Mandy Lamb, acting GM of Visa sub-Saharan Africa, said: "There is growing evidence that supports the argument that cross-border interactions, or openness, drives economic growth and socio-economic advancement.
"Our objective was to construct an index for a number of selected sub-Saharan African countries to measure their global and regional integration based on recent data. We want to better understand Africa to help unleash the enormous growth potential in electronic payments on the continent, now the heart of the developing world."
She added that the Visa Africa Integration Index is particularly timely given the release of the Africa Competitiveness Report 2013 last month.
The report, jointly produced by the African Development Bank, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum, said that closer regional integration would be crucial in addressing underlying weaknesses in Africa's long-term competitiveness and ensuring that the continent delivers on its massive growth promise.
The study offers a detailed analysis of key country clusters in sub-Saharan Africa, revealing strengths and areas of growth potential.
The clusters are:
The 11 constituent countries are highly representative of the region, with a combined population of 437 million people, or 55% of the total population at the end of 2012.
The study was carried out in conjunction with Professor Adrian Saville, Visiting Professor of Economics at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), and Dr Lyal White, director of the Centre for Dynamic Markets and a senior lecturer at GIBS.
Four key metrics to measure integration were used: the flow of goods and services or trade (T), financial integration and the movement of capital (C), the flow of information and knowledge (I) and the movement of people (P).
This TCIP model assigns a numeric value to the level of integration, with the global median score being 100.
| Southern Africa cluster | Visa Africa Integration Index Score |
| South Africa | 63.3 |
| Mozambique | 42.4 |
| Zambia | 35.8 |
| Zimbabwe | 31.1 |
| Angola | 28.8 |
| West Africa cluster | Visa Africa Integration Index Score |
| Ghana | 52.1 |
| Nigeria | 40.6 |
| East Africa cluster | Visa Africa Integration Index Score |
| Kenya | 53.9 |
| Uganda | 48.7 |
| Rwanda | 47.3 |
| Tanzania | 45.3 |
Professor Saville said that Africa is still the least integrated region in the world, but there are signs of change. "While improving off a modest base, the countries that make up the Index have undergone positive structural transformation over the past decade.
"The Index offers both recent and robust evidence of this: all 11 countries show improvements in economic integration over the period measured, namely the four half-year periods that make up 2011 and 2012."
South Africa has the highest score on the Visa Africa Integration Index, improving from 61.1 at the start of 2011 to 63.3 at the end of 2012.
But, like Angola, South Africa is an outlier that does not follow the conventional trend of matched regional and global integration seen elsewhere in the Visa Africa Integration Index.
In some cases the improvements are modest. Zimbabwe and Angola record gains in integration that amount to less than 1% per year. In other cases the gains are swift and substantial. Rwanda's index score rises by almost 20% over the two years. Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia all record a robust single digit improvement in economic integration.
The analysis also considers the depth and breadth of integration, and how integrated each country is globally and regionally. Measuring economic integration by way of depth and breadth provides for a more granular description and better understanding of the nature of integration beyond conventional economic measures.
In terms of "depth", a country is considered to be "deeply integrated" if the economy is particularly open and highly connected to the rest of the world. However, integration only becomes "deep and broad" if a highly connected economy is engaged with a wide variety of counter parties across the different strands of its global relationships.
The chart below shows the depth and breadth component of each country's integration value measured at the global level and regional level. Combining these four elements produces the final index score.
View the VISA Infographic Integration Index
South Africa is by far the most integrated economy in Africa, with a global integration score of 39.1 out of 50, a regional integration score of 24.2 out of 50, producing a final index of 63.3 out of 100.
South Africa's impressive global depth and breadth components are indicative of the country's focus on liberalisation dating back to the mid-1990s, higher levels of industrialisation, economic diversification, and pursuit of trade agreements and preferential market access arrangements around the globe.
A second line of integration analysis relates to how connected African countries are to one another. Once again, the evidence points to exceptionally low levels of intra-Africa flows and regional integration, which, like low levels of global integration, are a key reason for Africa's poor economic record.
Trade relationships effectively illustrate the low degree of Africa's regional integration. On this score, World Bank data show Africa's intra-regional trade amounted to just 13.1% of its total trade in 2011 - well below the global average. By contrast, in South-East Asia and Europe where intra-regional trade accounts for 50.2% and 72.1% of total trade, respectively.
"The continent's low level of integration - with the rest of the world and, more importantly, with one another - points to an opportunity for large and sustainable gains in prosperity," Professor Saville noted.
Africa needs to trade and become more integrated in global value chains if it is to harness its natural potential and stimulate wealth and prosperity.
"This also means improving integration within Africa: building economies of scale and competitiveness in global markets, and weighing in alongside the likes of Asia," Saville said.
"We expect the Index to provide thought leadership on Africa's regional integration and enable us to track changes and progress over time," added Lamb.
"The Index offers Visa an academically rigorous foundation to understand how we can serve Africa better. We hope the Index provides another constructive contribution for policymakers when making strategic economic decisions."
Lamb concluded by noting that the findings were unambiguous in at least two regards.
"First, while coming off a modest base, the economies that we measure are rising in terms of the degree and sophistication of economic integration. Second, although the economies have some way to go in terms of catch up, they are catching up."
