A new assessment of the quality of government policies and institutions that support growth and poverty reduction in Africa shows some progress for a few countries but flat or deteriorating scores for the majority.

The World Bank’s latest review of government policies and institutions in Africa shows that half of the region’s countries posted relatively weak performance in their policy environment supporting development and poverty reduction in 2015.

According to the World Bank’s annual Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) for Sub-Saharan Africa, seven countries out of 38 registered improvements while another 12 saw a decline in their performance. The CPIA describes the progress made in low-income African countries to strengthen their policies and institutions that help to spur better development outcomes. It rates the performance and challenges of poor countries in order to determine the allocation of low to zero-interest financing and grants for countries that are eligible for support from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA)*.

CPIA scores assess the quality of countries’ policy and institutional progress using 16 development indicators in four areas: economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion and equity, and public sector management and institutions. Countries are rated on a scale of 1 (low) to 6 (high) for each indicator. The overall CPIA score reflects the average of the four areas of the CPIA.

Progress for some countries, slippages for others

The average CPIA score for Sub-Saharan Africa countries combined was 3.2 in 2015, which remains similar to last year’s performance. This latest average score is now similar to that of all IDA countries. With a series of policy reforms, Rwanda continues to lead all countries with a CPIA score of 4.0 followed by Cabo Verde, Kenya, and Senegal, all with a 3.8 score. Improvements in several policy areas reversed the slide in Ghana’s score, lifting the country’s CPIA score from 3.4 in 2014 to 3.6 in 2015.

Countries transitioning out of violence saw modest improvements. Côte d’Ivoire (3.3), which has enjoyed four consecutive years of wide-ranging reforms and improvements in CPIA scores, saw stronger performance in equity of public resource use in 2015, but this did not translate into an improvement in the country’s aggregate CPIA score. By contrast, both Burundi (3.1) and The Gambia (2.9) saw the CPIA score drop from last year’s rating, underscoring that conflict and weak governance can set back policy gains and development progress.

“Although there are a number of highly performing countries, African IDA-eligible countries on average continue to lag behind those in other regions in their policy and institutional ratings,” says Albert Zeufack, World Bank Chief Economist for Africa. “Urgent action is needed as more countries are facing downward pressure on the current account and fiscal balances, declining reserve positions, depreciating currencies, higher inflation, and rising debt burdens.”

Only seven countries – Ghana, Comoros, Chad, Guinea, Madagascar, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe – strengthened their governance framework compared to nine in 2014 with another six countries experiencing a decline against four in 2014. Overall, the low governance scores for African countries indicate that public institutions need to be strengthened so they can be more accountable for delivering human development services, security, and justice to citizens.

The number of African countries that saw a decline in CPIA score in 2015 is nearly double the number of improvers. Twelve countries saw a deterioration in their CPIA score, with Burundi and The Gambia seeing the sharpest declines. Eritrea and South Sudan were also at the low end of the range, with slippages in several policy areas edging down their scores to 1.9. This is largely due to weaker performance in the economic management cluster underpinned by weaker global economic conditions.

“The end of the commodity super-cycle highlighted vulnerabilities in the structure of Sub-Saharan Africa’s economies,” notes Punam Chuhan-Pole, Lead Economist, World Bank Africa Region and author of the report. “Yet, the current difficult situation also presents opportunities to accelerate key reforms to boost competitiveness and diversification which are critical for raising growth prospects and ending extreme poverty.”

The impact of a more difficult economic environment on the scores pertaining to economic management was particularly visible. A more difficult external environment and reduced policy buffers heightened economic vulnerabilities in several countries. In this context, thirteen African countries saw their scores measuring economic management policies decrease.

“The decline in performance was particularly evident in Burundi and South Sudan,” said Punam-Chuhan Pole, World Bank lead economist and author of the report. “The escalation of violence and political and ethnic conflict underscore the need to address the drivers of fragility and to make public institutions more accountable for delivering human development services, security, and justice to citizens.”

Sub-Saharan Africa’s fragile countries continue to lag behind fragile countries elsewhere and non-fragile countries in the continent, particularly in the quality of public institutions. At the same time, fragile African countries lag comparable countries outside the region, with their scores on governance driving down their overall scores.

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* The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), established in 1960, helps the world’s poorest countries by providing grants and low to zero-interest loans for projects and programs that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people’s lives. IDA is one of the largest sources of assistance for the world’s 77 poorest countries, 39 of which are in Africa. Resources from IDA bring positive change to the 1.3 billion people who live in IDA countries. Since 1960, IDA has supported development work in 112 countries. Annual commitments have averaged about $19 billion over the last three years, with about 50 percent going to Africa.