Cape Town — In an interview marking the publication of the 2008 Ibrahim Index of African Governance, Mary Robinson, a board member of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, discussed with AllAfrica's Katy Gabel the correlation between women's rights and good governance.
Robinson, formerly president of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke from Addis Ababa, where the index was launched.
In broad terms, what does this year's index show us about governance in Africa?
The index this year covers 2006, and the first covered 2005. The broad outtake on it is actually quite positive. In 31 of the 48 countries, governance improved, and 39 had improvement in participation in elections that were deemed free and fair. Also, with regard to the rights of women, there was some improvement.
Overall, interestingly, in 2006 Liberia was the country, after two decades of instability and civil war, which recorded the highest improvement. I'm sure that when we get to 2007, while it might not be the highest, Liberia will continue to improve. That's a good message, because we're seeing a country with good governance and, of course, the first African woman president, [who is] committed to strengthening governance and rule of law and human rights in her country – lo and behold, on the wider indicators, Liberia is improving overall.
Because we now have the comparison including the years leading up to 2005 – and now 2006 – we can really look at how the countries are moving up and down. There's a lot of interest in the fact that Ethiopia actually went down a place. When you look at the details, it's because of curtailment of freedom of the press, essentially. So people will be able to read quite a lot into these figures and see what the background is.
How are participation and human rights in a given country measured?
Participation and human rights is participation in elections. Civil rights [include] a section on women's rights. I would be the first to say that I really hope that next year, when we're doing 2007 and onwards, with stronger links to African institutions in African countries – which is part of what we've announced today – we will have broadly improved the index in the area of gender, which is not just women's rights – it [means] gender equality.
I hope in future we'll be drawing on more sources in the assessment of human rights. We have a very clear approach to human rights: that it's both the core economic and social rights to food and safe water and health, safety, etc., and civil rights, including women's rights. We will be developing stronger indicators for our gender approach in the future.
Now that there are two indexes, for 2007 and 2008, is it easier to draw links between, for example, women's rights and the spread of mobile telephony, or transparency of governance and increasing Internet usage?
I think it's a very interesting question, but it's probably slightly premature. The foundation has benefited from the work that's been done at the Kennedy School [of Government, at Harvard University] to produce this second edition, and we are really keen that we have a strong African advisory committee working with the Kennedy School. There will be a workshop next week at the Kennedy School working with the committee to strengthen the capacity and get more reliable data for the index on a whole range of things.
But I believe that over time, exactly what you've said – more mobile phones, for example – will also show more participation by women, and that can in itself be an indicator of fast economic development. We know that every development expert is now clear that participation of women in society is essential, and I think will be really dramatically indicated by the degree by which Liberia might be performing in [the future]. It will be a really good test case, but Liberia is not the only country which is involving women. Rwanda has the highest number of women members of parliament in the world, and we've been able to see dramatic improvements in recent years.
Are you aware of any African organizations which are using last year's data in their work?
We've had a lot of indication that the index is making an impact. Some governments have expressed appreciation to us for being able to look at areas that might need strengthening, but others aren't so keen on the index because they aren't figuring in the right half of it. But that in itself is a good opportunity for civil society to put pressure on.
At our news conference in Addis Ababa today, I felt there was an overall change in the attitude of the press when we announced the report. There was a lot of doubt; there was a lot of cynicism. But they asked probing questions – how would the index be able to be used by governments? how would it be used by civil society? – in other words, exactly the kind of questions we're hoping to stimulate.
We also feel we are in a position to call for better support for gathering the statistics in African countries, and we want to work with the World Bank on that. We had a meeting this morning with the African Union, and with the president and vice president, about linking with the African Peer Review Mechanism. We were very encouraged by the positive responses that we were getting.
The foundation is a civil society foundation and an African foundation above all. We really want to strengthen capacity in Africa, the strength of the indicators, and the ability of civil society to use them to impact positively on the performance of government. Civil society is a very broad term. It includes universities, parliamentarians, faith-based organizations and so on. We supported the African Monitor because we believe that's a good pan-African instrument for strengthening the civil society approach, and the African Monitor has valued our index very much in their work.
Were there any surprises in this year's rankings?
I was surprised that there was a lot of improvement in Burundi until I found that there a lot of weight was given to the fact that there was an election there last year. I think we need to be nuanced about what elections indicate. In 2006, Burundi's human rights record was not at all good. To have the section on participation and human rights improving at a time when I knew from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that it wasn't improving was quite surprising.
But the overall surprise is that in a very fair way, 31 countries of the 48 did improve in their governance performance, and that in itself is an important message out of Africa. Living and working in New York, I am very conscious of the negative images and tendency to look at what's happening in Darfur or Zimbabwe – the message that Africa is a basket case. Over time, the complex matrices we use to measure governance will be a very credible way to assess how Africa is doing in broad governance, rule of law and human rights.
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Is it more valuable to look at how a country changed from last year, or at its overall ranking?
I know from my experience in the United Nations system, with African governments and the African Peer Review Mechanism, that there has always been a reluctance to get into the business of ranking. But because we are an independent civil society foundation, the ranking is an important way of engaging civil society to ask, "Why is my country going down while some countries in my region are going up?" I think these will be important questions that, hopefully, will build up political pressure.
We hope also that the rankings will serve as encouragement for countries because we want to see them all improve. It's unlikely that the top five or six countries and the bottom five or six will change significantly over the next few years. I think we're trying to see the changes that take place more as being a form of encouragement when the movement is upwards, and raising serious questions when the movement is downwards. It will be a constructive tool in either event.
I'm glad that you're covering this from South Africa. It was important for us to come to Africa for the launch of the second edition. We made an announcement that we are moving more quickly than expected in working with and developing capacity to improve the index in African institutions. I think that's an important commitment on our part.
