Sub-Saharan Africa outpaced every other region on the planet in trade growth last year, recording a 9 percent increase in the value of goods crossing its borders in the first nine months of 2025 a finding that sits at the heart of the DHL Global Connectedness Report 2026, released on Thursday by DHL Group and New York University Stern School of Business.
The report, drawing on more than 9 million data points, found that global trade grew faster in 2025 than in any year since 2017, excluding the distorted Covid-19 period, driven partly by a surge in United States importers front-loading shipments ahead of tariff increases and by a boom in artificial intelligence-related trade centred on Taiwan. Against that backdrop, Sub-Saharan Africa’s 9 percent trade value expansion was the strongest of any region globally, ahead of East Asia and the Pacific and South and Central America, both of which posted 8 percent growth.
The report ranks 180 economies by their depth of integration into global flows of trade, capital, information, and people. Ghana placed 97th globally, ahead of Nigeria at 100th and Kenya at 119th, though behind regional leaders Seychelles at 40th, Mauritius at 65th, and Namibia at 68th. South Africa was the highest-ranked Sub-Saharan African economy overall at 53rd.
Namibia ranks among the top three countries globally for long-term increases in connectedness since 2001, with Mozambique also among the strongest long-run improvers. Nigeria and Zambia recorded some of the largest gains since 2022, reflecting accelerating momentum in trade, investment, and people flows.
Africa also registered the second-largest increase in international tourist arrivals globally in 2025, with a 17 percent rise compared to pre-pandemic 2019 levels, trailing only the Middle East’s 39 percent gain.
At the global level, the report found little evidence that the world economy is fragmenting into rival blocs despite escalating tensions between the United States and China. Global goods trade is projected to grow at roughly 2.6 percent annually between 2026 and 2029, in line with the pace of the previous decade, because most trade does not involve the United States and most other countries are not raising their own tariffs. Instead, many countries are actively striking new trade agreements to secure access to alternative markets.
The report’s co-author Steven Altman of New York University noted that the gap between globalization data and political headlines stems largely from the fact that much of the deglobalization narrative is driven by policy discourse rather than actual shifts in cross-border flows. “The politics and policy surrounding globalization are much more volatile than the actual flows between countries,” he said.
