Ibrahim Index of African Governance

[3] The IIAG provides a framework for citizens, governments, institutions, academics and business to assess the delivery of public goods and services, and policy outcomes, across Africa.

[5] The IIAG assesses progress under four main conceptual categories: Security & Rule of Law, Participation, Rights & Inclusion, Foundations for Economic Opportunity, and Human Development.

[3][6] Scholars, development professionals, analysts, and policymakers have used the IIAG to benchmark governance performance across a number of dimensions at national, regional and continental levels.

[14] In 2007, critics suggested that the IIAG was limited by its focus on the 48 Sub-Saharan African countries, ignoring Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

Equally, if previously included measures undergo fundamental methodological changes or do not meet the criteria for inclusion anymore, it may be necessary to exclude them from future iterations.

Ahead of the 2020 IIAG, the structure of the Index was changed so that the vast majority of indicators are now composed of more than one single variable collected from source.

[22]  This is based on the understanding that composite scores constitute the key value added of the IIAG dataset, and aims to provide a clearer, more complete and more stable framework.

All variables collected for this complementary dataset are sourced from Afrobarometer, the leading pan-African research institution conducting public opinion surveys.

The latest IIAG comprises 81 indicators, grouped into four broad categories: Security & Rule of Law, Participation, Rights & Inclusion, Foundations for Economic Opportunity, and Human Development.

[22] The Participation sub-category includes four indicators measuring Freedom of Association & Assembly, Political Pluralism, Civil Society Space and Democratic Elections.

[6] The 20 indicators in the Foundations for Economic Opportunity category are divided into four sub-categories: Public Administration, Business & Labour Environment, Infrastructure and Rural Economy.

[26] The 21 indicators in the Human Development category are divided into four sub-categories: Health, Education, Social Protection & Welfare and Sustainable Environment.