Right of Reply: Gabon's response to 2011 Africa Leadership Scorecard

I read with great interest your special report on the 2011 Africa Leadership Scorecard and would like to congratulate the Nation Media Group for this innovative initiative.

The effort to complement existing indices with a new political index is interesting. Your index arguably deserves a more detailed explanation, particularly given the importance you have attached to its weighting.

Furthermore, the addition of the World Bank ‘Doing Business’ ratings to the overall scorecard could provide insights which investors would find particularly valuable as they seek to assess the business and political risk of the markets in which they are considering investing.

Besides these methodological points, your report struck me for two reasons. The West African leaders are predominantly ranked amongst the "bad students" in this year’s scorecard. I wonder whether this might be due to challenges in accessing the same level of in-depth information on these countries as you have for the East African countries?

Allow me to focus on my country and its leader - Ali Bongo Ondimba. The publication diagnosed him as headed for the “ICU”, though I can reassure you that he’s alive and kicking, as our country is progressing rapidly (5.5 per cent GDP growth for the past two years).

With regards to your selection of moments, successes and failures of the year, you refer to his father and his family and to the qualification of the U23 football team to the Olympic Games, yet your methodology states that the focus of your scorecard is squarely on our leaders and their performance.

This leads me to the NMG grade you gave to President Ali Bongo Ondimba and my attempt to understand it in line with the elements measured by your political index.

President Ali Bongo Ondimba has been democratically elected, during an election considered by international observers to be free and fair, and he has neither extended nor broken any term limit since then as per your criteria.

With around $5 billion of Foreign Direct Investment in the past two years coming from non-traditional trade and investment partners, Gabon also created progressive policies for the development of infrastructure and the delivery of key services to her citizens.

The hosting of the Africa Cup of Nation has also inspired my country to fast-track necessary infrastructure development in order to enable us to offer our African brothers and sisters a world-class welcome and international standard facilities.

President Ali Bongo Ondimba has built his vision for Gabon’s growth on the premise that reconciling environment protection and socio-economic development is critical if our development is to be sustainable and equitable. With 85 per cent of her territory covered by forest, we have managed to cap the rate of deforestation at just 0.01 per cent.

During COP17 in Durban, while many African countries were complaining about lack of funding from our development partners, President Ali Bongo Ondimba launched our Climate Plan, ensuring that our development path will be sustainable and presented our national achievement, as per his commitment in Copenhagen.

We also set up a Space Agency to monitor the impact of our public policies on our environment. President Bongo Ondimba has also partnered with reputed Singaporean firm, Olam, to open a Special Economic Zone dedicated to the timber industry, thus creating investment and employment opportunities whilst ensuring we add value locally to our natural resources.

I believe these innovative solutions could inspire other African nations and these are ideas that could be replicated across the continent. If Gabon has so much to offer in terms of leadership, perhaps the ICU diagnosis needs re-considering?

Igor Simard is Advisor to Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba