(Ecofin Agency) - The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has just published its 2018 Democracy index. Taking 50 African countries into account, the index titled “Me too?" describes the current state of democracy in the continent.

From the index, it appears that there is an improvement in the average regional score, which rose from 4.35 in 2017 to 4.36 in 2018.

Nonetheless, despite this improvement, the regional average, which is below the world average (5.48), hides African countries’ problem in adopting a resolutely democratic orientation. This index reveals that democracy is still low in Africa since many authoritarian regimes still characterise the continent.

Nine African countries are in the Top20 of the world’s worst democracies: two in the MENA region and seven others in Sub Saharan Africa.

In Sub Saharan Africa, only 12 out of the 44 countries reviewed by the index have improved their overall score while the score of nine countries has deteriorated. The score of about half of the 44 sub-Saharan African countries has stagnated.

In North Africa, Morocco made a slight improvement of its overall score but, it is Tunisia that made the greatest improvement by moving in the category of "flawed democracy".

Let’s note that only one African country, Mauritius, is in the "full democracy" category. In the continent, eight countries are in the "flawed democracy "category, fifteen in the "hybrid regime" (between authoritarian regime and democracy) while 26 are in the “authoritarian regime” category.

Let’s note that since 2006, the Democracy index has been describing the state of democracy in 165 independent countries and two territories. For that purpose, it considers five criteria namely, the voting process and pluralism, civil liberty, the government’s functioning, political participation as well as the political culture. It ranks countries in four categories: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime and authoritarian regime.

Moutiou Adjibi Nourou