Uganda is 24th in governance poll

Oct 05, 2009

UGANDA is ranked 24th in this year’s Mo Ibrahim Index, which measures good governance in Africa.

By Raymond Baguma

UGANDA is ranked 24th in this year’s Mo Ibrahim Index, which measures good governance in Africa.

The index, released yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa, shows that Uganda scored 53.6% and was ranked 24th out of 53 African countries.

Half of Africa’s 10 best performing countries are in Southern Africa with Mauritius topping the list, scoring 83%.

In East Africa, Uganda scored above the East African regional average, which was 46.9%. The country also scored above the overall continental average of 51.2%.

The Mo Index measures the delivery of public services and the Government’s performance on indicators of safety and security, participation and human rights, sustainable economic opportunity and human development.

Uganda scored above average in the categories of safety and rule of law, participation and human rights, and sustainable economic opportunity.

It, however, scored below the continental average in the category of human development, with a score of 49.3%.

Within the Eastern Africa region, Uganda was ranked 4th out of 12 countries. Seychelles topped the region, followed by Tanzania and Kenya.

The other countries in the Eastern Africa region included Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan.

The top five African countries remained unchanged to last year’s assessment, with Mauritius in the first position, followed by Cape Verde, Seychelles, Botswana and South Africa.

Somalia, which is grouped in Eastern Africa, is the worst governed country on the continent. Chad and Zimbabwe are second and third worst.

Southern Africa is the continent’s best performing region, followed by North Africa, West Africa and East Africa is fourth. The Central African region is the worst performing region. All the seven Central African countries, except Gabon, performed below the continent’s average.

“The 2009 Index gives us the clearest and most current snapshot of governance performance on the continent we have ever had,” said Mo Ibrahim, founder and chairman of the foundation at the presentation of the report.

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