Africa’s Ports – the 10 Best, According to the World Bank

SA was the only African country to rank among the Top 20 countries on the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, which is dominated by European countries, the US and China. The Index noted that on average it takes 5.3 days (including processing time) to get a container through a SA. Mauritius takes fewer days (4.3 days) but SA does better overall on the index because of superior infrastructure, customs processes, and logistics processes. That being said,  the World Bank’s  Container Port Performance Index (CPPI), which is based on the amount of time a vessel spends at a port has been assessing ports all across the globe. The Index which was started 4 years ago, should be viewed as an indicator rather than a final indicator of container port performance. 348 ports are included in the primary index of the 434 ports for which S&P Global received port call information.

In Africa the best 10 ports in 2022, according to the CPPI were, in this order: Dijibouti, Berbera, Conakry, Dakar, Matadi, Tema, Mogadiscio, Beira, Freetown and Toamasina. To this author’s surprise no SA ports appear in the top ten, however this may be due to the requirements that a port must have recorded at least 24 legitimate port calls for which port hours may be estimated throughout the course of the whole calendar year in order to be eligible for inclusion in the CPPI.