SADC on the Move: Logistics capacity comparison across Southern Africa

Earlier this year, we published a report exploring the slow growth of e-Commerce in the SADC region. In that piece most of our analysis relied on profiling the types of people who lived within the region, the profitability of eCommerce ventures and the broader economy within the region and how it impacts digital commerce. What we didn’t touch on was the logistics part of the equation and this report aims to provide an overview of the logistics sector - heavily relying on the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index (LPI).

The LPI is a benchmarking tool created to help countries identify the challenges and opportunities they face in their performance in trade logistics and is compiled on the basis of two processes:

1. A worldwide survey of international logistics operators on the ground (global freight forwarders and express carriers), providing feedback on the logistics “friendliness” of the countries with which they trade.
2. “granular high frequency” information on maritime shipping and container tracking, postal and air freight activities that was collected and made available to LPI by several data partners.

“The LPI score depends primarily on industry perceptions of relative performance. Even a country that is making improvements can see its score affected by the perceived impact or speed of improvements in other countries.”

- 2018 LPI Report

It’s important to note that because of this methodology - the data presented later in this article is not necessarily undisputable but instead a solid indicator gathered from informed practitioners within the logistics sector. Beyond this though, the above mentioned components explore the following sectors of Logistics (which this article will also try to mirror closely);