Index of African Governance: Bad Governance Hinders Human Development and Sustainable Economic Growth in Cameroon

     Dr. Mo Ibrahim

CCDHR is drawing the attention of the Government of Cameroon to its unfortunate performance in the 2009 Ibrahim Index of African Governance published October 5, 2009. The Ibrahim Index of Governance is published by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, an organization committed to supporting great African leadership. The Ibrahim Index is Africa's leading assessment of governance, established to inform and empower the continent's citizens to hold their governments, public officials, and public institutions to account.

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance measures the delivery of public goods and services to citizens by government and non-state actors across 84 indicators of governance. Those governance indicators are grouped in four overall categories: Safety and Rule of Law, Participation and Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity, and Human Development. CCDHR notes that the Index of African Governance is a pragmatic interpretation as to how corruption, poor human development, and poor public management still constitute hindrance to progress in Cameroon.

Cameroon ranked 33rd out of 53 African countries in the 2009 Ibrahim Index of African Governance. This shameful ranking is a vindication of the anguish and frustration of Cameroonians. It is also a clear validation of the demands by civil society activists, development initiatives, academics, and pro-democracy and human rights organizations for institutional reforms in Cameroon. CCDHR recognizes that despite repeated calls for such reforms, the Government of Cameroon has held firm to policies and tactics that strengthen its grip on power and control of the populace, rather that implement policies to stimulate sustainable economic growth, human development, and effective political participation.

CCDHR is calling on the Government of Cameroon to view the Ibrahim Index of African Governance as an international awareness of its steadfast offensive against prosperity of its people and the outright clampdown of those who attempt to call Government activities and excesses to order. While the governance indicators were grouped in four overall categories - Safety and Rule of Law, Participation and Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity, and Human Development, CCDHR notes that sustainable economic opportunity and human development cannot be achieved in a country in which safety and security cannot be guaranteed, the principle of the rule of law is affronted, political participation stifled, and human rights routinely violated. Therefore basic legal guarantees must exist for development to ensue.

Regarding ‘Safety and Rule of Law’, CCDHR notes that Cameroon’s poor performance is a recognition of the lack of safety of the person, abundance of politically motivated persecutions, lack of judicial independence, absence of transfer of power, persistent corruption of endemic proportions, lack of transparency in governance, absence of accountability of public officials, pervasion of corruption in government, and the lack of prosecution for abuse of office by public officials associated with and deeply involved with the activities of the party in power.

CCDHR also recognizes that Cameroon’s poor ranking was equally heavily influenced by its unfortunate record in ‘Participation and Human Rights’. Its poor performance under this category acknowledges the lack of unhindered democratic participation, lack of guarantees for gender equality, unequal ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary, and higher education, low level of women’s participation in the labor force, in parliament, and in government, weak state of the country's democracy, absence of transparent, free, and fair elections, persistent abuse of human rights including political rights, freedom of expression, and freedom of association.

CCDHR is calling on the Government of Cameroon to take specific and immediate steps to address its governance deficiencies. These include but are not limited to the following - institute transparency in the conduct of public affairs, make accountability of government officials a priority, prosecute state officials who abuse their office, guarantee true judicial independence, release all political prisoners in Cameroon's jails, halt persecution and prosecution on political grounds, protect freedom of speech, expression, and association, create an independent electoral commission to manage electoral affairs in Cameroon, reinstate presidential term limits as an element of democratic governance, promote gender equality, and lay down a framework for a more tolerant investment climate.