Kenya ranked among Top 20 best-governed African states

Politics and policy

Kenya is ranked 17th out of 52 African nations in this year’s Ibrahim Index of African Governance, the first time the country has broken into the Top 20. PHOTO | COURTESY 

By BDAfrica.com REPORTER

In Summary

• Kenya scores poorest on Safety and Rule of Law, with five years of low scores even as performance in the Human Development category continues to rise.
• This year saw improvement in that measure as well as Participation and Human Rights. Only on sustainable economic opportunities was there a drop.

Kenya is ranked 17th out of 52 African nations in this year’s Ibrahim Index of African Governance, the first time the country has broken into the Top 20.

New data released Monday shows the country has seen improvements since last year in three of four key areas of governance, moving up another four places.

Just two years ago, Kenya was ranked 25th on the continent. In 2013, strong scores in Human Development and Economic Opportunities saw the country rise four places to 21. This year, despite a lower score on economic opportunity, the country did well enough on all other measures to be ranked 17th.

This, the organisation behind the index reveals, is part of a general trend of better governance in Africa that has been noted over the past ten years.

“The results of the 2014 IIAG challenge our perceptions about the state of African governance,” said Mo Ibrahim, Chair of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. “Africa is progressing, but the story is complex and doesn’t fit the stereotypes. Even if the overall picture looks good, we must all remain vigilant and not get complacent.”

Kenya scores poorest on Safety and Rule of Law, with five years of low scores even as performance in the Human Development category continues to rise. This year, however, saw improvement in that measure as well as Participation and Human Rights. Only on sustainable economic opportunities was there a drop.

At the country level, the Mo Amin Foundation reported, the 2014 IIAG shows the potential of governance underperformers while revealing the weaknesses of current frontrunners. Countries in the bottom half of the rankings registered the largest improvements over the past five years.

Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Niger and Zimbabwe have changed course since 2009 from negative trajectories to become the biggest improvers on the continent. This progress has been driven in large part by gains in participation and human rights.

Meanwhile, the historically strong performers, Mauritius, Cabo Verde, Botswana, South Africa and Seychelles, have shown some deterioration in at least one category over the past five years, notwithstanding that all these countries remain on overall upward trends.

The IIAG provides an annual assessment of the quality of governance in African countries and is the most comprehensive collection of data on African governance. The 2014 IIAG combines 130 variables from 34 independent African and global sources.

Countries are given scores in four categories -- Human Development; Sustainable Economic Opportunities; Safety and Rule of Law; and Participation and Human Rights -- as well as an overall score.