|By Baba Samba|
In a recent index made public by a London-based research organization, World Economics, Cameroon occupies the position of the 38th best-governed state in the entire continent of Africa.
According to the data provided by the organization, the good governance ranking is derived based on 4 major indexes which are, corruption perception, rule of law, press freedom, and political rights. The original sources of data used for the compilation of the index came from trustworthy institutions such as the World Economics, the World Bank, Reporters Sans Frontière, Freedom House, and Transparency International.
The report stipulates that the index numbers are rebased and shown on a scale of 0 – 100,
Governance: 0 = Poor governance, 100 = As good as it gets. Corruption Perception: 0 = Bad, 100 = Good. Rule of Law: 0 = low rule of law, 100 = High rule of law. Press Freedom: 0 = Low press freedom, 100 = High press freedom. Political Rights: 0 = Low political rights, 100 = High political rights with grade definitions ranging between A for Very good, B for Good, C for Average, D for Poor and E for Very poor.
Cameroon, as per the data published by World Economics on its website, has scored a grade of E with an index of 27.2 which establishes the Central African state at the 38th position of best-governed nation on the whole African continent and the 134th position on the global scale, out of the 139 countries surveyed. This, in essence, implies Cameroon has performed horribly in the rankings with a lamentable grade of E and a bottom-of-the-list index of 27.5. which could only mean one thing, the country led by president Biya in the past 42 years has landed a Very Poor grade in the domains of governance, corruption perception, rule of law, press freedom and political rights. Evidently, this subpar performance has placed the country among nations of the world with the worst performance of governance, crowning it with the title of the 6th worst-governed nation in the world.
African rankings
Namibia takes the lead as the first best-governed country in Africa with a grade of B and an index of 69.1 closely followed at the second position by South Africa who scores a B grade and an index of 65.5. Occupying the third place is Botswana who inks a B grade with an index of 65.1. Sitting at the fourth and fifth positions are Ghana and Lesotho who both record B grades with indexes of 61.7 and and 52.3 respectively. From the 6th to 10th spots, all securing C grades with indexes ranging between 51.8 and 49.4, are Burkina Faso, Gambia, Tunisia, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Côte D’Ivoire.
Global rankings
As per the index, the top 10 best-governed nations on the global space are Denmark, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Canada.
