Methodology

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) is a composite index which gives a statistical measure of governance performance in 54 African countries. Each IIAG dataset provides a window of comparable data within a ten-year period.

Governance is defined by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation (MIF) as the provision of the political, social, economic and environmental public goods and services that every citizen has the right to expect from their state, and that a state has the responsibility to deliver to its citizens.

The IIAG governance framework comprises four categories:

  1. Security & Rule of Law
  2. Participation, Rights & Inclusion
  3. Foundations for Economic Opportunity, and
  4. Human Development.

These categories are made up of 16 sub-categories, consisting of 81 indicators. The 2022 IIAG is calculated using 265 variables collected from 47 independent African and global institutions.

A new IIAG dataset is released every two years. IIAG datasets are not comparable between themselves, as each iteration covers a different ten-year period, data are revised retrospectively, and revision of the theoretical framework takes place between iterations. Users of the Index should therefore always reference the most recent version of the IIAG dataset.

Citizens’ Voices

The IIAG is accompanied by the Citizens’ Voices dataset. All 36 variables collected for this complementary dataset are sourced from Afrobarometer, the leading pan-African research institution conducting public opinion surveys. This section mirrors the IIAG framework and helps to contextualise the official and expert assessment data in the IIAG with the reality on the ground as perceived by citizens.

Nevertheless, even though Citizens’ Voices is calculated as a separate index with the same methodology as the IIAG, its scores are not counted in the calculation of IIAG scores. Caveats apply with regards to the direct comparison of scores from the two datasets, as the country samples differ (only 37 for Citizens' Voices) and, while the Afrobarometer variables are the closest available proxies, there is not always exact thematic overlap with the IIAG measures.

Calculation stages

The following methodology is applied to calculate both the 2022 IIAG and Citizens’ Voices scores:

  1. Variables that are consistent with the Foundation’s definition of governance and meet specific standards of quality, periodicity and country coverage are selected and missing raw data values are estimated
  2. Raw data come on different scales from source. To be compared and combined, data are normalised to a range of 0.0-100.0, where 100.0 is the best possible score.
  3. 3. Once the 265 variables have been normalised, a simple method of aggregation is applied to calculate the 81 indicators. The Overall Governance score is the average of the underlying category scores; the category scores are the average of their underlying sub-categories; and the sub-categories are the average of their constituent indicators.

Note on decimal place precision in the 2022 IIAG

All figures on IIAG outputs are displayed to one decimal place. The calculation method to arrive at these scores is as follows:

  • Country scores are calculated on full-precision raw data values (using the exact values as they are collected from source). All scores are then rounded to one decimal place.
  • Group averages are calculated on the rounded, one decimal place country scores.
  • Both change over time (trends) and ranks are calculated on the scores to one decimal place. When two countries have the same score to one decimal place, they have tied ranks.

The exception to this are the annual average trend figures. These are calculated on the rounded trends over time and displayed to two decimal places. Trend classifications are assigned based on the full precision of the annual average trends over the ten years (2012-2021) and five years (2017-2021).