Pan-African
Which African economies gained liner shipping connectivity by Q3 2026?
Egypt and Morocco were less than two index points apart in the third quarter of 2026 after starting a year earlier almost 30 points apart. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana had the next highest scores among the 12 African economies tracked here. The table follows their access to scheduled container shipping from the first quarter of 2021.
Sources checked
Q3 2026
Shared scale · 0 index points to 281.64 index points
Q3 2025
Shared scale · 0 index points to 281.64 index points
Switch between the same quarter of 2025 and 2026. Both use a theoretical Q1 2023 average economy of 100 index points.
Egypt and Morocco converged
Egypt fell from 281.64 to 264.08 index points between the third quarters of 2025 and 2026. Morocco rose from 252.14 to 262.44. The gap narrowed from 29.50 to 1.64 points. Egypt ranked 20th in the global table in Q3 2026, while Morocco ranked 22nd. The two also traded places over the longer history shown here. In Q3 2021, Morocco scored 218.60 and Egypt 205.29. Source 1
West African scores moved at different speeds
Côte d’Ivoire rose from 131.98 to 140.91 between Q3 2025 and Q3 2026 and moved from 41st to 38th globally. Ghana rose from 136.59 to 138.23 and remained 39th. Togo fell from 119.30 to 117.43 while Nigeria rose from 111.85 to 116.74, bringing their 2026 scores within one point. Senegal moved from 69.27 to 66.03. The figures show changes in network access across distinct markets even within the same coastal region. Source 1
Djibouti had the largest annual point gain in this group
Djibouti rose 26.31 points, from 75.79 in Q3 2025 to 102.10 a year later, and climbed from 68th to 54th. Kenya and Tanzania also rose, by 2.98 and 6.45 points respectively. Their 2026 scores still fell below the theoretical benchmark of 100. A difference in index points measures the size of the movement on this scale. Global rank can move differently as other economies change. Source 1
Six inputs describe access to the network
The index combines weekly scheduled ship calls, deployed annual container capacity, the number of liner services, the number of liner shipping companies, the size of the largest ships deployed and the number of economies with direct liner links. UNCTAD standardizes each component against its Q1 2023 average before combining the components. A score of 100 represents an economy with average values on all six measures at that reference date. Source 2
Cargo handled and shipping access answer different questions
A market can gain scheduled services or direct links while terminal volumes follow a different path. This index measures available network connections and capacity. It contains no count of cargo actually handled or time spent clearing a container. Follow the same economy across quarters for network change, and pair the result with port-level throughput or schedule reliability when evaluating a particular route. Source 1 Source 2