Kenya slips in new governance ranking

Kenya’s governance has deteriorated as its East African Community partners Tanzania and Uganda registered tremendous improvement, a continental report indicates.

Ranked 15th in the continent, Tanzania is the best governed country in the EAC, followed by Uganda (24), Kenya (27), Rwanda (31) and Burundi (32), according to the 2010 Ibrahim Index of African Governance country rankings.

The rankings released on Monday by Dr Abdalla Hamdok, the director for governance and public administration at the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, showed that Mauritius was the best governed country in Africa.

Others in the top 10 are the Seychelles, Botswana, Cape Verde, South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Tunisia, Lesotho and Egypt.

The index measures the delivery of public goods and services to citizens by governments and non-state actors across 88 indicators.

The governance indicators are grouped into four categories — safety and rule of law (personal safety, rule of law, accountability and corruption, national security), participation and human rights (participation, rights, gender), sustainable economic opportunity (public management, private sector, infrastructure, environment and rural sector) and human development (health and welfare).

Kenya went back four places from position 23 in 2005 with the country’s score dropping from 51 to 50 per cent. Uganda moved up two places from position 26 with its governance average increasing from 49 to 51 per cent, while Tanzania jumped four places from position 19.

However, Kenya’s score is marginally higher than East Africa’s average of 45 and the continent’s 49.

Country’s lowest ranks

Kenya’s highest rank is in gender where it emerged 10th in Africa. The country’s lowest ranks were in personal safety and infrastructure.

Dr Hamdok, Ibrahim Index of African Governance director Hania Farhan, and African Leadership Centre’s Funmi Olonisallin, said Kenya’s performance was dismal in accountability and corruption where it dropped nine percentage points, from 42 to 33.

However, East Africa’s biggest economy did well in health and welfare, climbing from 44 to 54 per cent, and maintained the gender rating at 65 per cent.

In enactment of policies that encourage business, Tanzania improved from 52 to 63 per cent, while Kenya only improved by two percentage points to 31. Uganda enacted policies that saw its rating double to 22 per cent.

Dr Farhan said there was stagnation in governance in the continent between 2005 and 2009, but added that the economy did well.

The continent, however, scored poorly in political rights and participation, with fears that it could be going back to the era of coups d’ état as witnessed recently in Madagascar, Guinea and Niger.

Asked why Kenya scored 42 per cent and ranked 30th in education — even behind Tanzania and Uganda — the Mo Ibrahim Foundation officials said it depended on the quality, tertiary education, teacher-pupil ratio and enrolment.

However, the officials said that Kenya was expected to do well in the next ranking after the country voted in a new constitution. The 2010 rating was also affected by the 2007 post-election violence, they said.

Mo Ibrahim Foundation founder and chairman Mo Ibrahim said: “We have seen from evidence and experience across the world that discrepancies between political governance and economic management are unsustainable in the long term. If Africa is going to continue to make progress, we need to pay attention to the rights and safety of citizens.”