Cape Town — Rwanda is Africa's top-performing advocate of gender equality, followed by the Seychelles, Mozambique, South Africa and Botswana.

This is reported in the 2013 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, released in London on Monday.

Rwanda's score on the index, on a range of one to 100, is 90.2, well above the average score for 52 African countries of 53.8. The Seychelles scored 83.8, Mozambique 78.2, South Africa 77.5 and Botswana 72.7.

The worst performing country in Africa - as in most indicators measured in the survey - is Somalia (with a score of 20.5), followed by Cote d'Ivoire (31.0), Chad (31.7), the Comoros (31.9) and Niger (36.9). Nigeria is 12th from the bottom of the list (41.8).

Assessed by region, the countries of southern Africa are the best at promoting gender equality and those of central Africa the worst.

A nation's performance on gender issues is judged by seven indicators: gender equality; gender balance in primary and secondary education; women's participation in the labour force; equal representation in rural areas; the number of women in parliament; women's economic and political rights; and laws on violence against women.