For the first time since its inception, the IIAG includes a measure capturing the extent to which governments protect citizens and minorities against discrimination. This new indicator, Protection against Discrimination, sits in the sub-category Rights, and aims to reinforce the human rights component of this sub-category.
Protection against Discrimination is composed of two different variables compiled using data from Global Integrity’s Africa Integrity Indicators (AII), Protection against Ethnic Discrimination and Protection against Religious Discrimination. Both variables measure whether governments protect minorities from discrimination, including the existence of official mechanisms that receive and investigate complaints of discrimination, of programmes to reduce and combat discrimination, and whether these are accessible by minority groups.
The data are available from source from 2013 to 2016. Registering an average continental score of 22.0 out of 100.0 points in 2016, Protection against Discrimination is the lowest scoring indicator in Participation & Human Rights and the fifth lowest of the 100 indicators in the IIAG. However, the indicator has shown the fourth largest improvement (+7.4) in Participation & Human Rights since 2013.
Mauritius and South Africa are the two highest scoring countries in Protection against Discrimination, both registering 75.0 points in 2016. They are also the only two countries registering a score higher than 50.0. Conversely, 19 countries obtain a score of 0.0 in 2016. Of these, five have deteriorated to that score in the past five years: Burundi, Congo, Gabon, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau.
Of the two sub-indicators, the average continental score in Protection against Ethnic Discrimination is slightly lower (20.4) than in Protection against Religious Discrimination (23.6).
The Mo Ibrahim Foundation looks forward to the strengthening and extension of data measuring the whole spectrum of human rights for future inclusion in the IIAG.
