This year’s Mo Ibrahim Foundation report on governance has seen Malawi surpassed by Zimbabwe on adherence to good governance principles.
The development is despite the fact that some of prominent figures in President Mugabe leadership in Zimbabwe are still reeling from western countries sanctions including Britain which is in good terms with Malawi.
The report which was releases on Monday, October 5, 2015 in London titled, ‘Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) uses four indicators which fall into other four categories including Safety and Rule of Law, Participation and Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity, and Human Development.
The general perspective of the IIAG report shows no progress on good governance with signs of deterioration for the last four years which the country’s policy analyst questioned the legibility of parameters used to aggregates Malawi’s performance.
With 21 countries, five of the top 10 have worsened since 2011, surprisingly Zimbabwe outsmarted other Southern African countries including Malawi on improvements on good governance.
“During the period 2011-2014, the overall average for Africa scores on governance increased only slightly by +0.2 points to 50.1 out of 100 with considerable changes in performance during the last four years at all levels of the index, both at country and at category level as the annual report assesses governance performance for each of African’s 54 countries.
“Only six countries registered an improvement across each of the four categories of the IIAG such as Code d’Ivore, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, Somalia and Zimbabwe. At regional level, the continental trend in overall governance masks varying performances and widening range between the regions.
“Malawi shows a slight decline in overall governance prompted by deterioration in Sustainable Economic Opportunity category. Even though Malawi demonstrates improvement in other three categories, this is marginal. At the sub-category level, Malawi has made impressive gains in Personal Safety and Rights, the third largest on the continent.
“At the same time, Malawi’s decline in Accountability and Rural Sector, make it the most deteriorated country in Southern Africa in these two sub-categories. Malawi scores higher than the African average and lowers than the regional average as its ranked seventh in
Southern Africa”, reads IIAG report.
Nevertheless, Southern African remains the best performer than other regions followed by West Africa, North African and East Africa while Central Africa anchoring the log table.
Rafiq Hajat, Institute of Policy Interaction (IPI)’s Executive the Director is quoted in the local press questioning the legibility of parameters used to aggregates Malawi’s performance with observation that the report does not reflect actual situation on the ground.
“Malawi and Zimbabwe are on the same category. None of the two countries is better than the other as such there is a need to get clear picture on how Mo Ibrahim Foundation compiles its statistics to determine a country’s performance”, observes Hajat, as Malawi
government is yet to make its statement on the IIAG report.
Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) was established in 2017 in acknowledgment of the need for a determinant tool to accurately measure and monitor African governance performance
