Africa Country Benchmark Report (ACBR) - latest Issue

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Across the globe, great strides are being taken in the technological advancements of the collection,
management, dissemination and use of data. Private- and public-sector entities are increasingly realising
the importance of quality data to inform decision-making and accelerate growth and development. This is
as much true for governments, who require large and growing amounts of data to inform policy and good
governance, as this is for private companies, the media, civil society and international organisations, who
depend on data to inform effective planning and strategy.

The 2017 edition of the Africa Country Benchmark Report (ACBR) has adopted and refined the methods of its predecessor, providing a deeper and more comprehensive statistical analysis of the 54 African nations. Each country has been individually analysed and holistic profiles constructed, in addition to in-depth comparative analyses across countries, regions and focus areas of investigation: Business, Economics, Politics and Society.

ACBR 2017 seeks understanding of Africa’s overall national and regional performances through four categories of endeavour called Quadrants. These quadrants are the means through which the ACBR assesses the performance of Africa’s 54 countries and five regions. Business and Economics encompass the activities that account for national and regional wealth. Politics examines governance issues and also human freedoms that are both subject to governance and stand apart as absolute qualities, whose infringement reflects upon good governance. Society embraces the components that make up a population’s physical well-being.

Market Freedom scores show a significant regional divergence. Though conjoining regions, faced with similar social and political challenges, as measured by the ACBR indexes, West Africa scores well above Central Africa in business categories. One cause is that the Economic Community of West African States has promoted free markets among member states, whereas the conflict-torn Central African region has no similar strong co-ordinating organisation. East and North Africa’s Market Freedom scores both indicate commercial environments that require regulatory reform to induce more business-friendly commercial milieus. Southern Africa’s scores reflect regulatory constraints also affecting business performance.

Africa’s North and Southern regions hold identical scores in the ACBR Economics quadrant. Both regions have several nations with well-performing economies, underpinned by strengths in individual quadrant categories, reflected in their scores. These regions have long-established trade links with foreign markets, which are founded on equally long-established agricultural, industrial and mining activities. Yet, North and Southern African economies display in their Economics scores an awareness of a need for economic diversification and innovation to avoid stagnation.

A reading of ACBR country performances in the Politics quadrant find that higher scores are achieved in direct correlation with the degree of a government’s commitment to democratic institutions. Understandably, political scores are lowest in countries where civil war restricts a government’s ability to bolster democratic institutions, even if a will exists to do so. Libya and South Sudan fall into this category, as well as Somalia, where the establishment of a central government occurred after the 2017 indexes were assembled. Conflict also explains the low scores of troubled Central African states CAR, DRC and Republic of Congo, where central governments struggle to assert their authorities.

A common denominator amongst African societies is the poverty of the African majority. However, ACBR scores in the Society quadrant show varying ways countries are mitigating poverty, often with scant financial resources. Economically advanced countries are showing the wisdom of investing in their people’s social welfare through education, health and social services spending. This has the effect of producing healthier and better educated citizens, whose economic contributions generate tax revenues that, in turn, finance perennially improving social services, leading to even more productive generations. Citizens lifted by government spending on social service contribute in a myriad of non-economic ways to their societies.

Factors influencing business

Factors influencing economics

Factors influencing politics

Factors influencing society

Africa’s five regions are distinctly different performers on the ACBR 2017 index. The combined scores of regional nations show that the continent’s constituent parts are composed differently, not just as a matter of geographical environments but also in their business environments, economic circumstances, politics and social amenities. The spread of the ACBR regional performances per quadrant reflects the particular conditions both geographical and historical of Africa’s five regions.

Largely poor and torn by bloody conflict, Central Africa struggles to achieve sustainable progress in all four indexes of ACBR 2017. While São Tomé and Príncipe offers an exception, that island nation shares few commonalities with regional mainland countries. Autocratic governments control most Central Africans’ lives, stifling economic growth through corruption and encouraging of protest movements and insurgencies.

