SA retains position in Ibrahim Index

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Brand South Africa has welcomed the results of the 2017 Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), which saw South Africa retain its rank of 6 of 54 countries assessed in the index.

The IIAG is an annual statistical assessment of the quality of governance in every one of the 54 African countries, covering a 17-year time series from 2000-2016.

Brand South Africa said the 2017 IIAG framework has four overarching categories, which reflect the Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s definition of governance: Safety & Rule of Law, Participation & Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity, as well as Human Development.

In terms of these pillars of the index, South Africa improved in the indicator of Participation & Human Rights, moving up from position 5/54 to 4/54, and Safety & Rule of Law remains the same as the previous year at 7/54.

“As a democratic nation, it is also heartening that in Participation & Human Rights, South Africa improves with one rank to 4/54. The IIAG’s focus on governance is a critical issue, especially in the African and Emerging Market context,” Brand South Africa said.

While general governance performance, as outlined in the IIAG results speak to general state capacity, South Africa also has notable strengths in terms of its corporate governance environment.

“This year has been a particularly challenging one for South Africa, with a number of incidents in public administration and the private sector leading to the creation of grounds for improvements in administration.

“As a consequence of all these incidents, whether they involved fraud, improper administration, badly informed managers or failing supervision, corporate governance in the private sector and in the public sector have become subjects that are widely discussed and reported on in the media,” Brand South Africa’s CEO Dr Kingsley Makhubela said.

He said cultivating governance is high on South Africa’s agenda, which is why authorities across various stakeholder groups are working hard to safeguard and improve governance.

“It is the responsibility of all stakeholders, including government, business and civil society to ensure not only that we deliver on our central mandate of providing sound and sustainable initiatives for the country’s economic and social needs, but also that we are well run, and that investments yield the required results that will address unemployment, inequality and poverty in South Africa,” Makhubela said.

He said despite improvements in the areas highlighted above, Brand South Africa notes with concern, a decrease in the country’s ranking on Sustainable Economic Opportunity from position 2 to 4, and Human Development from position 6 to 8 this year. 

“In an increasingly competitive global landscape, the risk of poor governance remains fairly high.

“We need to look to institutions of governance such as Parliament, the SA Reserve Bank, the Human Rights Commission, the Financial Services Board, the Competition Tribunal, and many more, to obtain insights on how they are all playing their part in ensuring that South Africa’s Constitutional Democracy and Rule of Law continue to demonstrate high levels of resilience, maturity and good governance,” Makhubela said. – SAnews.gov.za