South Africa
Ranked #17 of 24 on the AWPRI, with a score of 0.420 in 2022. A higher score means heavier animal use, weaker welfare governance, or research tilted further towards automation.
Risk Profile
Variable scores in 2022. The solid shape is South Africa and the dashed shape is the 24-country mean. A higher score means heavier exposure, weaker governance or a stronger tilt towards automation. The range chip above gives the highest and the lowest composite score this country has recorded across 2010–2022, which describes the country's own history and is not a confidence interval. Point at any vertex to see the variable's name and scores. The numbered key is below the chart.
- 1Farmed animals slaughtered per capita
- 2Aquatic animal share of flesh supply
- 3Meat supply per capita
- 4Animal share of protein supply
- 5Animal welfare legislation, stock
- 6Rule of law
- 7Animal welfare legislation, five-year flow
- 8Civic space
- 9Civil liberties
- 10AI research intensity
- 11Precision agriculture research intensity
- 12Animal welfare research base
Variable Breakdown
L1. Animal-use exposure (four variables)
L2. Governance capacity (five variables)
L3. AI amplification (three variables)
Each bar is this country's score on the 0 to 1 scale, which is the country's position between the lowest and the highest value any of the 24 countries recorded in 2022. A score of 1 means that no country in the panel stood further along that variable in that year, and does not mean that the underlying quantity reached any absolute maximum. The welfare pathway states how the variable connects to animal welfare. A direct variable counts animals or counts the law that covers animals. An indirect variable measures a condition under which welfare law is enforced or contested. An assumed variable is a proxy whose link to welfare outcomes this project asserts and has not demonstrated. The full statement for each variable is in the codebook.
What Moves This Country's Score
Pushing the score up
- Animal welfare research basescore 0.648 vs panel mean 0.555 · weight 0.1111 · +0.0103 of the composite · L3. AI amplification
- Animal welfare legislation, five-year flowscore 0.753 vs panel mean 0.605 · weight 0.0667 · +0.0099 of the composite · L2. Governance capacity
- Precision agriculture research intensityscore 0.440 vs panel mean 0.369 · weight 0.1111 · +0.0078 of the composite · L3. AI amplification
Pulling the score down
- Aquatic animal share of flesh supplyscore 0.058 vs panel mean 0.416 · weight 0.0833 · −0.0298 of the composite · L1. Animal-use exposure
- AI research intensityscore 0.375 vs panel mean 0.501 · weight 0.1111 · −0.0141 of the composite · L3. AI amplification
- Animal share of protein supplyscore 0.624 vs panel mean 0.744 · weight 0.0833 · −0.0100 of the composite · L1. Animal-use exposure
Each figure is the variable's weight in the index multiplied by its distance from the 24-country mean in 2022. Added up over all 12 variables they come to -0.0437, which is exactly South Africa's distance from the panel's mean composite of 0.464. Because the weights differ between layers, a variable can be further from the mean than another and still move the score less. These figures are accounting terms and not causal estimates. The figures state which components of the index this country's score is made of, and do not state what would happen to animals if the underlying quantity changed.