South Africa, 5th Best in Africa

South Africa Rated 5th Overall In 2010 Mo Ibrahim Foundation Governance Index For Africa

 Mo Ibrahim was born in Sudan and obtained a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alexandria in Egypt. He established CELTEL which became a highly successful mobile telephone provider in many parts of African continent. He also obtained a Masters degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from the University of Bradford and a PhD. in mobile communications from the University of Birmingham.

After successfully selling CELTEL, Ibrahim established a Foundation during 2007 to promote governance in Africa. The Foundation applies an index to measure the governance of African countries and awards an annual prize for achievement in African leadership. Former President Chisano of Mozambique was an early recipient of this prestigious award. Well-known South African Academic, (formerly of the World Bank) and eminent business person Dr Mamphela Ramphele, is a Director who sits on the Foundation’s board.

Although former South African President Thabo Mbeki was punted as a possible recipient of the 2010 Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, he was overlooked and for the second consecutive year the Ibrahim Prize wasn’t awarded, as no African leader was judged to be  providing exceptional leadership, said Dr Ramphele.
 
The Ibrahim Index takes the following into account:

Measures the delivery of public goods and services to citizens by government and non-state sectors.

Uses indicators across four main categories; Safety and Rule of Law; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Opportunity; and Human Development as proxies for:

•  the quality of the processes and outcomes of governance
• Is the most comprehensive collection of qualitative and quantitive data that assess governance
• Is funded and led by an African institution
• Is a progressive and consultative assessment of governance

South Africa scored highest in the public management where it achieved first place and lowest in the area of public safety sub-category where it is ranked 44th out of 53. The countries that score worse than South Africa in personal safety are Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad, Mauritania , Zimbabwe, Sudan , the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia.

The overall winner in all categories of the Index is Mauritius which is not surprisingly also placed first in the public safety sub-category. In the overall category, the Seychelles are placed second, Botswana third and Cape Verde fourth. The overall positions of South Africa’s other neighbouring countries are, Namibia (6), Lesotho (9), Mozambique (26), Swaziland (29) and Zimbabwe (50).
South Africa was also placed 5th overall in the 2009 Mo Ibrahim Foundation Governance Index for Africa.

Pieter Rautenbach