Of all Africa’s regions, East Africa has the continent’s widest disparities in ACBR 2017 index scores between its constituent countries. The countries vary from Seychelles, one of Africa’s most prosperous and socially-progressive countries, to Somalia, a formerly failed state now undergoing a rebirth, and South Sudan, Africa’s newest failed state where genocide is reportedly occurring. Regional integration is difficult under the circumstances, but the centre for regional activity continues to be the traditional regional powerhouses, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania. An island distant from the mainland, Seychelles is unconnected to other regional countries through land transportation links, and is tangential to regional integration. Nevertheless, the lessons Seychelles offers on economic planning, population control and education are instructive for the entire region.

While Northern Africa is comprised by the fewest number of countries, five in all, the geographic area encompassed by the region is massive – although much is scarcelyinhabitable desert – and the combined population is large. Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco (incorporating Western Sahara) and Tunisia have not only numerous citizens, but they are relatively prosperous compared to other regions of Africa and are well-educated, long-living and politically progressive. The commonality of Arab culture, social traits and economic performance has given Northern Africa the continent’s most homogenous regional performer on the ACBR 2017 index.

Mauritius has the highest aggregate score on the ACBR 2017 index, at 61.36 a full five points above second-place Seychelles. However, scoring also five points above Southern Africa’s second place finisher, South Africa, the successful island nation is an anomaly. From South Africa downward to Angola, an evenly-spaced decline occurs. Countries’ performances are determined by their degree of political freedom, which informs the amount of economic freedom that fuels business opportunities, educational advancements and accomplishments in health and gender equality.

Resources rich but imperiled by poverty and income inequity, West Africa is counting on stable governments now generally in place to address economic and social challenges. Nigeria’s terror group Boko Haram which has expanded into other regional nations feeds on unaddressed social problems. While Ebola has been eradicated and the AIDS crisis is not expanding, West Africans’ health is largely imperiled by poverty, which limits cashstrapped governments from delivering social services and is exacerbated by hugelygrowing populations. The population boom is ensuring that unemployment remains a crisis for the region’s youth and that schools and health services remain strained despite the expansion of the educational and health infrastructures.

The analysis of relationships between scores and factors has also been extended to a region-by-region comparison. Some regions, like North Africa, show a lesser impact on scores by external variables, while others, like West Africa, are heavily reliant on the outcome of these factors.

The diagrams to follow illustrate to what extent a variable may influence a specific region. The analysis then continues to consider the effects a factor may have on quadrant scores in addition to the overall evaluation, providing context to the layers of relationships present

The four nations selected for comparison to African counterparts in the four quadrant indexes seem a world apart from each other in some respects, as well as to African nations. The USA concluded the 20th century as the world’s sole Superpower and is a mature democracy, whose market economy has brought unprecedented prosperity to a citizenry that enjoys full political freedoms. Singapore is a relatively new democracy and economic power but with a traditional social mindset that allows some freedoms to be subsumed for the greater communal good.

At the core of ACBR 2017 are the individual performances of African countries. In themselves, these Country Profiles are informative and interesting as holistic assessments of how nations are doing in the four quadrants of Business, Economics, Politics and Society.

Country Profile scores become pieces of a larger picture, revealing the performance of Africa’s five regions and, ultimately, the African continent as a whole. Piecing together the larger picture starts at the national level.

Stable, democratic and the African leader on economic and governance indicators, Mauritius is considered one of Africa’s great success stories. The nation of idyllic tropical islands off Africa’s east coast has achieved prosperity through population control, dedication to democratic institutions and progressive economic policies. An open economy is buttressed by a competent, business-friendly bureaucracy and regulations and good government. A longtime continental leader in economic diversification, avoiding economic shock of global price drops for single key commodities – sugar in Mauritius’s case – the country has successfully broadened its economy by creating and growing tourism, information and communications technology (ICT) services and its financial sector. Considerable foreign investment has been directed toward resorts that are among the world’s finest and cater to upper-echelon tourists. Through such growth and an international marketing campaign, Mauritius’s Grand Baie is positioning itself as the Riviera of Africa.