The country improved on four domains of the classification - Participation and Human Rights, Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption, Human and Economic Development. Cameroon’s score remains the same for Safety and Security. The highest progress is in the domain of Human and Economic Development with an increase of 1.2 points.

Meanwhile, in the sub-region, half of the countries in the Economic Community of Central African States, ECAS, also improved from last year’s index. The quality of governance improved in nearly two-thirds of sub-Saharan African nations between 2005 and 2006. Liberia showed the biggest leap in government performance in the period, while Mauritania deteriorated the most.

The Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance is a comprehensive ranking of sub-Saharan African nations according to governance quality. It assesses national governance against 57 criteria - safety and security (assessing the effects of conflict and violent crime); the rule of law, transparency and corruption; participation and human rights (which examines the freedom to vote and respect for press freedom and other rights); sustainable economic opportunity; and human development (which considers poverty levels, health and education provision) The criteria capture the quality of services provided to citizens by government. The focus is on the results that the people of a country experience.

The criteria are divided into five over-arching categories which together make up the cornerstones of a government’s obligations to its citizens. The index is a progress and responsive tool that will evolve to accommodate feedback and critique from various stakeholders such as citizens, civil society, business, government and non-governmental organizations, as well as taking into account economic and social transformation that may affect governance content in sub-Saharan Africa.

Best countries

The survey ranked Mauritius, Seychelles, Cape Verde, Botswana and South Africa the best-governed countries on the continent – although South Africa falls near the bottom of the "safety and security" rankings as the seventh most dangerous country.

The five worst-governed countries were Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Sudan and Angola. The survey is produced by a team from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the United States, supported by an advisory council of African academics and corporate leaders.

The five countries which improved the most were, in order of performance, Liberia, Burundi, Uganda, Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar. Governance deteriorated the most in Mauritania, Chad, Somalia, Sao Tome and Principe and Gambia.

Although Nigeria registered a slight improvement in score, it slipped one place – from the 38th best-governed country to the 39th. Kenya's score dropped and it slipped two places – from 15th to 17th.

In a statement issued with the results, Mo Ibrahim said that despite some of the headlines of recent months, "the real story coming out of Africa is that governance performance across a large majority of African countries is improving… I hope these results will be used as a tool by Africa's citizens to hold their governments to account…"