Study finds the SA government has deteriorated over the past five years relative to other countries, with Rwanda’s government among many that are doing better than ours.
The South African government is bad, and quality of life in SA is falling behind the rest of the world. The recent Chandler Good Government Index (CGGI), a comprehensive analysis and ranking of how well countries are governed, puts SA at a dismal low rank of only 77 among 120 countries measured.
SA fell from 70th place in 2021 and isn’t even the best country in Africa. We rank below Rwanda (59th). Botswana is also miles ahead of SA at number 61.
How African governments compare
The CGGI aims to benchmark the effectiveness of 120 national governments using 35 indicators that are grouped into seven pillars.
The seven pillars measures leadership, laws and policies, institutions, financial stewardship, marketplace, global reputation, and how governments are doing when it comes to helping their people improve their lives. All indicators are weighted equally.
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‘Helping People Rise’
The editors of the 2025 research report, Dr Alvin Pang and Mazlan Ahmad, say in their foreword to the report that one of their most consistent findings is that government capabilities, measured in the first six pillars, are strongly linked to outcomes in the seventh – Helping People Rise.
“Capable governments deliver better results,” they say.
That SA fell behind in the first six pillars results in failures when it comes to the seventh. This pillar directly measures how well government serves its citizens, and SA came in at number 113 from the 120 countries in the survey.
This pillar shows how well the country is doing in education, health, satisfaction with public services, personal safety, environmental performance, income distribution, employment, gender gap, discrimination and price stability.
SA came stone last with regards to personal safety and employment, and very close to last when looking at health services and income distribution.
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How the Chandler Good Government Index rates SA
It’s distressing that SA rates behind Ukraine. After being at war for more than three years, Ukraine’s government still earned 57th place in the rankings when it comes to Helping People Rise – compared to SA at number 113 out of 120.
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Challenges
Pang and Ahmad say in the report that in 2025 the index sees countries around the world grappling with the challenges of a world rocked by geopolitical shifts and new technologies, while still weathering the aftershocks of several crises in the past five years.
“The overall picture is sobering. Between 2021 and 2025, more than half of the ranked countries saw their CGGI performance decline, with uneven progress even among those that improved. The top 20 performers have stayed remarkably consistent since the CGGI was first launched in 2021.
“What this shows most of all is that strengthening government effectiveness is a long game,” they say.
“The governance gap is widening – the best performers build on their strengths to do even better, while the poorest performers tend to decline further.”
They note that people are starting to hold their governments to account around the world, at times taking dramatic measures to do so.
“The overall picture is not rosy. Between 2021 and 2025, 57 countries saw their CGGI scores decline, while only 45 made gains.
“Even among the improvers, progress has been choppy. Just five countries – the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Vietnam, Mongolia and China – made consistent year-on-year improvements over the five years,” according to the report.
Winners win
The authors note that it is “troubling” that the best governments are getting better and the weaker ones are declining.
“Countries ranked in the top half in CGGI 2021 have, on average, improved their CGGI scores over the past five years. Conversely, countries in the bottom half have, on average, slipped noticeably.
“The performance of countries from Africa and Latin America & the Caribbean were already the weakest, and declined sharply over the past five years,” according to the report.
It found that indicators measuring regulatory governance and the rule of law show the strongest correlation to high overall scores in the ranking.
“This supports our core belief that leadership matters, but good governance is ultimately about the architecture and engineering of nations.
“Having the right institutions and systems is critical for governments to perform well and work effectively. Ethical leadership, which looks at a government’s capability to build cultures of integrity, remains one of the most strongly correlated indicators to overall CGGI scores.
“This is not surprising, as corruption erodes trust,” it says, adding: “As a region, Africa continues to face challenges in improving the quality of governance. The average score for countries in Africa was the lowest amongst all regions.”
African countries’ average score measuring the strength of institutions has improved, but the scores for financial stewardship, global influence and reputation and helping their people rise have declined.
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Improvement
However, Dinesh Naidu, director at the Chandler Institute of Governance, says SA has improved.
“South Africa’s performance reflects both achievements and areas for improvement. The country is strong when it comes to laws, policies and institutions, which has kept it in the top five [in Africa]. The next step is in turning those strengths into tangible outcomes for people, such as more jobs, better public services and fairer opportunities,” he says.
Naidu admits that Moneyweb’s take that SA has slipped is correct, but says the underlying scores to calculate the rankings have improved somewhat.
“SA’s global ranking has slipped from 68th in 2022 [out of 104 countries] to 77th in 2025 [out of 120 countries]. At the same time, SA ranks 5th among African countries on the index, after Mauritius, Botswana, Rwanda and Morocco.
“It is worth noting that as more countries are added each year, rankings can shift,” says Naidu.
“Looking at the underlying data, SA’s overall score has improved slightly since 2021 (from 0.453 to 0.461 in 2025).
“While there are declines across several pillars – particularly robust laws and policies, which have weighed on its overall performance – there are also areas of progress.
“For instance, on Helping People Rise, SA’s ranking fell by 12 places, yet its raw score improved from 0.396 in 2021 to 0.417 in 2025.
“This suggests that while outcomes have improved, other countries have advanced faster,” says Naidu.
“South Africa’s performance has not deteriorated in absolute terms. Its overall score has held steady and even improved slightly. However, in relative terms, which matters greatly because citizens and investors compare performance across borders, SA has seen its position weaken.”
This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.
