Global Connectedness Index updated rankings

The DHL Global Connectedness Index for 2016 is already out. My colleague at IESE Business School Pankaj Ghemawat and his research team are responsible for the index. The index measures how globalized countries are by analyzing the depth of the international interactions, the breadth of their geographic distribution and their directionality, outwards or inwards. We already discussed in this blog the previous report published two years ago, Global connectedness index of African countries. Before analyzing sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in more detail, let’s highlight some stylized facts about this year’s ranking relative to 2014:

The Netherlands still ranks number 1 with a score of 91 out of 100.
The new least connected country is Burundi (ranked 140 with a score of 8 out of 100) – Syrian Arab Republic occupied this position in 2014 but it’s no longer included.
USA: still ranks 27, with a score of 64.
Spain: upgrades one position and now ranks 24, with a score of 67.


COUNTRY	RANK 2016	RANK 2014	COUNTRY	RANK 2016	RANK 2014
Mauritius	41	46	Botswana	117	126
South Africa	47	54	Namibia	119	116
D. R. of Congo	66	53	Benin	121	136
Ghana	79	55	Zambia	122	129
Nigeria	95	38	Cameroon	127	115
Angola	97	94	Uganda	129	121
Madagascar	98	103	Zimbabwe	130	122
The Gambia	101	110	Niger	131	132
Senegal	103	112	Burkina Faso	135	128
Kenya	105	106	Rwanda	136	133
Ethiopia	106	85	Mali	138	117
Ivory Coast	109	78	Burundi	140	137

Mozambique	113	98

Source: DHL Global Connectedness Index

Africa is still the least connected continent in the world, and the SSA region has gone down overall: 15 countries fell in the ranking while only 10 advanced. In the last report there were 9 sub-Saharan countries among the Top-100 (10 if we include Gabon that is no longer considered for the 2016 rankings) and now there are only 7.

The case of Nigeria is of particular interest. It fell from the 38^th position to the 95^th in only two years. This was driven primarily by the merchandising trade category: exports fell from 35% of GDP to only 10%, and imports from 20% to 10%. Slumping oil prices presumably played a role in shifting both the composition and the geographic distribution of Nigeria’s merchandise exports.

Other countries that fell notably in the rankings are: Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mozambique and Mali.

DHL Merchandise Trade — Merchandise trade is one of the dimensions of the DHL Global Connectedness Index.

On the other hand, the following countries advanced in the overall rankings:

Mauritius has replaced Nigeria in leading the group of SSA countries. This advance comes especially from the depth dimension and particularly from the capital market, experiencing an important increase in the portfolio equity exports.
South Africa is now ranked among the Top-50 due to better information figures. The category internet bandwidth, measured with bits per second per internet users went up from 3,720 to 147,630. International phone calls received in the country also increased remarkably.
Benin advanced 15 positions because of the improvements in the trade category. Merchandise trade exports went up from 14% of GDP to 24%, and merchandise trade imports rose from 26% to 36%.