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Africa: New Governance Index Is 'An African Effort' for Development
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INTERVIEW
25 September 2007
Posted to the web 25 September 2007
Katy Gabel
The "Ibrahim Index of African Governance" announced in London and Cape Town on Tuesday is a project of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which was established as part of the vision of leading African businessman Mo Ibrahim. He spoke to Katy Gabel of allAfrica.com.
How was the index prepared? What sort of people were on the research teams, and how did Africans participate?
The index was prepared totally independently by the Kennedy School of Government. We gave the project to what we saw as the foremost academic institution working in the area of governance. It was led by Professor Robert Rotberg and his researchers…
We also had a supervisory – an advisory – committee comprised of about twelve [people] - mainly academics - from Africa to advise the Kennedy School of Government. We had people from Kenya, from Zambia, from Malawi, from Sudan, from South Africa, etc., really acknowledged, good people to help with the direction of the project. We have the cooperation of many institutions – we had NGOs, think tanks, who were kind enough and supportive enough, because there was no point in re-inventing the wheel here. We are very grateful to the United Nations, to the World Bank, the IMF, the WHO, Unicef, Transparency International, Freedom House…for all the organizations which collect a certain amount of data and give it to us.
So we're able to collect data and we're able to really construct – when I say we, I mean the academics at Harvard – a comprehensive set of data and verify and fill in the gaps. They [the team of academics] sent some people to some capitals to fill in gaps. They communicated with government statistical offices – it was really a measured effort to try to get the most accurate set of data possible for Africa.
Why is this index important?
The value of the index will be more and more apparent as we go and build the databases year after year. For example, this year we'll be using 2002 through 2005. In coming years, you will be able to trace countries as they move up or as they fall. What matters, really, is not where you are on the table, but where you are going.
If you are the leader of a country at the bottom of the table, and in five years you move up on the table, then you have done something great. Your course is much better than someone who started at number four and ended up at four again, or five. Nothing happened there.
Are you confident that these rankings reflect how effective governance is?
It must be. Because me, as a person – I have no opinion about who is better or worse. I am not a politician. I am not in politics. I'm just a citizen. It is interesting for me to know who is doing better than the others.
…We all have our perceptions. I go to visit a country, I end up in a five-star hotel in a nice city and I'm driven there and taken back and I say, "Wow, this is a wonderful country, it's safe." But I've been looked after. Is the country really safe? How do we get the facts away from perception?
As such, what comes, comes. What we need to make sure is that all the numbers are correct. We're inviting every government and every institution in Africa to please, if they disagree with any number, please correct us. Please meet with our people. We're going to pay attention and we will verify. Each number here is clearly defined – where it came from, how to source each sub-category [of data]. If anybody disagrees with a number, please come forward and we will have a discussion. We will have a discussion with the academics, and we will facilitate that to make sure that mistakes, if any, will be corrected, because we have no interest in publishing a wrong number. Not only numbers, even methodology. We have 58 sub-categories – maybe some people will suggest we should have more.
Some of the results are surprising ...
What is happening here is that there are so many components to this [and] the different components can measure differently … For example, if safety and security of individuals is [measured], it is quite possible that in Zimbabwe you have a better safety score than in Nigeria – I'm just thinking [of possible reasons]. I can look here at the table and see that Nigeria is scoring with 62 in security and Zimbabwe with 75. Sometimes in dictatorships you have high security and street safety, for example. People might be very safe, in that sense…petty crimes and violence, I mean. So it depends what areas you're measuring on.
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I think that what really matters here is… where people are moving. If you look at 2002 and 2005, you can see the rises and falls [in overall ranking]. I'm sure Zimbabwe has been falling there like a stone. Don't forget that Zimbabwe was quite a developed country, with good, developed networks and it had telecommunications – it had cellular way before Nigeria had it. There are certain things there which were happening, but then there was a steep fall over time. Also, don't forget this is data for 2005. When we have the data for 2006 and 2007 I think you will see more changes.
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