Socio-Political contributor – Ron Belgrave
In Africa News. For the second year in a row and for the fourth time (out of seven) no one was deemed suitable to be awarded the prize for having been a good “President” in Africa.
Each year since 2007, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has sought to identify which ex-Head of State of an African Nation should be awarded the annual “Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership”. Seen as a tool to encourage democratic leadership and to reduce corruption in office, the prize gives ex-Presidents and initial US$5million lump sum for the first ten years then gives US$200,000 per year for life. Only those who have stepped down from the position of Head of State over the preceding three years are eligible for consideration.
Mo Ibrahim, the Sudanese billionaire who made his fortune out of mobile phones across Africa, seeks to boost “exceptional” leadership across the continent but the decision of his Prize Committee to, again, not make an award prompted some at the press conference on 14th October 2013 to question the suitability of the criteria and to express concern that it created an unnecessary negative air around the quality of leadership in the continent.
However, the Chair of the Prize Committee, Salim Ahmed Salim, stated that he was confident in the veracity of the criteria and that not awarding a prize indicated that high standards were being maintained. The suggestion of providing motivation by publicly acknowledging the “runners up” (particularly in the years of no awards) was rejected by the Prize Committee.
Nevertheless, although the supposed highpoint of the announcement (the award of the prize) turned out to be something of a lowpoint, the main substance of the event was the release of the latest annual set of data of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance.
Mo Ibrahim. Photo courtesy Sankofa Televisual
The 2013 Index collates data from 2012 providing rankings and scores on 52 countries across the continent of Africa. The data covers 94 indicators over 14 areas of analysis grouped into the four themes of “Safety and the Rule of Law”, “Participation and Human Rights”, “Sustainable Economic Opportunity” and “Human Development”.
The Index is intended to provide a framework for citizens, governments, institutions and business to assess the delivery of public goods and services, and policy outcomes, within individual countries and to provide comparison across Africa. Some also see it as a useful tool to drive up governance standards/performance.
Mo Ibrahim recognised that the value of the Index is ultimately dependent on the ability to collate the 4,888 sets of data (94 indicators across 52 countries) and he highlighted that some countries may need to pay more attention to the importance of data collection for management and governance.
For the second year running Mauritius topped the Index with the highest overall score. South Africa was 5th, Ghana 7th, Kenya 21st and Nigeria 41st. Zimbabwe was in 47th position (out of 52).
There are 54 countries in Africa but (North) Sudan and South Sudan are not yet included in the Index due to the lack of sufficient disaggregated data. South Sudan became independent from Sudan in July 2011.
