The World Economic Forum (WEF) released a Global Competitiveness Report on Wednesday ranking Nigeria in 115th place out of 140 countries that were examined.
According to the report, the national competitiveness of a country is measured by the strength of its institutions, policies and other indices that determine the level of productivity of the country under study.
Nigeria scored 47.6 out of a total score of 100, moving up 10 places to its current position. Nigeria is ranked 13th in Africa behind Seychelles, Cote de Ivoire, and Ghana amongst others.
Mauritius is Africa’s highest ranked country at 49 with an overall score of 63.7, followed sluggishly by South Africa in 67th place and Seychelles in 74th place make up Africa’s top three nations.
The categories are health, skills, financial system, infrastructure, institutions, ICT adoption, macroeconomic stability, product market, labour market, market size, business dynamism and innovation capacity.
Nigeria scored 42 in the institution indicator, 42 in infrastructure, 26 in ICT adoption, 56 in macroeconomic stability, 51 in health and 40 in skills.
It also scored 52, 59, 44, 71, 55 and 31 in the product market, labour market, financial system, market size, business dynamism and innovation capacity respectively.
The report stated that “Nigeria, Yemen, South Africa, Pakistan and the Philippines are other countries with notable problems related to violence, crime or terrorism, and where the police are considered unreliable.”
Saadia Zahihi, member of the Managing Board and Head of the Centre for New Economy and Society emphasized the reasons for assessing nations based on the indicators used in the Global 4.0 index.
“Competitiveness is neither a competition nor a zero-sum game – all countries can become more prosperous,” he said.
“With opportunities for economic leapfrogging, diffusion of innovative ideas across borders and new forms of value creation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution can level the playing field for all economies. But technology is not a silver bullet on its own. Countries must invest in people and institutions to deliver on the promise of technology,” he asserted.
“To date, Sub-Saharan Africa, with an average score of 46.2, has the lowest GCI score among all regions and demonstrates the weakest average regional performance on 10 out of the 12 pillars,” the report concluded.
Amos Abba is a journalist with the International Center for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, who believes that courageous investigative reporting is the key to social justice and accountability in the society.