New report released by Mo Ibrahim Foundation has revealed data gaps in Africa are hampering the continent’s governance and slowing economic transformation.
The 2023 report known as Ibrahim Index of African Governance(IIAG) launched in Accra, Ghana on Monday 29 Jan. notes, sound data is at the heart of Africa’s governance and development agendas as it drives progress, assesses governance performance, sets policy priorities, and ensures trust in government.
The latest report highlights a strong positive correlation between access to high-quality statistics and effective governance across African countries from 2012 to 2021.
However, IIAG states Africa remains the continent most impacted by data gaps globally, with the region possessing the lowest availability of civil registration and vital statistics.
“When it comes to the basic building blocks of statistics that are key to defining public policies, such as population censuses and birth and death registration, many African countries are missing crucial data,” notes the Mo Ibrahim index report.
According to the report, in 14 African countries, the latest population census was conducted before 2010. Only 3 African countries have a death registration system that registers at least 90 per cent of the deaths occurred.
The 2023 report reveals, even in areas where strides have been made, critical governance data gaps persist on issues including health structures, the informal economy, the environment, violence against women, child labour, and illicit financial flows.
Additionally, the underfunding of data remains a serious challenge globally, with statistics receiving just 0.34 per cent of total Official Development Assistance (ODA).
In Africa, ODA received for data and statistics has nearly halved between 2018 and 2021.
The report also outlines critical strategies to enhance data impact and accelerate development progress on the continent.
These include: “the importance of ensuring the independence of National Statistical Offices, harnessing alternative data sources like citizen-generated data and private company data, and leveraging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.”
Mo Ibrahim, Founder and Chair of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, emphasised the importance of data for Africa in achieving key development and policy agendas: “Without data, we are driving blind – policies are misdirected and progress on the road to development is stunted. We must act urgently to close the data gap in Africa if we genuinely want to leave no one behind. Data is key to achieving both the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the UN’ Sustainable Development Goals. I have long been thinking that what UN Agenda 2030 should have begun with is an SDG 0 – Sound Data for Governance.”
The report was launched at an event co-hosted with Afrobarometer, a Pan-African, independent, non-partisan research network that measures public attitudes on economic, political, and social matters in Africa.
Afrobarometer is said to be the only source of the Citizens’ Voices dataset, which complements the IIAG dataset.
Mo Ibrahim Foundation said in a news release, the report launch followed a two-day meeting of the IIAG Expert Panel in Accra. The renewed advisory body meets once a year in a different African country for in-person consultations on the IIAG.
The report that highlights the importance of data in economic-development states “SDG1 calls for the eradication of extreme poverty by 2030, but just 5 African countries have data for the 2019-2022 period on the proportion of the population living below the international poverty line.”
