President Nana Akufo-Addo
Ghana has been ranked as Africa’s fifth best-governed country, surpassing other West African countries, with near-perfect scores for rule of law, press freedom, and political rights.
It took the position with an index of 61.7, translating to Grade B, defeating Senegal, the closest West African counterpart, which was ranked sixth with a grade of C and an index of 53.6.
According to the latest ranking by the World Economics, a UK-based research organisation, Mauritius reigns supreme on the top in Africa as the best governed nation, with the country receiving an index of 69.3, translating to a grade of B.
Namibia was ranked second with a grade of B and an index of 69.1, South Africa was ranked third with a grade of B and an index score of 65.5, and Botswana was ranked fourth, ahead of Ghana, with a grade of B and an index of 65.1.
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Libya, and Chad round off the bottom three.
Libya sits squarely in last place with a grade of E and an index of 15.4 followed by DRC with grade E and an index of 21.6 and Chad with an index of 23.2.
World Economics ranks good governance using four primary indexes namely corruption perception, rule of law, press freedom, and political rights.
The governance index assigns equal weight to all four criteria established by the researchers.
According to World Economics, all index numbers have been rebased and are shown on a scale of 0-100. Governance: 0 = poor governance; 100 = as excellent as it gets. Corruption Perception: 0 = bad; 100 = good. Rule of Law: 0 = low rule of law; 100 = high rule of law; Press Freedom: 0 = low press freedom; 100 = high press freedom; and Political Rights: 0 = low political rights; 100 = high political rights.
The grade definitions are A: Very good, B: Good, C: Average, D: Poor and E: Very Poor.
Global Rankings
Denmark, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, and Sweden were ranked first, second, third, fourth, and fifth globally. Switzerland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, Canada, Germany, and Iceland, Estonia, Australia, and the United Kingdom follow in that order.
Ghana is ranked 48th, ahead of countries such as Argentina, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Brazil, Senegal, Malawi, Indonesia, India, Tunisia, Cote d’Ivoire, United Arab Emirates, Benin, Rwanda, Kenya, Morocco, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Turkey, and Egypt.
World Economics
After more than a decade of dedicated research, World Economics has created a set of new databases that provide a radically different perspective on the realities of global economic growth in 150+ nations, which is extremely relevant and useful to investors.
By Ernest Kofi Adu