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Summary

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance
The 2008 Index is based on data from 2006, the last year with reasonably complete available data for nearly all sub-Saharan African countries.

The full 2008 Ibrahim Index

"We are shining a light on governance in Africa, and in so doing we are making a unique contribution to improving the quality of governance. The Ibrahim Index is a tool to hold governments to account and frame the debate about how we are governed. Africans are setting benchmarks not only for their own continent, but for the world. " Mo Ibrahim

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance is a comprehensive ranking of sub-Saharan African nations according to governance quality. The Ibrahim Index assesses national governance against 57 criteria. The criteria capture the quality of services provided to citizens by governments. The focus is on the results that the people of a country experience.

The criteria are divided into five over-arching categories which together make up the cornerstones of a government's obligations to its citizens:

• Safety and Security
• Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption
• Participation and Human Rights
• Sustainable Economic Opportunity
• Human Development

The Ibrahim Index is a progressive and responsive tool that will evolve to accommodate feedback and critiques from stakeholders, as well as changes in the governance context in sub-Saharan Africa. It was created in recognition of the need for a comprehensive and quantifiable method of measuring governance quality in sub-Saharan Africa, and has been designed to:

• Provide a tool for civil society and citizens to hold governments to account
• Stimulate debate on governance, in particular by providing information about leadership performance
• Provide a diagnostic framework to assess governance in sub-Saharan Africa

Information is collected over a number of years so that the Ibrahim Index will measure changes in the quality of government over time. The first Ibrahim Index was published in September 2007 and included data from 2000, 2002 and 2005. The Ibrahim Index is compiled under the direction of Professor Robert Rotberg, Dr Rachel Gisselquist and their team at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University with guidance from a panel of eminent African academics and corporate leaders.