Countries around the world, including some of the poorest in Africa, have made “significant progress” in improving governance and fighting corruption over the decade, the new “Worldwide Governance Indicators” (WGI) study by the World Bank Institute and World Bank Development Economics Vice-presidency shows.
Significant improvements in governance over the past decade occurred in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Tajikistan, Serbia, and Slovakia. And in Africa in particular, countries such as Niger, Sierra Leone, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Tanzania, and Rwanda showed significant improvements in some dimensions of governance since 1998. Even over the relatively short period since 2002, there have been big improvements in some aspects of governance in countries such as Liberia, Angola, Argentina, and Georgia.
The gains in countries straddling all six continents are “hopeful news,” according to study co-author Daniel Kaufmann, Director of Global Governance at the WBI. But he acknowledged: “On average, there is no evidence that governance in the world at large has improved markedly over the past decade. It is a very varied picture. The good news is that some countries, including some of the poorest ones in Africa, are deciding to move forward, and are showing to the world that it is possible to make substantial inroads in improving governance over a relatively short period of time – in less than a decade. However, others have stayed behind or even deteriorated.”
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