November 2, 2018//-Ghana has moved nine places on the 2018 Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) as the country ranked 6th out of 34 nations on the continent.
The country also ranked favourably well on all the key components that form the four categories of the IIAG namely, Safety & Rule of Law, Participation & Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development.
For Safety & Rule of Law, Participation & Human Rights, and Human Development, Ghana ranked 6th, 5th and 5th respectively with 70.7, 73.0 and 69.9 scores.
However, the country ranked 13th on Sustainable Economic Opportunity category of the index with a score of 58.6.
The IIAG highlights that citizens’ rights and welfare are key to progress in public governance. Overall Governance scores are strongly correlated with citizen-centred measures, including property rights, civil rights & liberties, government accountability and social welfare policies.
The IIAG results also confirm that Rule of Law and Transparency & Accountability are key pillars of good governance.
These two sub-categories show the strongest relationships with Overall Governance scores in Africa, with strong performance in these areas being the most common components of countries that perform well.
Transparency & Accountability is also strongly related to the Sustainable Economic Opportunity category and Business Environment sub-category, indicating that improvements in these areas will support progress and economic opportunity in Africa.
In a press statement, Mo Ibrahim, Chair of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, said: “We welcome progress in Overall Governance, but the lost opportunity of the past decade is deeply concerning. Africa has a huge challenge ahead. Its large and youthful potential workforce could transform the continent for the better, but this opportunity is close to being squandered.
The evidence is clear – young citizens of Africa need hope, prospects and opportunities. Its leaders need to speed up job creation to sustain progress and stave off deterioration. The time to act is now.”
Instructively, the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) is a tool that measures and monitors governance performance in African countries. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation defines governance as the provision of the political, social and economic public goods and services that every citizen has the right to expect from their state, and that a state has the responsibility to deliver to its citizens.
In the IIAG, country performance in delivering governance is measured across four key components that effectively provide indicators of a country’s Overall Governance performance.
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