Armenia and Azerbaijan’s Performance | Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Meta-Index

A previous blog entry on Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Meta-Index, as you may recall, presented Georgia’s performance. For those who do not know, Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) uses data from the research of various organizations such as the IFC, the World Bank Institute, UNESCO, Freedom House and others. Millennium Challenge Corporation recently released an assessment through its annual scorecard, which has three main policy categories: Ruling Justly, Investing in People, and Economic Freedom.

Unlike Georgia, were most of the trends are positive, trends in Armenia and Azerbaijan are not very consistent. Armenia has problems, especially in the Ruling Justly categories: the Political Rights, Civil Liberties and the Voice and Accountability are all in decline. The only two Armenian trends, which are currently improving, are the Primary Education Expenditures (UNESCO/National Sources) from the Investing in People category and the Regulatory Quality (World Bank Institute) from the Economic Freedom section.

Armenia

As for Azerbaijan, the news, according to the scorecard, unfortunately is pretty bleak. Most indicators are below the median, and some trends are declining further: among them, the Voice and Accountability trend, which was already quite low; the Inflation trend has increased, although, it looks as if that trend had been stopped in 2006. The Business Start-Up (IFC) and the Fiscal Policy (National Sources) are the only ones with a consistent increase each year.

Azerbaijan

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Georgia's Performance? | Millenium Challenge Corporation's Meta-Index

With all the attention on Georgia, it may be interesting to revisit Georgia's most recent performance as seen by international organizations. As it happens, the Millennium Challenge Corporation offers a such an assessment through its annual scorecard, just released last week. This scorecard is a meta-index, drawing on data from the World Bank Institute, Freedom House, IFC, WHO, UNESCO and a few other organizations. There are three main categories: Ruling Justly, Investing in People, and Economic Freedom. Each of these break down into six subcategories, which seem well thought out. One indicator for "Investing in People", for example, is girls' primary education completion, which probably is a fairly good measure for more than just basic gender equality. This scorecard presents data from 2002 to 2006.

Generally, Georgia has been doing well. Most trends are going up, in particular in the Ruling Justly category. Control of corruption is increasing, the government is becoming more effective, and Freedom House suggests that political rights and civil liberties have been expanding (it will be interesting to see how they assess 2007: is that becoming darker, or indeed just flickering?). The World Bank Institute also suggests that the rule of law is improving -- maybe not something that everybody would agree with, but the chart concedes a margin of error that just about allows alternative interpretation.

There is a small dip in Voice and Accountability, where Georgia is above the median, but (according to data from the World Bank Institute) moving downward again in 2006.

Georgia does extremely well for land rights and access, being top of all the scored countries (IFC data). The same is true for business start up (IFC). Fiscal policy and inflation, however, have a downward trend, so Georgia is not scoring too well here.

In setting basic conditions for development, Georgia is and remains a success story. Obviously, the successes can be put at risk, since some of the achievements remain fragile. If we take the liberty to speculate, there are practical implications for current events. Politically, the opposition probably would be better served to move away from their hyperbole, and to concentrate on the problematic indicators (inflation, fiscal policy, voice and accountability), as well at the significant risks that the government is running, which may imperil all the other achievements so far. This would put them in line with the data on the ground.

One small puzzle is that supposedly girls' primary education completion is falling. Any idea why that may be the case? Is it just better data? Or migration?

The scorecards in general are exemplary in their presentation, with detailed datanotes, and a downloadable Excel overview (which reminds you that Georgia is a Lower Income Country, whereas Armenia and Azerbaijan are listed as Lower Middle Income Countries). Altogether an excellent shorthand introduction to governance in the respective countries.