The Status of Governance in Africa: Evidence from the Africa Integrity Indicators

Abstract Information: The Africa Integrity Indicators (AII) focuses on African governance in practice, examining how policies are implemented to support governments, citizens, and civil society society. AII assesses key social, economic, political, and anti-corruption mechanisms at the national level across all 54 countries of the African continent. The Africa Integrity Indicators was initially implemented by Global Integrity (from 2012 to 2022), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization and was transitioned to the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) in 2022. The dataset evaluates both the in-law and in-practice aspects of corruption and governance. Measuring both the existing legal framework and the “in practice” implementation is key in AFIDEP’s effort to produce actionable governance data that help governments, citizens, and civil society understand the implementation gap between law and practice, evaluate the status quo and identify intervention points for subsequent reform efforts, thereby addressing governance challenges on the continent. The dataset includes 54 in-practice indicators, divided into two main categories: Transparency and Accountability Accountability, which consists of 30 indicators and Social Development, which consists of 24 indicators.

Through the presentation, AFIDEP aims to showcase the recent 2024 Round 12 findings and the processes involved in the generation of the data and how stakeholders in Africa have been using the data to improve governance systems in their respective governments. Our experience with governments, including the Ivorian, Congolese (DRC) and Sierra Leonean governments, has shown that engaging governments and other stakeholders to understand how governance data is generated is key for the identification of areas of intervention for improved governance systems. We believe that further engagements could provide more insights into how the data is collected, how the methodology can be enhanced, and how stakeholders can use the data in various contexts. The Mo Ibrahim uses the data within the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) and the World Bank within the World-Wide Governance Indicators. Also, the civil service integrity indicators are highly weighted in the Millennium Challenge Corporation assessments to determine countries which are eligible for their compacts.