Africa and the Human Freedom Index 2018

The Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom have just published "The Human Freedom Index 2018: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom" by Ian Vasquez and Tanja Porcnik.

It evaluated 162 countries for 2016, the most recent year for which sufficient data are available. It looked at 79 indicators of personal and economic freedom in the following areas: rule of law, security, safety, movement, religion, association, assembly, civil society, expression, information, identity, relationships, size of government, legal systems, property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation of credit, labor, and business.

Of the 47 African countries evaluated, the ten best performing were: Mauritius (37), Cape Verde (53), Seychelles (54), Ghana (57), South Africa (63), Botswana (64), Rwanda (71), Namibia (74), Kenya (82), and Uganda (85). The five worst performing African countries were: Libya (158), Sudan (157), Egypt (156), Algeria (155) and Burundi (154).

African Union Handbook 2014

The African Union Commission and New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently published the African Union Handbook 2014. This nearly 200 page document provides a detailed description of the organs of the African Union.  It begins with a history of the OAU and AU and has the following sections:

• Assembly
• Executive Council
• Specialized Technical Committees
• Peace and Security Council
• African Union Commission
• Pan-African Parliament
• Judicial and Human Rights Institutions
• Financial Institutions
• Permanent Representatives Committee
• Economic, Social and Cultural Council
• New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)
• African Peer Review Mechanism
• Regional Economic Communities
• African Development Bank
• UN Economic Commission for Africa
• Other Bodies Related to the AU
• External Partnerships
• Budget