By Reuben Olita in Nairobi

UGANDA is ranked second in East Africa behind Tanzania and ahead of Kenya in government effectiveness.

Uganda is also placed 17th overall in the category of best performing states in transparency and accountability in Africa, according to a new World Bank report released in Singapore on Friday.

Uganda was also ranked high in the fight to stem corruption in the public sector.
The report entitled “The New Governance Matters, 2006: Worldwide Governance Indicators” also positioned Uganda among the best in the promotion of free speech and democracy in Africa.

The Director of Global Governance at the World Bank, Daniel Kaufmann, said major emerging economies had exhibited improvement in various dimensions of governance.

Tanzania took the 16th position, while Kenya was 24th with Mozambique in the 18th after Uganda.

Kenya scored 25% for effectiveness in governance, while Tanzania and Uganda scored 42% and 37% respectively.
Kaufmann said the launch of the report had shown that governance was measurable and that poor governance was not an exclusive challenge to the developing world.

“Reforming countries can make significant improvement in governance and in curbing corruption in relatively short periods of even less than a decade,” he noted.

According to the report, countries that implement governance reforms can expect a huge development dividend, with an improvement in governance raising per capita incomes about threefold in the long run.

“The indicators also show that over a dozen of countries, including Slovenia, Chile, Botswana, and Estonia, score higher in rule of law and in control of corruption than some industrialised countries, for example, Greece and Italy,” the report said.