Country’s image as judged by international indices: Case of Tanzania

Abstract

This paper presented various international indices and how Tanzania is judged by them. The purpose was to reveal to different stakeholders and policy makers how this country is perceived by outsiders such as foreign donor countries, investors, tourist or international bodies. The methodology involved empirical review of literatures combined with regression analysis to capture the impact of the indices on economic aspects like Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The findings indicated that Tanzania’s performance in most of indices is low though improving. The related effects of this level of performance include persistence level of poverty, limited economic growth, reduced inflow of investments and diminishing trust of citizens to their government. The regression analysis indicated that the indices influence FDI both positively (political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and institutional quality) and negatively (control of corruption) in varying degrees. It was recommended that various stakeholders who are decision makers in relation to these indicators such as the government, parliaments, regulatory bodies, NGO’s and individuals, take initiative accordingly, in order to reverse the situation where country’s scores are low.