Community safety, financial services and corporate governance indicators ranked high in the new Rwanda Governance Scorecard

Kigali, 30 July 2013 – The Rwanda Governance Scorecard launched today shows significant improvements in areas of rule of law, political rights and civil liberties. Safety, security, financial services and corporate governance are among the top third sectors that rank over 80%.

Prof. Anastase Shyaka, Chief Executive of the Rwanda Governance Board talking at the launch of the report said that it is compiled from data on governance performance collected in 2011. The scorecard is a governance assessment tool meant to strengthen good governance in Rwanda as well as feed and inform other external comparative assessments.

“Rwanda is committed to fostering evidence-based and applied research in governance so as to inform policy makers on areas that need improvement and provide them with actionable recommendations,” he said.

The Rwanda Governance Scorecard 2012 is comprised of data collected between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2011. This report also shows that though the sector of quality service delivery improved from 66% to 70%, it’s improvement level is “not satisfactory” as this area is a key priority to drive the successful implementation of EDPRS 2.

“This governance scorecard is a commendable innovation by RGB; which underscores again the Government of Rwanda’s high commitment to good governance and accountability as well as innovative measures to attain it. I congratulate the leadership of Rwanda, and RGB in particular, to have taken governance in this country to another level”, commented the UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Representative, Lamin Momodou Manneh.

The Rwanda Governance Scorecard is a homegrown innovation which aims to improve performance in various governance areas including political, socio-economic and corporate governance as well as quality service delivery to citizens.It also provides policy recommendations to enhance governance in Rwanda.

Results presented in this scorecard derive from data based on over 200 questions. It measures governance along eight indicators [which ones] made up of 35 sub-indicators and 143 qualitative and quantitative sub-sub-indicators from over 30 data sources.

The Rwanda Governance Board developed the Rwanda Governance Scorecard to accurately scale the state of governance in Rwanda, inform policy-makers and other relevant stakeholders so as to drive policy reforms for greater performance and effectiveness of public and private institutions.