Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Rankings in Africa

Mo Ibrahim has made a pile of money by selling telephones in Africa. He's also created a foundation to improve governance on the continent. The foundation gives out a prize for "Achievement in African Leadership," intended to offer prestige like a Nobel Prize. (The foundation was unable to identify a head of state who deserved the prize in 2009 or 2010.)

The foundation also publishes the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, ranking the performance of 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The rankings for 2010 were released recently. These rankings offer students of comparative politics wonderful opportunities to search for correlations.

African progress threatened by ‘democratic recession’

Africa is making historic gains in health and economic growth, yet this progress is being jeopardized by a dangerous erosion of democratic rights in many countries, according to a new report.

The annual index on African governance, by the respected Mo Ibrahim Foundation, found… [that] most countries are improving their economies and their human development, yet nearly two-thirds are suffering a “democratic recession” – a deterioration in human rights, physical security and the rule of law…

At the top of the African rankings this year, once again, is the small island nation of Mauritius…

Of the 53 nations on the African continent, 30 have declined in their level of human rights and political participation since the previous index, while 35 have declined in the category of safety and rule of law…

South Africa ranks as one of the wealthiest and best-developed countries on the continent. Yet it is racked by crime, and its level of personal safety is one of the worst in Africa, ranking it alongside countries such as Nigeria and Chad in the bottom 10 countries in this category in the index…

Nigeria has dropped further in the ranking on governance index among countries in Africa.

The country ranks a distant 40th out of the 53 countries in the continent. She is also ranked 13th out of 16 countries in West Africa…

On performance in the 2010 Index, Nigeria scored 43 for governance quality in 2008/09 and was ranked 40th out of 53 countries.

The country scored lower than the regional average for West Africa, which was 50, and scored lower than the continental average of 49...

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Labels: comparative methodology, International Organizations, Nigeria, pedagogy