Perceived Corruption — A Threat to Develpment

I am not an economist — I took precisely one course in economics in university and that was an entry–level course that I took primarily to get the hours I needed for graduation. (Hindsight: I wish, now, I had taken the course more seriously.) But, it doesn't take an economics genius to see that when an investor (either national or expatriate) is considering whether or not to spend money and energy in developing a business in a particular place, a country that is perceived to be corrupt is not going to be high on that investor's list of places to go.

Transparency International has released its 2013 report on Corruption Perception Index. I think it's very important to note that this report doesn't attempt to measure actual corruption — merely the perception of corruption in the public sector (bribes, backroom deals). And, in this case, it may well be true that perception is reality. For more details, go to TI's site. For a quick look at a particular country, put your cursor over that country. Scores range from 8 to 91, with 8 being the countries (Somalia, North Korea, and Afghanistan) perceived as being the most corrupt. Rankings are 1-177, with those same 3 countries tied for worst with a ranking of 175.



Having lived in Kenya for most of the past 27 years and now looking forward to moving to Uganda, it is very sad to me that the corruption in both of those countries has such a huge negative impact on the citizens of those countries.

Run well, y'all,
Bob

The Most Ethnically Diverse Country on the Planet

Surprising? This map shows the planet's most and least ethnically diverse nations in the world. The countries in green are the most diverse, while those in red are the least.

This morning, a couple of Facebook friends posted links to a news article about a report from Harvard University's Institute for Economic Research regarding the most and least diverse countries and continents in the world. The article in Daily Mail Online is the most comprehensive I've sound so far. The conclusion of the study was that Uganda is the most ethnically diverse country on the planet and Africa is the most ethnically diverse continent. When I first read the news reports, I immediately thought they were wrong. After all, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has more than 300 different language groups.

I've given this some more thought. While the conclusion seems counter-intuitive — i.e., there are many countries, including the US, that have more ethnic representation — I think there are at least two items in this report that give clues about the methodology that led to the outcome. First, the Daily Mail article and the Pearl Guide report mention, "Uganda is home to more than 40 different indigenous ethnic groups...." The first key may be "indigenous" — the US, for instance, has fewer "indigenous" ethnic groups. I say "may" because, not having seen the original report, I don't know if that was really a factor in the research or simply an addition by a reporter.

Second, and probably more significant, is that it appears that the conclusion is based on what might be termed 'ethnic density' (my term — I started to say, "ethnic diversity density"). Note the question that the study attempted to answer, "If you picked two people at random in any nation and asked them their ethnicity, what are the chances that they would give a different answer?" A higher number of ethnic groups combined with a lower overall population would increase the odds that two people picked at random would be of a different ethnic group. Note that one couldn't just walk up to two people in, say, Mityana and expect those probabilities to hold true — it would have to be random selection out of the population of the entire nation.

I would be very interested in reading the study. I haven't found it, yet, so if someone comes across it, please post the link.

Run well, y'all,
Bob Allen
Nairobi