The Mo Ibrahim Foundation has been analyzing the quality of governance (good governance) of all 54 African countries every year since 2006 using a standardized, qualitative assessment process. The so-called Mo Ibrahim Index subsumes the ratings of four separately rated sub-indices, which in turn are calculated from ratings of three or four sub-areas:
- Sub-index “Safety & Rule of Law” (sub-areas: Rule of Law, Transparency & Accountability, Personal Safety, National Security)
- Sub-index “Participation & Human Rights” (sub-areas: Participation, Rights, Gender)
- Sub-index “Sustainable Economic Opportunity” (sub-areas: Public Management, Business Environment, Infrastructure, Rural Sector)
- Sub-index “Human Development” (sub-areas: Welfare, Education, Health)
Each of these 14 sub-areas is given a qualitative rating between 0 and 100 on the basis of five to ten indicators (there are 102 in total). The ratings of the sub-areas are then aggregated into overall ratings for the four sub-indices and these in turn to the total value for the “Good Governance Rating” of the respective country. Finally, based on the overall ratings of all 54 African countries, the annual country ranking for Africa is created.
Each country thus receives two assessments: The “Overall Governance RANKING” as a relative assessment compared to the other African countries (“Country Ranking”) and the “Overall Governance SCORE” as a kind of absolute (qualitative) assessment of good governance on one Dimensionless point scale from 0 to 100. In addition, a time series analysis of the values for the last five and ten years is used to make a short (verbal) overall assessment of the current trend in development. This ranges from “Increasing Improvement” as the best rating to “Slowing Improvement” and “Warning Signs” to “Bouncing Back”, “Slowing Deterioration” and finally “Increasing Deterioriation” as the worst possible rating.
Namibia has been one of the top places in the Mo Ibrahim Index for many years. However, the country has clearly deteriorated by three places from 4th place in 2018 to 7th place in 2019. The “Overall Governance Score” for 2020 is now only 65.1 (out of 100) compared to 2018 (68.6 out of 100), so that overall a clearly negative trend can be identified. Overall, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation currently rates the development in Namibia (“Overall Governance Trend”) with only “Bouncing Back”, which means that the development of the country in the last five to ten has largely stagnated, so it has neither deteriorated nor deteriorated significantly has improved significantly
According to franciscogardening, a special table for Namibia on the Mo Ibrahim Foundation website gives a good overview of the development of the evaluation of the four main categories since 2010. If you look at the 2019 ratings of the four sub-indices and compare them with the ratings for 2018, it becomes clear what is currently or is still a problem in Namibia:
Safety & Rule of Law: 2019: 69.1 (of 100), 2018: 77.1) – Participation, Rights & Inclusion: 2019 67.0 (2018: 74.9) – Foundations for Economic Opportunity: 2019: 62.7 (2018: 59.4) – Human Development: 2019: 60.9 (2018: 63.0)
So Namibia has deteriorated significantly in three of the four main categories and only slightly improved in one category (Economic Opportunity). The overall trend in the country is therefore negative. With 7th place out of 54 rated African countries, Namibia is currently still doing relatively well, but the absolute values are still quite low.
For a better assessment of Namibia’s 2019 index values, here are these again in direct comparison with some other selected African countries, each in the following order:
- Governance ranking (total)
- Overall Governance Score (total)
- Security & Rule of Law Score
- Participation, Rights & Inclusion Score
- Foundations for Economic Opportunity
- Human Development Score
- Overall Governance Trend (last 10 yand 5 years)
The “Top Ten” countries in Africa in 2019:
- Mauritius: 1 – 77.2 – 79.5 – 77.8 – 76.0 – 75.5 – Increasing Deterioration
- Cape Verde: 2 – 73.1 – 76.2 – 76.6 – 72.8 – 67.0 – Increasing Improvement
- Seychelles: 3 – 72.3 – 72.4 – 75.3 – 66.1 – 75.2 – Increasing Improvement
- Tunisia: 4 – 70.4 – 72.4 – 71.4 – 66.2 – 71.8 – Slowing Improvement
- Botswana: 5 – 66.9 – 72.8 – 67.5 – 58.8 – 68.5 – Bouncing Back
- South Africa: 6 – 65.8 – 67.6 – 67.2 – 64.1 – 64.3 – Increasing Deterioration
- NAMIBIA: 7 – 65.1 – 69.6 – 67.0 – 62.7 – 60.9 – BOUNCING BACK
- Ghana: 8 – 64.3 – 66.0 – 69.7 – 60.9 – 60.7 – Bouncing Back
- Senegal: 9 – 63.2 – 68.2 – 64.3 – 61.9 – 58.3 – Slowing Improvement
- Morocco: 10 – 61.0 – 60.7 – 46.2 – 70.1 – 66.8 – Slowing Improvement
For a further comparison, a few additional neighboring countries of Namibia and Somalia at the bottom of the ranking:
- Zambia: 21 – 52.0 – 56.2 – 48.9 – 50.3 – 52.7 – Increasing Deterioration
- Zimbabwe: 33 – 46.1 – 46.4 – 36.0 – 47.2 – 54.9 – Slowing Improvement
- Angola: 43 – 40.0 – 44.1 – 39.3 – 34.3 – 42.3 – Increasing Improvement
- Somalia: 54 – 19.2 – 13.8 – 23.1 – 18.4 – 21.3 – Increasing Improvement
If one compares the values for the Overall Governance Score, it becomes clear that Namibia’s distance to the direct neighbors Botswana (5) and South Africa (6) is only small, while it is right to the ‘top three’ (Mauritius, Cape Verde, Seychelles) clear. On the other hand, all of the ‘top three’ are relatively small island states, which can only be compared to a limited extent with large states on mainland Africa. On the African mainland, Namibia is now only No. 4. In 2018 Namibia was No. 1 of the African mainland states.
