The World Bank recently updated its Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) database for the year 2023 through which it published the results registered by more than 200 countries and territories under six governance dimensions, namely “Voice and Accountability”, “Political Stability and Absence of Violence”, “Government Effectiveness”, “Regulatory Quality”, “Rule of Law”, and “Control of Corruption”. In fact, each country was assigned an estimated governance score ranging between -2.50 (weak governance) and 2.50 (strong governance) and given a percentile rank hovering between 0 (worst rank) and 100 (best rank) in each of the aforementioned indicators.

On a global basis, Norway ranked first in the “Voice and Accountability” dimension for yet another consecutive year with a score of 1.78, while Jersey, Channel Islands ranked 1^st in “Political Stability and Absence of Violence” with a score of 1.74, Singapore positioned best in each of “Government Effectiveness” (score: 2.32) and “Regulatory Quality” (score: 2.31), Finland came in the 1^st place in the “Rule of Law” dimension with a score of 1.97, and Denmark emerged in the first position in the “Control of Corruption” dimension (score: 2.38).

Regionally, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) dominated the “Government Effectiveness” (score: 1.60; percentile rank: 95.28) and “Control of Corruption” (score: 1.07; percentile rank: 82.55) dimensions, with Tunisia leading the “Voice and Accountability” dimension (score: -0.21; percentile rank: 40.69), Qatar outperforming its regional peers in both the “Political Stability and Absence of Violence” (score: 0.99; percentile rank: 84.36) & the “Rule of Law” (score: 0.93; percentile rank: 80.19) dimensions, and Bahrain came first in the “Regulatory Quality” (score: 1.08; percentile rank: 83.96) dimension. While Lebanon came in third best among its regional peers in the “Voice and Accountability” dimension, its overall outcome remained rather weak in that same dimension (score: -0.65; percentile rank: 30.88). Lebanon also fared poorly in the five remaining dimensions, namely “Political Stability and Absence of Violence” (score: -1.52; percentile rank: 9.48), “Government Effectiveness” (score: -1.58; percentile rank: 6.13), “Regulatory Quality” (score: -1.01; percentile rank: 14.62), “Rule of Law” (score: -1.17; percentile rank: 13.21), and “Control of Corruption” (score: -1.23; percentile rank: 10.85). It is worth noting, in the same vein, that Lebanon reported a deterioration in all but one (“Regulatory Quality”) dimension when compared to the year 2022 results. This is further depicted by the below tables: