In the ongoing debate on the search of properly “African” measurements of governance for Africa, the Afrobarometer stands out as the most comprehensive source on the actual experiences and perceptions of African citizens on a range of issues including democracy and governance, economic reform, and other critical political and social issues in the continent.

 

The Afrobarometer Network is an independent, non-partisan, Africa-based network of researchers, which has been conducting a comparative series of national public attitude surveys in a number of African countries for more than a decade. Afrobarometer surveys are repeated on a regular cycle. The project has thus established itself as a leading source of high-quality, independent data on the continent. Originally based at Michigan State University, the Afrobarometer network has recently been “africanized” with the Centre for Democracy and Development in Ghana taking over as the coordinating body and IDASA (South Africa) and IREP (Benin) constituting the two other African coordinating institutions.

 

On corruption, for example, the Afrobarometer provides precious data on the demand-side of anti-corruption programming, as it reflects what average African citizens have experienced and think about corruption in their countries (while Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index is based mainly on surveys of limited parts of society such as businessmen.)

 

The Afrobarometer has established its own set of indicators to ensure the production of original and reliable data to identify problems and track progress towards meeting the chore goals of improving governance and reducing poverty on the continent. It also provides extensive analysis of the data on a wide range of topics, and disseminates results widely to policy actors both within and outside of the government, thus giving voice to ordinary Africans in policy-making processes. Finally, besides building a database, it also seeks to build institutional capacity in Africa to create, manage and analyze that database, through innovative forms of training.

 

At the end of September 2010, UNDP’s Global Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments (GAP) participated in an Afrobarometer’s Policy Conference in Accra, focused on the practical use of the empirical evidence produced by the Afrobarometer for policy-making processes in the wide sense of the term, including government planning, promotion of democratic governance by government and non-government actors, economic management, local governance, etc. In addition to Afrobarometer Network members, participants from government, civil society and academia from several African countries as well as donor representatives joined to reflect on this question and discuss challenges and perspectives of this exceptional African assessment and policy-making tool. 

 

National governments in Africa seem to be increasingly using the Afrobarometer for decision-making: the surveys have recently informed Cabinet briefings in Botswana, Uganda and South Africa. For example, the Policy Unit of the Presidents’ Office of South Africa uses Afrobarometer data to provide advice and evidence base for the Executive, and President Zuma has recently requested monthly updates (rather than quarterly) on survey data for South Africa. The numerous policy-makers and planners present at the Accra meeting expressed a strong interest in more systematically using the Afrobarometer in their respective countries.         

 

Demand for the type of independent and reliable data provided by the Afrobarometer is thus growing, and one of the current challenges faced by this initiative is the enormous unmet demand that remains from donors, media, civil society, and African governments for many countries not yet included in the Afrobarometer surveys. 19 countries have been covered so far, but for its upcoming Fifth Round the Afrobarometer is planning to expand to 37 countries across Africa.

 

However, funding for this significant expansion is also one of the remaining challenges. Denmark, Sweden, USAID and DFID have been funding the Afrobarometer’s work in the past, and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has committed funding for Round 5. Another option proposed for enhancing the financial sustainability and africanization process of the Afrobarometer was that African governments could provide funding or commission specific analysis.   

 

Based on the GAP participation in this conference, UNDP is considering ways to engage more with the Afrobarometer and make more systematic use of its data to better inform its country- and regional-level programming, for political economy analysis, discussions with partner governments on governance priorities, and within its support to the APRM process.

 

For more information on the Afrobarometer, survey results and analysis papers, see www.afrobarometer.org.