‘Moral threshold coming down,’ warns Mo Ibrahim, as his index of governance reveals widespread decline in 10 years

The global rise of populism and “strongmen” has led to an increase in authoritarianism in Africa that is holding back progress in governance, the businessman and philanthropist Mo Ibrahim has said.

According to the latest edition of the Ibrahim index of African governance, 78% of Africa’s citizens live in a country where security and democracy deteriorated between 2014 and 2023.

“Africa is not disconnected from what’s going on around the world and you can see the global order is breaking down everywhere,” Ibrahim told the Guardian. “You can see many people breaching international law with impunity.”

“I think the moral threshold is coming down, unfortunately, globally, and that applies to us in this part of the world. Look how many ‘strongmen’ we have around the world. Now it’s been normalised.”

The report said the result had been a stalling of progress in governance across Africa, with effects on health and education, though the results were not uniform across the continent, with half the countries experiencing deteriorating overall governance and the other half seeing progress.