Djibouti, Algeria and Zimbabwe are the World's Least Free Economies

The Heritage Research released its yearly Index of Economic Freedom and the results are nothing to celebrate for some economies in the continent. For starters, African economies dominate the bottom ten of the rankings, with six countries from the continent and only North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia joining what could have easily been an all African affair. Most of the Sub-Saharan region's graded nations are in the "mostly unfree" zone and 12 of the world's 21 repressed economies are in the region. Only Mauritius is "mostly free" and the second best in the region, Botswana,  regressed into the "moderately free" category. All in all, Sub-Saharan Africa continues to trail other regions in almost all metrics.

Launched in 1995, the Index evaluates countries in four broad policy areas that affect economic freedom: rule of law; government size; regulatory efficiency; and open markets. There are 12 specific categories: property rights, judicial effectiveness, government integrity, tax burden, government spending, fiscal health, business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom, trade freedom, investment freedom, and financial freedom. Scores in these categories are averaged to create an overall score