Mozambique Regulatory Quality

Mozambique’s regulatory quality score, measured by the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators, stood at –0.68 in 2025, placing the country at rank 150 globally and matching Mali’s contemporaneous rating while trailing Algeria’s –0.72 and The Gambia’s –0.66. The index, which aggregates perceptions of the government’s ability to formulate and implement sound regulations, has been recorded for 26 years. After a modest high of –0.15 in 2000, the trajectory turned downward, reaching an all‑time trough of –0.80 in 2018, signalling a pronounced decline in regulatory effectiveness during the late 2010s. The earliest available figure from 1996 was –0.52, already lower than the 2000 peak, indicating that the subsequent rise was brief before the long‑term slide began. Recent modest improvements have halted the steep fall, yet the score remains well below the 1996 level. Continued reforms aimed at streamlining business procedures and strengthening rule‑of‑law institutions will be essential to reverse the downward trend and move the rating toward the more positive levels seen at the turn of the millennium.