Global Integrity, in partnership with the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has released its 2017 Africa Integrity Indicators (AII) which assesses African countries based on access to information and 101 other indicators.
In 2012, Global Integrity embarked on a five-year collaboration with the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to generate the Africa Integrity Indicators, which assesses key social, economic, political and anti-corruption mechanisms at the national level across the continent. Global Integrity staff recruit and manage teams of in-country contributors in 54 countries to generate original governance data on an annual basis.
The Group uses a blend of social science and journalism in-country teams of independent researchers, academics and journalists’ reports on the de jure as well as de facto reality of corruption and governance. It measures both the existing legal framework and the “in practice” implementation in its 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.
As of the 2017 edition of the data, the questionnaire has 102 indicators and is divided in two main categories namely; Transparency and Accountability; and Social Development
Drawing from the indicators of the Global Integrity Report (GIR), the Transparency and Accountability category consists of 56 indicators examining issues divided in the thematic areas of rule of law, accountability, elections, public management integrity, civil service integrity, and access to information. The indicators look into transparency of the public procurement process, media freedom, asset disclosure requirements, independence of the judiciary, and conflict of interest laws, among others.
The Social Development category consists of 46 indicators about gender, rights, welfare, rural sector, business environment, health and education. This category of the questionnaire was designed to partly feed into the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) in areas not covered by the secondary data sources it utilizes. It does not attempt to be a comprehensive assessment by itself. Because the Social Development portion of the questionnaire only includes a small number of questions per topic area, Global Integrity only provides the scores for individual indicator and won’t provide category or subcategory scores. For example, there are only six questions about Health and Education and users can access the score for each of the indicators, but they won’t find an overall Health and Education score or an overall Social Development score.
Each indicator consists of three elements – score, explanatory comment, and sources. These components mean that a given scorecard contains a wealth of information and that users can refer to the narrative as an entry point to better understand why a country has achieved a particular score on any given indicator. Scores allow for general comparisons across countries, while sources and comments provide a unique window into the realities of regulation and enforcement in each country.
In prior rounds, Global Integrity researched additional indicators which can still be accessed through the web page. Additional information on both methodology and country findings is accessible through the www.globalintegrity.org.
The research covers all 54 African countries. The pilot phase covered 50 out of the 54 African countries, excluding the Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Niger and Lesotho. Beginning with the second round research, all African countries are covered.
According to information released by Global Integrity, findings of the data collected in 2017 will be made available in the next three months.
Anyone who has ideas about particular issues worthwhile mentioning in the country findings, are advised to write to aii@globalintegrity.org.
The report can be accessed online at http://www.globalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AII-R5-2017.xlsx.
