Currently a political and social activist, Jay Naidoo was a pioneering trade unionist who fought apartheid in South Africa and went on after liberation to serve as a minister in Nelson Mandela’s cabinet. He is also a member of the board of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which this week published the latest edition of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. He discussed this year’s findings in an interview with AllAfrica’s John Allen.
On improvements in the quality of governance across the continent:
Overall it remains positive, albeit off a very low base. But what is worrying for us in the foundation is that in recent years even countries that have made progress have slowed down, or we actually have seen reversals. So it is a wake-up call for us to show vigilance in holding leadership accountable – more so in South Africa than in many other countries.
Particular concerns over South Africa:
There’s certainly been a decline in the accountability of public institutions and government that is worrying. That trend is continuing, as has been shown by the increasing evidence that much of our state – which is primarily responsible for the delivery of social and economic goods – has seen a decline.
It’s quite predictable, given the political turmoil in our country, that we are continuing to fall behind in areas of accountability, certainly on the issues under the broad category of the rule of law. Although we have an exceedingly good judiciary and a number of checks and balances have been holding the executive to account, governance in state-owned institutions and the political sector has seen a decline.
On how useful the index is for tracking what’s happening in a country:
The most important thing is that it works on data. If you look at the foundation, over 17 years we have consolidated data from 30 different independent institutions and increasingly we are also measuring, through institutions such as Afrobarometer, citizens’ attitudes to delivery.
Data is the basis of executing the mandate that we have in delivering public economic, political and social goods. Statistics are in a poor state in Africa so the index contributes towards deepening the actual data required to measure the performance of our governments.
It is also important in helping business for investment purposes as they begin to use data to determine where they want to put their money.
From the side of citizens, it can become a very important tool as civil society begins to take up the issues that citizens feel most strongly about and put increased pressure on government to improve.
On trends in the “human development” category of the index:
If one looks at human development, what you see is steady progress, again albeit from a low base, in the areas of welfare, education and health. But what’s happening now is that you are starting to see education registering the least amount of progress, and education is certainly the ladder out of poverty for the vast majority of African citizens. So I think it points to a weakness there.
On trends in the “sustainable economic opportunity” category:
Again we’ve seen progress over the last 10 years on economic growth. But it’s been driven by commodity cycles, or by big infrastructure projects. It hasn’t been able to deal with the huge problem of unemployment in Africa, and if you look at the data what you see is that the rural sector is declining at a rapid rate.
If you extrapolate from that, you see what is driving migration towards the cities. So the data begins to give you a more accurate scenario of what is coming down the pipeline. Even though it’s not a predictive tool, it’s an early warning system to say: pay attention to investing in rural areas because otherwise migration is going to increase, and migration leads to great, sprawling informal settlements in peri-urban areas.
Investment in rural areas would slow down that migration and create economic opportunities in the rural areas, allowing cities to cope better with the tremendous influx of people from rural areas. All of this is complicated of course by climate change, which is driving this migration.
If governments pay attention to this index, they are able to detect at an early stage some of the trends that are emerging out of it, and to take steps to try and remedy those changes that are negative and to implement game-changers that create a positive result. Data is the basis of governance and if we use it accurately we are able to allocate scarce resources in a more focused and targeted way.
On whether governments are using the index sufficiently:
Yes, if I think about it from the beginning, when they didn’t even want to hear about the index and weren’t prepared even to consult on it, now a number of heads of state of important countries wait for the index to come out and then ask themselves, why have I fallen, or celebrate when they do right.
So I think governments, not all governments but certainly a number, are beginning to interact with it and are beginning to see the index as a very useful tool for improving governance and performance in the delivery of goods to citizens.
