Poor Governance in the Global South:

Poor Governance in the Global South

The Global South does not shine as a beacon of Good Governance. In the World Economics Global Governance rankings, the South registers badly, with only two countries (out of 100) rated A grade, only 14 countries rated as B Grade, and 40 rated D (poor) or E grade (pretty awful).

The Global Governance Index combines the results of the independently generated Rule of Law Index (1); Press Freedom Index (2); Political Rights Index (3); and the Corruption Index (4). These four indexes represent a wide spread of activities over which Governments exercise influence that taken together illustrate where a government is situated on the good/bad Governance scale.

Percentage of countries in each governance category rated A/B/C/D/E
Governance: A = As good as it gets, E = Extremely poor governance.

Country	A	B	C	D	E
Global North	51%	26%	8%	6%	9%
Global South	3%	18%	27%	28%	24%

Developed Markets	83%	17%	0%	0%	0%
Emerging Markets	12%	25%	38%	17%	8%
Frontier Markets	14%	14%	25%	36%	11%

Country	A	B	C	D	E
Global North	51%	26%	8%	6%	9%
Global South	3%	18%	27%	28%	24%

Developed Markets	83%	17%	0%	0%	0%
Emerging Markets	12%	25%	38%	17%	8%
Frontier Markets	14%	14%	25%	36%	11%

Source: World Economics Governance Index, 2025

The table above shows the percentage of Countries in various categories that fall into each of the A/B/C/D/E rating scales. As can be seen, Global South countries do not collectively show up well, even when seen against the Frontier Markets category of countries.

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