Rwanda : No room for complacency – says Governance agency’s CEO
Despite various challenges and even outright opposition from some quarters, Rwanda’s star continues to shine brightly. While some may take this as a sign to sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for Rwanda Governance Board Chief Executive Officer Prof. Anastase Shyaka, the opposite is true.
During a press briefing organized today (Tuesday), Prof. Shyaka called on all Rwandans to not fall into complacency and strive to not only protect and maintain what has been achieved, but to aim even further and beyond.
The RGB CEO was reacting to the just-released Gallup World Poll of 2012 findings, in which Rwanda received a sterling record in two of the seven categories scrutinized.
In its 2012 report dubbed “Global States of Mind”, Gallup measured countries basing on the following parameters: law and order (safety and security); food and shelter; institutions and infrastructure (control of corruption in government); good jobs; wellbeing; brain gain and beyond the path.
Rwanda was ranked as the world’s best with a 92% score in safety and security of the Law and Order indicator by Gallup. It comes ahead of developed nations such as Georgia (91%), Qatar (91%), Singapore (89%), Indonesia (88%) and Hong Kong (88%).
Rwanda also carded impressively in the ‘widespread of corruption in government’ indicator with 12%. That mark places it second best worldwide, only bettered by Singapore’s mark of 5%.
Sweden comes third with 13%, followed by Hong Kong at 15% and Denmark in 5th position with 17%.
Prof. Shyaka was also on the record lauding the accuracy of the findings by Gallup, which coincidentally were a near mirror image of the findings of research conducted by the Rwanda Governance Board.
In a report to be made public later this month by the RGB dubbed the ‘Rwanda Governance Scorecard 2012’, the incidence of corruption in public sector stands at 11.37%.
The country score in the Rwanda Governance Scorecard 2012 for safety and security is 91.63%.
This represents mere percentage-points difference in the findings of the two separate surveys, serving to validate both, as per Prof. Shyaka.
“It is impressive that some findings of the worldwide research initiative, particularly in the areas of safety and security, and widespread of corruption (corruption incidence) indicators matched the accuracy of RGB’s own Rwanda Governance Scorecard 2012”, the RGB CEO was quoted as saying.
“This is confirmation of what any researcher knows that when different assessments are conducted using reliable data, gaps in findings tend to be at a bare minimum. It is the intention of RGB to continue excelling in evidence based research to promote good governance for national progress”.
The Rwanda Governance Scorecard (RGS), an annual publication of RGB, is a comprehensive governance assessment tool constructed and structured around a set of 8 indicators and seeks to accurately gauge the state of Governance in Rwanda.
These eight indicators are: Safety and security in Rwanda; rule of law; political rights and civil liberties; participation and inclusiveness; investing in people; control of corruption, transparency and accountability; quality of service delivery; and economic & corporate governance. [ENDS]
