Azerbaijan ranking 80th in the world by performance in critical areas

Brookings Institution has published a new report ranking 141 countries according to their performance in critical areas.

The report recently released by the United States-based think-tank, which is one of the oldest and most respected research institutions in the world, placed Azerbaijan in the 80th position following an assessment of the country's performance in economy, politics, security and social welfare.

According to the report, authored by Senior Fellow at Brookings, Susan Rice, and Research Fellow at the Centre for Global Development (CGD), Stewart Patrick, weak states are countries that are not effective and responsive in performing core functions of government.

The severe cases regarded as failed states are Somalia, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These countries are unable to effectively control substantial portions of their territory in addition to currently facing conflict, explains the report.

"Failed states perform markedly worse than all others-even those in their critically weak cohort. Failed and critically weak states are those least capable of fulfilling most, if not all, of the four critical functions of government. We term the second quintile 'weak states'," says the report.

More than 85 per cent of critically weak states have experienced conflict in the last 15 years, says the report.

The list of "states to watch" - countries with significant weaknesses and have the potential to exhibit fragility and whose performance fall within the bottom quintile in at least one of the four core areas of state function or in the second quintile in at least two core areas-includes Sao Tome and Principe, Gabon, Namibia in Sub-sahara Africa; Philippines, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Micronesia, Tonga, Marshall Islands, China in Asia; and Pacific, Russia, Belarus, Turkey, Azerbaijan in Eurasia, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Iran; Egypt in Near East, Cuba, Bolivia, Paraguay, Guatemala and Venezuela in Western Hemisphere.

"States to watch" category was further described as "comparatively better performers that fall outside the world's weakest two quintiles in the index but suffer critical performance gaps in one or two areas. Both China and Russia score poorly on the political and security indicators, and Syria suffers from major weaknesses in the political and economic spheres."

"Thus countries such as China, Russia, Cuba, and Syria are unique cases that should continue to be of concern to policy makers interested in the consequences of state weakness," the report explains.

The weakest states by region are: North Korea, Burma, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor in East Asia and Pacific, Afghanistan, Nepal, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan in Eurasia and South Asia, Iraq, Yemen, Algeria, Syria, Iran in Middle East and North Africa, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Sudan, Central African Republic in sub-Sahara Africa, Haiti, Columbia, Guatemala, Cuba, Bolivia in the Western Hemisphere.

Twenty-three out of 28 of the critically weak states are found in sub-Sahara Africa, the report claims, with South Africa, Botswana, Mauritius and Seychelles identified as "high performers."

They defined it thus: "countries that lack the essential capacity and/or will to fulfill four sets of critical government responsibilities: fostering an environment conducive to sustainable and equitable economic growth; establishing and maintaining legitimate, transparent, and accountable political institutions; securing their populations from violent conflict and controlling their territory; and meeting the basic human needs of their population."

/Day.Az/