<mark>centralized and exclusive power arrangements. The repeated holding of multiparty elections across the continent has introduced some levels of electoral accountability, but the exercise of power and the working of institutions remain vulnerable to opacity, extractive behavior and exclusive elite pacts. Checks and balances on executive power tend to be weak, transparency limited, and access to political and economic power remains highly unequal. In that context, countries in democratic transitions have tended to struggle to deliver on their development promises – and many countries are stuck in a stable equilibrium of extractive political and economic institutions.</mark> <mark>3. Civic capacity has risen considerably – but the inability of institutions to respond to social expectations and political mobilization threatens to turn liberal civic engagement into distrust, populism and radicalization. Democratic development at the turn of the century opened a window of opportunity. It created pressure for more public transparency and space for social mobilization, which culminated in the Arab and African springs in the early 2010s. Yet, civic mobilization has not been matched by complementary state responsiveness, whether in terms of service delivery, security, or public integrity. This mismatch comes with high risks of instability, as illustrated by the decline in citizens’ trust in institutions and could open the door for social demands for less liberal forms of governance.</mark> <mark>4. The combination of the above three trends contributes to the rise of political instability, which constitutes a major threat to the continent’s ability to claim the 21</mark><sup>st</sup> <mark>century. Disappointment in the ability of states to deliver basic services, weak institutional channels for accountability and high levels of distrust point to the fragility of the social contract. Interstate wars have declined since the turn of the millennium, but the region has experienced a sharp uptick in violent events since 2015, with insecurity spreading across the Sahel region to the Horn of Africa as evidenced by the recent stream of military coups – eight successful since August 2020. Such instability and violence are core binding constraints to growth on the continent: instability creates policy volatility, shortens policy horizons leading to suboptimal macroeconomic policy decisions, and decreases investors’ confidence – with negative effects on economic performance. African democracies are more likely to invest in pro-poor growth: military expenditures are higher in autocratic regimes than in democratic regimes in Africa, whereas democratic regimes spend more on education and health (Ndayikeza 2021). Fang et al. (2020) estimate that in SSA annual growth in countries in conflict is about 2.5 percentage points lower on average, and that the impact on per capita GDP is cumulative and increases over time. Although transitions to democracy can be volatile, ultimately democracies tend be better governed and able to sustain inclusive growth.</mark>

# A high-level look at governance data

<mark>A high-level look at governance data suggests that change has been slow over the past 20 years in SSA and that governance in the region still tends to lag behind other world regions. Aggregate World Governance Indicators illustrate those macro-trends. The three aggregate variables presented in Figure 4 measure key dimensions of governance, namely government effectiveness, voice and accountability, and political stability. They show that SSA slightly improved its percentile rank for voice and accountability and</mark> 6