Voice and accountability

How far people can choose their government and speak, associate and publish freely.

measured by: World Bank
years covered: 1996–2024
subject: Government

Higher is generally taken as better.

How this is measured

A Worldwide Governance Indicator, rescaled to 0–100. It aggregates around thirty underlying sources — commercial risk ratings, NGO assessments and household surveys — so it is stable and well grounded, but each score carries a published 90% confidence interval that is not shown here and whose width varies by country and year. Note also that several of its inputs also feed V-Dem-adjacent measures, so the two are not independent evidence.

Ranked for 2024

170 countries and territories have a figure for 2024. This is the most recent year the series covers well; the viewer holds every year from 1996.

#	Country	Region	Voice
1	Norway	Europe	90.6
2	Denmark	Europe	90.0
3	Finland	Europe	89.3
4	Sweden	Europe	87.1
5	New Zealand	Asia-Pacific	86.4
6	Luxembourg	Europe	86.0
7	Netherlands	Europe	85.8
8	Switzerland	Europe	85.6
9	Ireland	Europe	85.5
10	Germany	Europe	84.8
11	Australia	Asia-Pacific	83.3
12	Canada	Americas	83.2
13	Belgium	Europe	83.1
14	Iceland	Europe	81.8
15	Estonia	Europe	81.6
16	Austria	Europe	81.4
17	Greenland	Americas	81.4
18	United Kingdom	Europe	79.6
19	Portugal	Europe	79.0
20	Czechia	Europe	78.8
21	Uruguay	Americas	78.3
22	Lithuania	Europe	78.2
23	France	Europe	77.0
24	Spain	Europe	77.0
25	Latvia	Europe	76.6
26	Japan	Asia-Pacific	76.4
27	Italy	Europe	75.5
28	Slovenia	Europe	75.4
29	Costa Rica	Americas	74.6
30	Chile	Americas	74.3
31	Slovakia	Europe	73.1
32	Cyprus	Europe	72.4
33	United States	Americas	72.4
34	South Korea	Asia-Pacific	71.0
35	Greece	Europe	70.5
36	Poland	Europe	70.0
37	New Caledonia	Asia-Pacific	69.6
38	Croatia	Europe	68.2
39	South Africa	Sub-Saharan Africa	67.5
40	Bahamas	Americas	66.5
41	Vanuatu	Asia-Pacific	65.4
42	Jamaica	Americas	65.3
43	Panama	Americas	64.6
44	Trinidad and Tobago	Americas	64.0
45	Bhutan	Asia-Pacific	63.9
46	Montenegro	Europe	63.7
47	Romania	Europe	63.6
48	Argentina	Americas	63.6
49	Puerto Rico	Americas	63.5
50	Timor-Leste	Asia-Pacific	62.9
51	Namibia	Sub-Saharan Africa	62.7
52	Fiji	Asia-Pacific	62.7
53	Solomon Islands	Asia-Pacific	62.6
54	Brazil	Americas	62.4
55	Botswana	Sub-Saharan Africa	62.0
56	Israel	Middle East & North Africa	62.0
57	Moldova	Eurasia	61.8
58	Bulgaria	Europe	60.6
59	Ghana	Sub-Saharan Africa	60.4
60	Dominican Republic	Americas	60.4
61	Kosovo	Europe	59.6
62	Mongolia	Asia-Pacific	59.1
63	Armenia	Eurasia	59.0
64	Belize	Americas	58.7
65	North Macedonia	Europe	58.1
66	Suriname	Americas	57.8
67	Peru	Americas	57.6
68	Colombia	Americas	57.5
69	Senegal	Sub-Saharan Africa	57.1
70	Albania	Europe	56.6
71	Hungary	Europe	56.4
72	Nepal	Asia-Pacific	55.8
73	India	Asia-Pacific	55.5
74	Ecuador	Americas	55.0
75	Guyana	Americas	55.0
76	Malawi	Sub-Saharan Africa	54.9
77	Ukraine	Eurasia	54.9
78	Liberia	Sub-Saharan Africa	54.9
79	Sri Lanka	Asia-Pacific	54.6
80	Malaysia	Asia-Pacific	54.6
81	Paraguay	Americas	54.2
82	Lesotho	Sub-Saharan Africa	54.1
83	Indonesia	Asia-Pacific	53.8
84	Gambia	Sub-Saharan Africa	53.7
85	Georgia	Eurasia	52.4
86	Papua New Guinea	Asia-Pacific	51.1
87	Mexico	Americas	50.9
88	Kenya	Sub-Saharan Africa	50.6
