This week sees the 26th African Union Summit taking place in Addis Ababa. The topic this year is the African Year of Human Rights, with a particular focus on the rights of women.
As delegates gather in Ethiopia, we take a look at what the Ibrahim Index of African Governance tells us about human rights and gender in African governance today:
The Rights sub-category has demonstrated, on average, a downward continental trend in recent years, registering a slight deterioration that is contrary to the positive performance seen in the other two constituent sub-categories of its parent category Participation & Human Rights.
- The African average score for Rights is 47.3 (out of 100), making it the second highest scoring sub-category in Participation & Human Rights in 2014. It ranks 8th out of the 14 sub-categories in the IIAG.
- There has been a deterioration in the African average score (-0.8) since 2011.
- This deterioration has been driven by the indicators Freedom of Association & Assembly (-6.9), Civil Liberties (-1.5) and Human Rights (-1.4).
- However, the indicator International Human Rights Conventions (+5.5) has shown year-on-year improvement since 2011.
- Rights is the only sub-category in Participation & Human Rights to show deterioration of the continental average score in the past four years.
- The ten highest scoring countries in 2014 are: Ghana (79.6), Mauritius (77.0), Cabo Verde (76.9), Senegal (73.4), Namibia (72.3), Benin (69.6), South Africa (67.1), São Tomé & Príncipe (67.0), Botswana (66.2) and Tunisia (65.3).
- The range in score between these ten countries is 14.3 points.
- There has been a deterioration in the African average score (-0.8) since 2011.
Gender
Gender is one of two sub-categories in its parent category Participation & Human Rights to show an average continental improvement over the past four years, albeit to a lesser extent than in Participation. Despite this progress, only half of the countries on the continent are on an upward trajectory, while the other half show either deterioration or static trends. All five regions show slight improvement in Gender since 2011. Despite this, no region demonstrates progress among all its members, exemplified by the regional spread of countries in the top ten improvers and the most deteriorated countries, where no one region dominates.
- The African average score for Gender is 54.8 (out of 100), making it the highest scoring sub-category in Participation & Human Rights in 2014, and the 3rd highest scoring sub-category out of the 14 in the IIAG.
- There has been an improvement in the African average score (+0.6) since 2011.
- This improvement has been driven by the indicators Gender Equality (+1.2), Gender Balance in Education (+1.5), Women’s Participation in the Labour Force (+0.2), Gender Equality in the Workplace (+3.1), Women in Politics (+1.7) and Women in the Judiciary (+1.4).
- The weakening trend in Legislation on Violence against Women (-5.3) almost entirely counterbalances the improvement of every other indicator within this sub-category.
- The ten highest scoring countries in 2014 are: Rwanda (85.0), Cabo Verde (78.6), Burundi (76.6), Namibia (75.7), South Africa (73.6), Uganda (72.0), Lesotho (71.5), Madagascar (71.2), Ghana (68.5) and Seychelles (68.4).
- The range in score between these ten countries is 16.6 points.
- Burundi and Namibia perform particularly well, in that they rank highly and show some of the largest improvements since 2011.
Although there is slight improvement in the Gender sub-category, overall the deterioration in Rights leaves cause for concern and so the summit topic is timely.
