrastructure scale, below, Ivory Coast, Burundi, Djibouti and neighbours Cameroon.
The Ibrahim Index of African Governance released today said progress in governance across Africa has stalled since 2011, with deteriorating safety and lack of economic opportunity overshadowing any gains made on the human rights front especially in resource-rich nations.
The Ibrahim Index (IIAG) – the most comprehensive survey of its kind on the continent – rates 54 African nations against criteria such as security, human rights, economic stability, just laws, free elections, corruption, infrastructure, poverty, health and education.
Nigeria scores 44.9 (out of 100) in overall governance, ranking 39th in Africa. This score is lower than the African average (50.1) and lower than the regional average for West Africa (52.4). Since 2011 Nigeria has shown marginal overall governance improvement (+0.9 points), as the gains in three out of four categories of the IIAG – Participation & Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development – have managed to counterbalance the deterioration in Safety & Rule of Law. (Read the Nigerian report here:Ibrahim Index on African Governance
Mauritius held onto its top spot, followed by Cape Verde, Botswana, South Africa and Namibia, but overall the index has improved just 0.2 basis points over four years and half of the top ten ranked countries have declined, the survey found.
“This is certainly a stagnation,” said Elizabeth McGrath, director of the IIAG, founded by Sudanese telecoms tycoon Mo Ibrahim as an independent project to promote better governance and economic development in Africa.
She noted that the category of sustainable economic opportunity – relating to governments’ efforts to provide an appealing environment for investment, business and towards developing a more prosperous society – had suffered the biggest decline over the past four years.
The deterioration was caused by a worsening in the business environment for four straight years, McGrath said, adding that soundness of banks had shown a double-digit decline.
RELIANCE ON COMMODITIES
Much of Africa depends on the production and export of commodities – from oil-reliant Nigeria and Angola to copper-rich Zambia or bauxite miner Guinea. Recent sharp commodity price falls are expected to take a heavy toll on these economies.
But data used for the IIAG survey ends in 2014 and would not have fully captured the end of the commodities super-cycle, McGrath said.
“But we certainly are seeing the resource-rich countries deteriorate in sustainable economic opportunity,” she said, adding that 11 of Africa’s 16 commodity exporting countries had seen a worsening in that category.
The report did highlight some positive trends, noting improvements in infrastructure across the continent, thanks to better telephone and IT systems, as well as air transport.
Ivory Coast – Africa’s largest cocoa producer – tops the list of the ten biggest improvers over the past four years following a decade of political turmoil and civil war.
Others to move up are Zimbabwe, Senegal, Kenya, Togo, Morocco, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Madagascar and Tunisia. Together, they represent almost a quarter of Africa’s population.