Zimbabwe among improving countries claims the World Bank

The World Bank review of policies and institutions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) indicates an improved policy environment for growth, as well as poverty reduction in 13 of the continent's poorest countries.

The countries are Comoros, the Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

It says most African countries show a stable or improved policy environment for development. The positive trend is especially important given the severe economic climate being weathered by other countries in the developed world.

The review is part of the yearly World Bank Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) that rates the performance of poor countries and, since 1980, has been used to determine the allocation of zero-interest financing to them under the International Development Association, which is the World Bank group's fund for the world's poorest countries.

The CPIA examines 16 key development indicators, covering four areas of economic management, structural reforms, policies for social inclusion and equity, as well as public-sector management and institutions. Countries are rated on a scale of one to six for each indicator. The overall CPIA score reflects the average of the 16 indicators.

"There was concern that global economic turmoil would slow reforms across the continent," said World Bank chief economist for Africa Shanta Devarajan, adding that African policymakers generally continued their commitment to reform programmes during the global crisis, accelerating some of them to improve the development prospects and economic wellbeing of their people.

The CPIA scores show a wide variation across the countries, from a high of 4.0 for Cape Verde (despite a decline in its score in 2010 and 2011) to a low of 2.2 for Eritrea and Zimbabwe.

Fragile and conflict-affected countries in the region reflect lower scores than nonfragile States, highlighting the challenges they face, especially in the area of public-sector capacity. The most fragile States are Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire and Zimbabwe, all of which indicated the most improvement.

The CPIA indicators for SSA are published in a single document on an inter- active website.

"The CPIA is a valuable tool for governments, the private sector, civil society, researchers and the media in monitoring their country's progress and benchmark it against other countries. We hope that by making the CPIA more accessible, it can spark a broad evidence-based debate in countries that, in turn, can stimulate support for more reforms to create jobs, improve the quality of health, education and other key services, as well as ultimately improve the quality of life for all Africans on the continent," says World Bank lead economist Punam Chuhan Pole.