Index Makeup

ARII uses sixteen indicators, grouped into five dimensions, to measure how well each country and region in Africa is integrated with its neighbours. ARII also measures the state of regional integration for the continent as a whole.

Index makeup diagram

The Five Dimensions & Indicators

Trade Integration

  • Average intra-regional import tariffs
  • Share of intra-regional exports over GDP
  • Share of intra-regional imports over GDP
  • Share of intra-regional trade
  • AfCFTA

Productive Integration

  • Share of intra-regional intermediate exports
  • Share of intra-regional intermediate imports
  • Merchandise trade complementarity index

Macroeconomic integration

  • Regional inflation differential
  • Regional convertibility of currency
  • Number of bilateral investment treaties in force

Infrastructural integration

  • Proportion of intra-regional flight connections
  • AfDB Infrastructure Development Index

Free Movement of People

  • Free Movement of Persons Protocol (Kigali)
  • Number of countries that may obtain a visa on arrival
  • Number of countries that require a visa

Rankings & Scores

Africa. ARII calculates Africa’s performance on the five dimensions of regional integration. It also ranks African countries’ performance by dimension and on regional integration overall. Visit the Africa page for details. 

Regional economic communities. ARII measures how well each region in Africa performs on the five dimensions of regional integration and on regional integration overall. The regions covered by ARII correspond to the eight regional economic communities recognised by the African Union.

Countries. By clicking on each country’s profile, users can view countries’ scores on each of the five dimensions of regional integration and on regional integration overall. Countries can be compared to other countries in their regional economic community. 

Some countries in Africa are members of more than one regional economic community. Because of this, a country may have different scores and rankings for the same dimension. For example, on trade integration, Libya scored 0.462 within COMESA, where it ranked ninth out of 21 countries, and scored 0.390 within AMU, where it ranked fourth out of 5 countries. 

ARII uses a 95 percent confidence interval from the mean to identify countries’ performance as low, average, or high. Under linear conditions, a score below 0.333 is classified as low, a score between 0.334 and 0.667 is classified as average, and a score above 0.668 is classified as high. 

Dimensions. ARII uses sixteen indicators, grouped into five dimensions, to measure regional integration in Africa. 

Abbreviations

  • AfCFTA African Continental Free Trade Area
  • AfDB African Development Bank
  • AMU Arab Maghreb Union 
  • ARII Africa Regional Integration Index 
  • AUC African Union Commission
  • BIAT Boosting Intra-African Trade 
  • CEN-SAD Community of Sahel-Saharan States
  • COMESA Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa 
  • EAC East African Community
  • ECCAS Economic Community of Central African States 
  • ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States 
  • IGAD Intergovernmental Authority on Development 
  • PCA Principal components analysis
  • REC Regional economic community
  • SADC Southern African Development Community 
  • UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa