Cameroon ranks 133rd out of 161 countries in the 2026 Legatum Index. A deceptive rise after 147th place in 2023 and 151st in 2022, masking fifteen years of stagnation. As the leading economy of CEMAC, the country remains behind Gabon, ranked 93rd.
This ranking is unsettling. Cameroon holds the 133rd position out of 161 in the 2026 edition of the Prosperity Index by the British think tank Legatum Institute. A rank that seems to indicate improvement, but does not tell the whole story as the Legatum Index does not measure raw wealth. It assesses a country’s ability to enable its citizens to thrive through three pillars: Development, Freedom, and Society, broken down into twelve criteria ranging from governance to health, education to personal freedoms. And here, the picture is less flattering.
Read more Civil aviation: the compliance rate jumps to 78%
Cameroon’s trajectory is frozen. In 2013, the country was already 137th worldwide. In 2022, it dropped to 151st, its worst recent score. It climbed timidly to 147th in 2023, before reaching 133rd in 2026. That is a decline of 14 places between 2013 and 2022, followed by a rebound to be taken with caution.
Because this rise in 2026 is also due to a statistical artifice: the Institute reduced the number of countries evaluated from 167 to 161 and introduced a new calculation method, the “p average.” In reality, the country has been navigating in the same low zone for more than ten years, between 130th and 155th place.
Read more Cameroon: more than 20 deaths in the “triangle of death” in less than two weeks
The paradox is striking. With nearly 65 billion dollars in GDP, Cameroon remains the engine of CEMAC, accounting for more than half of regional consumption alone. Yet Gabon, whose economy is eight times smaller, far outpaces it: 118th in 2013, 119th in 2023, and 93rd in 2026. The gap has widened from 19 places to 40 places in thirteen years.
The Legatum diagnosis sounds like a political warning.
Read more Cameroon: Stroke, leading cause of death among women