While almost all African countries have embarked on institutional reforms, on average no more than 50 percent of good institutional practices have been adopted. The variation in performance across countries is great, with the most advanced countries (such as Kenya) scoring around 70 percent and those farthest behind (such as Benin) scoring 30 percent.
There is a reasonably strong correlation within countries between the quality of infrastructure institutions and the quality of institutions as a whole. Nevertheless, some countries do well on infrastructure despite broader governance limitations, and vice versa. Within countries, progress with institutional reform in one infrastructure sector is no guarantee of progress in another. This suggests that sector-specific constraints may be as important as country-specific constraints. It also points to the potential for greater cross-fertilization of experiences across sectors within a country.
Overall, institutional development in the utilities sector is well ahead of that in the transport sector, with the telecom sector besting them both (see figure). Across all countries and sectors, the greatest progress has been in reforms that can be accomplished with the stroke of a pen—that is, through legislation. By contrast, regulation in Africa is still rudimentary, with government interference continuing to undermine regulatory independence in many countries. Governance of state-owned enterprises lags behind other areas of institutional reform, and the limited progress that has been made shows up primarily in improvements to internal managerial practices as opposed to the strengthening of external market disciplines.