Rwanda has emerged as the highest-ranked country in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 2026 World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index, placing 40th globally among 143 countries and jurisdictions assessed.
The findings, released on 21 October 2026, put Rwanda ahead of Namibia, Mauritius and Botswana, which also feature among the region's leading performers.
Rwanda received an overall score of approximately 0.63 on a scale from zero to one, where a higher score indicates stronger adherence to the rule of law under the WJP methodology.
The ranking represents a one-place decline from 2025, when Rwanda was placed 39th globally, although its rounded overall score remained unchanged.
The latest results were highlighted in a report published by The New Times on Friday, 23 October, and are consistent with the World Justice Project's published regional findings.
Rwanda retains regional lead
Rwanda's continued regional lead reflects its performance across a broad set of indicators covering public institutions, security, justice and legal accountability.
Namibia ranked 46th globally in the 2026 index, followed by Mauritius in 48th position and Botswana in 49th.
Other leading Sub-Saharan African countries included Senegal, ranked 58th worldwide, South Africa in 60th and Ghana in 62nd.
Among Rwanda's neighbours, Kenya placed 100th, Tanzania 105th, Uganda 126th and the Democratic Republic of the Congo 136th in the global ranking.
These results refer only to countries and jurisdictions included in the WJP assessment, not every country on the continent.
The WJP's formal regional classification covers 34 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. North African countries are grouped separately under the Middle East and North Africa region.
The rankings therefore provide a comparison of the countries assessed under the index rather than a comprehensive evaluation of all African states.
What the Rule of Law Index measures
The World Justice Project evaluates the rule of law through eight major dimensions intended to show how legal institutions and public accountability function in practice.
These include constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice and criminal justice.
The indicators consider issues such as whether government officials are held accountable under the law, how effectively regulations are enforced, whether people can access justice and how securely communities can live.
For the 2026 edition, the organisation drew on more than 215,000 household surveys and 3,400 surveys of legal practitioners and experts across the countries assessed.
The resulting scores are based on reported experiences and perceptions of legal systems, rather than a single measure of democracy, political freedom or judicial performance.
Rwanda's overall position should therefore be considered alongside its individual scores in each area. A relatively strong overall ranking does not necessarily mean that the country performs equally well across all eight dimensions.
Rwanda's position compared with previous years
Rwanda has maintained its position at the top of the Sub-Saharan African rankings since 2021.
According to WJP data, the country ranked 42nd globally in 2021 and 2022, improved to 41st in 2023 and reached 40th in 2024.
Its position rose again to 39th in 2025 before returning to 40th in the latest assessment.
The latest result indicates that Rwanda has sustained a similar overall index score across several years, despite changes in its global position.
In its 2025 country assessment, the WJP reported that Rwanda performed particularly well in order and security and the absence of corruption, while recording comparatively weaker results in fundamental rights and constraints on government powers.
Those findings refer to the previous edition and should not be presented as the country's individual factor scores for 2026 without consulting the updated country-level data.
Global rule of law continues to weaken
Rwanda's regional position comes against a wider international trend of declining rule-of-law performance.
The WJP reported that 62 per cent of the countries assessed experienced a deterioration in their overall scores in 2026, compared with 38 per cent that recorded improvements.
This marks the ninth consecutive year in which declining countries have outnumbered those making progress.
The organisation identified growing government interference, weakening judicial independence and restrictions on public participation among the main concerns.
It also found that more than 86 per cent of countries had experienced a sustained decline over five years in at least one of three safeguards: constraints on government powers, open government or fundamental rights.
Civil justice weakened in 64 per cent of countries, while criminal justice declined in 58 per cent, according to the report.
Denmark retained first place globally, followed by Norway, Finland, Sweden and Luxembourg.
At the other end of the rankings, Venezuela, Afghanistan and Haiti were among the lowest-scoring countries.
