Though Botswana is the most stable African country according to the Fragile States Index’s economic, political, and social measurements, it has seen a stark drop in the past 10 years. Given the pandemic and recession, the 2020 score, which hasn’t been calculated yet, will likely drop further.
This claim is contained in the Fragile States Index (FSI) which is produced annually by the non-profit organisation Fund for Peace.
The index produced by The Fund for Peace (FFP), is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are outweighing a states’ capacity to manage those pressures.
The 2020 heat map shows that Botswana is the only African country categorised in the “stable” category. All other countries in Africa are either in the “warning” or “alert” categories.
With a total score of 57.1 out of 120, the score means Botswana dropped -2.4 points from the previous year. Botswana also dropped -5.7 points over five years and -11.5 points over ten years. According to the Index the most-worsened countries in Africa are Libya and Mozambique while the most improved countries in Africa are Kenya and Sudan.
While the index ranks a country’s fragility against other countries, its main function is to measure trends within each state. The scores are based on 12 key political, social, and economic indicators that are grouped into four categories.
The Fragile States Index is based on national-level assessments that are generated using data sets from international statistical agencies such as the United Nations, analyses of news articles and reports, and independent reviews by a team of social science researchers.
According to the executive director of The Fund for Peace, J.J. Messner de Latour, there is still widespread fragility and vulnerability in the world and plenty of poverty and inequality, and conflict and illiberalism. “But broadly speaking, over the long-term, the world is becoming steadily less fragile. It often takes cold, hard data — like that produced by the FSI — to demonstrate that for all the negative press, there is significant progress occurring in the background,” he says.
