Today marks the release of the tenth Ibrahim Index of African Governance produced by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation.

The Index has provided crucial analysis over the past decade of how governance is improving or worsening in countries across the continent. The index focuses on four categories to make up an overall governance score, each category containing 3-4 sub-categories. This year, the report steps back to examine trends over the past decade.

Some of the key findings include:

• The past decade has seen a one point increase in the continental average score in Overall Governance.
• Greatest improvers at Overall Governance have been Côte d’Ivoire (+13.1), followed by Togo (+9.7), Zimbabwe (+9.7), Liberia (+8.7) and Rwanda (+8.4).
• A large majority (78%) of African citizens live in a country that has improved in Participation & Human Rights over the past decade.
• However, Two-thirds of the countries on the continent, representing 67% of the African population, have shown deterioration in Freedom of Expression over the past ten years.
• Safety & Rule of Law is the only category with a negative trend over the past decade, falling by 2.8 score points.

We’ll leave the last word to Mo Ibrahim, founder of the Foundation, instigator of the Index and B Team Leader:

“The slight improvement at Overall Governance of one single point over the decade reflects a positive trend in a majority of countries and for over two-thirds of citizens. But Africa is not a country, and governance cannot be reduced to a single dimension. To focus on one measure would miss the point, and this is what our Index is about. My hope is that it can continue to be a useful tool to strengthen and deepen the progress Africa has already displayed.”

You can watch the launch or read the report at the Mo Ibrahim Foundation website