Kenya has been ranked among the most improved African countries in the 2020 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG).
The ranking done by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation measures and monitors governance performance in African countries
Kenya emerged as the most improved country in terms of gender equality together with Somalia over a 10-year period.
"Compared to ten years ago, access to political power and representation for Africa’s women has increased, and the pace of this improvement has nearly doubled between 2015 and 2019.
"Women’s access to basic public services has also increased both in the ten-year and five-year period and at a faster pace between 2015 and 2019," the report observed.
Kenya was also singled out as the most improved in infrastructure over both the 10-year and 5-year period.
In 2019, Mauritius was the top scorer in Foundations for Economic Opportunity, a position it has maintained over the whole decade (2010-2019). Cape Verde was second, while Morocco (70.1), Rwanda (67.6) and Kenya (66.7) make up the rest of the top five on the back of large improvements over the decade.
"Over the ten-year period, 50 countries have improved their score, the most of any category. For 22 of them, the rate of improvement has increased since 2015, again more than in any other category," the report observed.
In Overall Governance, Mauritius maintains the top position in 2019 for the 10th consecutive year with a score of 77.2. Somalia, meanwhile, remains bottom for the 10th consecutive year with a score of 19.2.
Kenya was ranked 14th. At the same time, Côte d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe ranking 16th, 18th and 33rd respectively, feature among the five most improved countries over the decade.
The 2020 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) covers ten years’ worth of data from 2010-2019 inclusive for 54 African countries.
To construct the 2020 IIAG, the Foundation’s Research Team collected 237 variables that measure governance concepts from 40 sources. These were combined to form 79 indicators, which are organised under the IIAG’s key governance dimensions; the 16 sub-categories and four categories that make up the Overall Governance score.
Including all the data collected from the source and the calculations made expressly for the IIAG, there are a total of 372 different measures of governance for any given country or group in any given year across ten years.
