Gambia slips in Ibrahim Index of African Governance

The 2008 Ibrahim Index of African Governance published on Monday by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation shows that between 2005 and 2006 Gambia’s overall score declined to 55.2 out of 100, as the country fell seven places to rank 27th out of sub-Saharan Africa’s 48 countries.

According to the Ibrahim Index’s comprehensive measures of governance performance, Gambia has improved in two out of the five categories of the Ibrahim Index, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development. Gambia’s score remained consistent in the category of Safety and Security. In the remaining two categories - Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption and Participation and Human Rights - Gambia’s scores fell.

The most notable improvement was in Human Development, where Gambia’s score rose by 1.2 points. However Gambia’s score in Participation and Human Rights dropped by 6.1 points.

The 16 members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) demonstrated strong performance in the Ibrahim Index. ECOWAS provides three countries (Cape Verde, Ghana and Senegal) ranked within the top ten of the overall Ibrahim Index.

With respect to last year, ten members of ECOWAS improved their scores, four saw declining scores, and a further two saw no
change. Within ECOWAS, Gambia ranks eighth out of 16 countries. Only three members of ECOWAS (Gambia, Guinea and Mauritania) fell in both rank and score this year.

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.

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. The criteria capture the quality of services provided to citizens by government. The focus is on the results that the people of a country
experience.

The criteria are divided into five over-arching categories which together make up the cornerstones of a government’s obligations to its citizens: safety and security, rule of law, Transparency and corruption, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development.