2011 Mo Ibrahim Index: Ghana places 7th in African Governance

Ghana placed 7th out 53 countries on the 2011 Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance released today October 10, 2011 at the City Hall of London in UK, scoring 66 out of 100 marks.

The index is the most comprehensive collection of qualitative and quantitative data that provides an annual assessment of governance performance in every African country.

In West Africa, Cape Verde secured the first position beating Ghana by 13 marks as it scored 79, placing second on the overall rankings. Cape Verde’s former President Pedro Pires was adjudged winner of the 2011 Ibrahim Prize worth $5 million.

Ghana’s ranking was based on four main indicators – Safety and Rule of Law; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development. Sources of the data were collected from the US Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) World Factbook, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Country Data and the World Development Indicators (WDI).

On Safety and Rule of Law, the index indicates that Ghana scored 72 marks placing 6th.

The country placed 4th on the Participation and Human Rights indicator with 69 marks.

Ghana was ranked 16th and 12th on the Sustainable Economic opportunity (53 marks) and Human development (70 marks) respectively.

The country highest sub category rank was Rights (3rd) and the lowest being Infrastructure (29th).

Mauritius topped the rankings with 82 marks followed by Cape Verde (79 marks), Botswana (76 marks), Seychelles (73 marks) South Africa (71 marks), Namibia (70 marks), Ghana (66 marks), Lesotho (63 marks), Tunisia (62 marks) and Egypt (61 marks).

Somalia was ranked the lowest in the index with only 8 marks.

“We hope that the findings of the 2011 Ibrahim Index will help to establish a constructive basis towards achieving an increasingly peaceful and prosperous Africa,” said Dr Mo Ibrahim Founder and Chair of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.

By Ekow Quandzie