Tanzania’s governance progress moved up last year even as most African countries slowed for the first time in a decade last year.
According to the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance report, Tanzania slightly improved in both ranking and score while the continent’s average score slowed from 49 to 48.8 percent.
Tanzania’s ranking increased two places to 19th last year compared with 21st position in 2018 while the score increased from 52.6 to 53.0 percent, according to the report published every two years.
However, Tanzania has not reached its level of 2015 when the country scored the highest in the last ten years at 54.2 percent.
In the East African
Community, Tanzania is ranked third after Rwanda and Kenya which scored
60.5 percent and 58.5 percent respectively.
The Mo Ibrahim Index of
African Governance, published every two years, gives each country’s
government a score according to criteria including anti-corruption
measures, protection of civil liberties and caring for the environment.
Governance progress
has slowed in the last five years and this year, for the first time in
the last 10 years, the combined score for all the countries fell
year-on-year, according to the report.
“The 2019 African average
score for Overall Governance fell -0.2 points registering the first
year-on-year score deterioration since 2010. This recent decline is
triggered by worsening performance in three of the four categories:
Participation, Rights and Inclusion, Security and Rule of Law and Human
Development,” the report states in part.
More than 60
percent of Africans live in countries that made progress in good
governance over the period 2010 to 2019, this year’s report said.
The
foundation, set up in 2006 to focus on the need for good political
leadership and public governance in Africa, cited growing curbs on
people’s ability to exercise their democratic rights and take part in
civil society.
The results use data from last year and do not therefore include the impact of coronavirus.
Since
the outbreak of the pandemic, some elections have been postponed while
“the continent had been going through a deterioration of civil society
space, participation and rights long before Covid-19,” the report says.
There
is “an increasingly precarious environment for human rights and civic
participation” as well as a “deteriorating security situation,” it
added.
Worrying declines
Also
this year, the incumbent presidents of Guinea and Ivory Coast succeeded
in pushing through constitutional changes allowing them to stand for a
third term, sparking deadly unrest while adding their names to a long
list of leaders with similar playbooks.
According to AFP News Agency,
post-election clashes have claimed scores of lives in Ivory Coast and
at least 21 in Guinea, where several opposition figures are in police
custody over the violence.
In Nigeria, largely peaceful youth-led protests against a hated police unit spilled over into looting and violence.
The
UN last week called for urgent measures to protect civilians in
Mozambique’s northeastern Cabo Delgado province, where jihadists are
wreaking havoc, warning that the population was “desperate”.
Since
2015, countries’ scores for security and rule of law and participation
have slowly worsened while scores for rights and inclusion have fallen
more sharply, the report said.
Only one country, Ethiopia, has made
progress across all areas measured over a decade, the report said -- but
the continent’s second most populous country is now embroiled in a
military conflict pitting the federal government against the dissident
northern region of Tigray.
Across Africa, progress in some areas such
as economic opportunity has come alongside “worrying declines in
participation, rights, inclusion, rule of law and security,” the report
said.
Coronavirus threatens gains in economic opportunity, “worsening an already alarming situation,” it added.
For
the first time, the report looked at new areas such as digital rights
and inclusiveness as well as environmental sustainability.
South
Africa, ranked sixth, has declined over the decade, falling more steeply
since 2015, and is on a “concerning trajectory,” the report found. The
country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, was forced out by the ruling
African National Congress (ANC) over a slew of corruption scandals.
ANC
secretary general Ace Magashule was charged last Friday with multiple
counts of fraud, corruption and money laundering allegedly committed
under Zuma.
No comments :
Post a Comment