89	Philippines	Asia-Pacific	50.6
90	Benin	Sub-Saharan Africa	50.2
91	Bosnia and Herzegovina	Europe	49.9
92	Zambia	Sub-Saharan Africa	49.7
93	Bolivia	Americas	49.2
94	Serbia	Europe	48.7
95	Guatemala	Americas	48.6
96	Sierra Leone	Sub-Saharan Africa	47.9
97	Thailand	Asia-Pacific	47.1
98	Rwanda	Sub-Saharan Africa	46.5
99	Côte d'Ivoire	Sub-Saharan Africa	46.1
100	Tanzania	Sub-Saharan Africa	45.6
101	Honduras	Americas	45.4
102	Tunisia	Middle East & North Africa	44.9
103	Jordan	Middle East & North Africa	44.4
104	Kuwait	Middle East & North Africa	44.3
105	Madagascar	Sub-Saharan Africa	44.2
106	Nigeria	Sub-Saharan Africa	44.1
107	Morocco	Middle East & North Africa	44.1
108	Lebanon	Middle East & North Africa	43.3
109	Guinea-Bissau	Sub-Saharan Africa	43.2
110	El Salvador	Americas	43.1
111	Brunei	Asia-Pacific	42.8
112	Kyrgyzstan	Eurasia	42.8
113	Kazakhstan	Eurasia	42.6
114	United Arab Emirates	Middle East & North Africa	41.9
115	Oman	Middle East & North Africa	41.3
116	Mauritania	Sub-Saharan Africa	40.7
117	Qatar	Middle East & North Africa	40.1
118	Burkina Faso	Sub-Saharan Africa	40.0
119	Niger	Sub-Saharan Africa	39.9
120	Togo	Sub-Saharan Africa	39.8
121	Mozambique	Sub-Saharan Africa	39.2
122	Uganda	Sub-Saharan Africa	39.1
123	Gabon	Sub-Saharan Africa	39.0
124	Iraq	Middle East & North Africa	39.0
125	Uzbekistan	Eurasia	38.6
126	Algeria	Middle East & North Africa	38.5
127	Angola	Sub-Saharan Africa	38.3
128	Turkey	Eurasia	37.7
129	Vietnam	Asia-Pacific	37.6
130	Bangladesh	Asia-Pacific	36.5
131	Pakistan	Asia-Pacific	36.4
132	Guinea	Sub-Saharan Africa	35.7
133	Democratic Republic of the Congo	Sub-Saharan Africa	35.6
134	Mali	Sub-Saharan Africa	35.5
135	Cameroon	Sub-Saharan Africa	35.1
136	Ethiopia	Sub-Saharan Africa	35.1
137	Djibouti	Sub-Saharan Africa	35.1
138	Zimbabwe	Sub-Saharan Africa	34.8
139	Haiti	Americas	34.7
140	Cuba	Americas	34.6
141	Central African Republic	Sub-Saharan Africa	33.9
142	Congo	Sub-Saharan Africa	33.8
143	Libya	Middle East & North Africa	33.5
144	Palestine	Middle East & North Africa	33.3
145	Eswatini	Sub-Saharan Africa	33.3
146	Russia	Eurasia	32.0
147	Laos	Asia-Pacific	31.1
148	Burundi	Sub-Saharan Africa	30.7
149	Azerbaijan	Eurasia	30.5
150	Chad	Sub-Saharan Africa	30.3
151	Saudi Arabia	Middle East & North Africa	29.8
152	Iran	Middle East & North Africa	29.7
153	Somalia	Sub-Saharan Africa	29.3
154	Egypt	Middle East & North Africa	28.8
155	Tajikistan	Eurasia	28.1
156	China	Asia-Pacific	27.9
157	Cambodia	Asia-Pacific	27.6
158	Belarus	Eurasia	27.3
159	Yemen	Middle East & North Africa	27.1
160	Nicaragua	Americas	26.8
161	Equatorial Guinea	Sub-Saharan Africa	26.7
162	Venezuela	Americas	25.0
163	Syria	Middle East & North Africa	24.5
164	Sudan	Sub-Saharan Africa	23.9
165	South Sudan	Sub-Saharan Africa	23.7
166	North Korea	Asia-Pacific	22.1
167	Turkmenistan	Eurasia	21.1
168	Myanmar	Asia-Pacific	19.7
169	Afghanistan	Asia-Pacific	19.2
170	Eritrea	Sub-Saharan Africa	16.8

Data by year

Show 26 yearly JSON rankings

Follow a year link to open the complete world ranking, including country names, values, positions, source and licence.

Source and licence

World Bank — Worldwide Governance Indicators

CC BY 4.0. Worldwide Governance Indicators, World Bank How every source was checked

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