African countries on the right track- World Bank report - Says nations still have to pull up their socks

By Kenneth Oduor

NAIROBI, Kenya- A new World Bank report that has just been released has commended most African nations for making positive progress on issues of governance. The report says the strides being made by some African countries is commendable and points to a good forecast for the future.
According towards the report, the countries were judged based on the progress they have made in areas related to governance such as political stability, corruption, the rule of law, violence and peace, quality of state regulation and citizens’ democratic participation among others.

The report titled “Governance Matters 2007: Worldwide Governance Indicators 1996 - 2006”, further reveals that most African countries are making positive strides in improving their level of governance and the war against high level corruption
The report cites Kenya, Sierra Leone, Algeria, Liberia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Libya, and Angola as some of the African countries that have shown a remarkable forward progress on different issues of governance.
“Good governance and the control of corruption are important elements in the war against poverty”, says a news release issued by the world’s financial body.

At the same time, the report warns that even though progress has been made on the governance front in Africa, most countries in the third world still have a long way to go.
The report cites Algeria and Sierra Leone as some of the nations that have made tremendous progress in the respect for the rule of law. Sierra Leone has had a history blurred by a ravaging and a destructive civil war.

Rwanda which is also coming from a history of a bloody ethnic genocide that saw close to 800,000 people lose their lives has also been cited by the report as having made progress in improving and maintaining political stability.
Tanzania makes it to the report statistics as one of the African countries that have made remarkable effort in reigning in on high-level graft.
The report captures research made on the participation of citizens on national issues and their ability to air their opinions to their respective governments.

To come up with the political stability of countries, the benchmarks were set on the perceptions on the ability of governments to be in place without any fear of it being toppled by unconstitutional means.
The report has been authored by Daniel Kaufmann who is also the bank’s Director of Global Programmes, Massimo Mastruzzi and Aart Kraay. •