Opinion: Rank African leaders to foster commitment to shared growth

In the book “Why Nations Fail,” the authors argue that some nations are wealthier and more prosperous than others because of their inclusive political and economic institutions — and not because of their climate, geography, or culture. Likewise, in “Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose,” the author Stefan Dercon proposes that a key difference between countries that develop and those that do not is a commitment to shared growth by the elites. Yet a fundamental question that remains unanswered in these books and more generally is how to get heads of governments to create the necessary environments for inclusive political and economic institutions and to commit to shared growth for their countries. A leadership ranking index could hold the answer. The cash incentive approach One approach, adopted by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation through the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, is to provide financial incentives to former African executive heads of state or government who “have developed their countries and strengthened democracy and human rights for the shared benefit of their people.” The awardees of the world’s “largest leadership prize” receive $5 million over 10 years, followed by $200,000 a year for life. Since its inception in 2007, there have been five recipients, including former South African President Nelson Mandela, the honorary recipient in 2007. To qualify for the award, candidates must leave office at the end of their term. Consequently, the prize can be seen more as a tool to promote compliance with constitutional principles, particularly term limits, than to foster sustainable growth and shared prosperity. The performance index approach In my view, a simple and potentially powerful option to promote the commitment of elites to shared growth is to rank the performance of African heads of state through an African Presidential Performance Index instead of only ranking countries, as is commonly done. The aspirations and actions of a head of a government are arguably some of the most important determinants of citizens’ welfare and prosperity. By comparing the performance of African leaders, the APPI can be useful in several ways. First, the APPI would allow citizens in Africa to compare their leaders’ performance. Such a comparison, sometimes called yardstick competition, matters to the extent that it makes officials attentive to other countries’ performance and policy actions and may influence their home policy choices. Second, the index can incentivize current leaders to work on improving their legacy. The legacy motivation involves a basic human desire to leave a positive and lasting impact on society that goes beyond a lifetime. It can therefore be a strong motive for making reforms and building strong and inclusive institutions. Third, the index could complement the Ibrahim prize by providing an empirical and more transparent underpinning for selecting the recipient, as well as a monitoring tool for the performance of current leaders, with the view to provide incentives to commit to shared growth. How the APPI would work For illustrative purposes, I carried out a potential APPI ranking, using the World Development Indicators’ GDP-per-capita growth data and the REIGN data set on election dates and leaders. This gives us the average gross domestic product per capita growth during tenure as an indicator of performance, equivalent to a uni-dimensional index. My calculations show that the top three African leaders from 1960 to 2020 were Botswana President Seretse Khama (10.11%), Cape Verde President Carlos Veiga (8.80%), and Togo President Nicolas Grunitzky (8.35%). Focusing on Botswana, to illustrate country-level ranking, the top three leaders using the per capita growth indicator are former Presidents Seretse Khama (10.11%), Quett Masire (5.14%), and Festus Mogae (2.61%). Of course, the proposed APPI could include several other indicators related to economic growth, education, health, poverty, or inequality, for example. The index can also be provided annually for the continent, by country income group, or at country level. The APPI, by systematically and regularly ranking leaders instead of their countries, can be a useful instrument to get heads of governments to put in place inclusive political and economic institutions, with a commitment to equitable growth for their countries. Author’s note: The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the African Development Bank Group. AfDB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data used.