Deciding where to invest or with which country to business can be a complicated process. Trying to choose from a set of African countries, about whom there are a lot of misconceptions and misinformation can be even harder. The Business Hospitality Index presented below in table one is one way of helping make your decision a little easier. In this index (Table 1), we rank all African countries based on measures of ease of doing business, corruption, human development and widespread use of English alphabetically. Then, we provide the same information on a set of seven developed and developing countries from other continents to allow comparison (Table 2). Finally, we pick ten African countries--three (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania) from the east, two (Ghana and The Gambia) from the west, four (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Swaziland) from the south, and one (Mauritius) from the Indian Ocean. In Table 3 we provide the rankings for these countries. The country profiles section of this website has detailed background and contact information on these countries.
In order to construct this index we collected information from three chief sources:
The World Bank's "Doing Business Project"
Transperancy International's "Corruption Perceptions Index"
United Nations's "Human Development Reports"
We incorporated information on whether or not English is an official or native language in each country. Also, in order to provide a better idea of how these African countries compare to each other in addition to the rest of the world, we included the rankings for "Doing Business in Africa" sub-index in our index. The following three paragra€phs describe these sources in greater detail.
The indicators presented and analyzed in Doing Business measure business regulation and the protection of property right--and their effect on businesses, especially small and medium-size domestic firms. These indicators document the degree of regulation, such as the number of procedures to start a business or register commercial property. They also gauge regulatory outcomes, such as the time and cost to enforce a contract, go through bankruptcy or trade across borders. Third, they measure the extent of legal protections of property, for example, the protections of investors against looting by company directors or the scope of assets that can be used as collateral according to secured transactions laws. Fourth, they measure the flexibility of employment regulation. Finally, a set of indicators documents the tax burden on businesses.
The Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks countries in terms of the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians. It is a composite index, drawing on corruption-related data in expert surveys carried out by a variety of reputable institutions. It reflects the views of businesspeople and analysts from around the world, including experts who are resident in the countries evaluated. The Corruption Perceptions Index gathers data from sources that span the last three years. All sources include an assessment of multiple countries and measure the overall extent of corruption (frequency and/or amount of corruption) in the public and political sectors. Evaluation of the extent of corruption in countries is done by non-resident experts, non-resident business leaders from developing countries, and resident business leaders evaluating their own country. The index requires at least three sources to be available for the country to be ranked.
The Human Development index is sourced from the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Report (HDR). The aim of the HDR is to stimulate global, regional and national policy discussions on issues that are relevant to human development. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, and standard of living. It indicates whether a country is developed, developed or underdeveloped. The HDI also includes most of Millennium Development Goal indicators.
Table One: Business Hospitality Index
In Alphabetical Order
| Country | Region | Ease of Doing Business--Worldwide (by quarter) | Ease of Doing Business--Africa (by quarter) | Corruption Perception Index (by quarter) | HDI rank-Worldwide (by quarter) | HDI rank Africa (by quarter) | English (native or official language) |
| Algeria | Northern Africa | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | No |
| Angola | Central Africa | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | No |
| Benin | West Africa | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 3 | No |
| Botswana | Southern Africa | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Yes |
| Burkina Faso | West Africa | 4 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Burundi | East Africa | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Cameroon | Central Africa | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | Yes |
| Cape Verde | West Africa | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | No |
| Central African Republic | Central Africa | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Chad | Central Africa | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Comoros | East Africa | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | No |
| Congo, Dem. Rep. | Central Africa | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | No |
| Congo, Rep. | Central Africa | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | No |
| Cote D'Ivoire | West Africa | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | No |
| Djibouti | East Africa | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | No |
| Egypt | Northern Africa | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | No |
| Equatorial Guinea | West Africa | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | No |
| Eritrea | East Africa | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | No |
| Ethiopia | East Africa | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Gabon | Central Africa | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | No |
| Gambia, The | West Africa | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | Yes |
| Ghana | West Africa | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | Yes |
| Guinea | West Africa | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Guinea-Bissau | West Africa | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Kenya | East Africa | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | Yes |
| Lesotho | Southern Africa | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | No |
| Liberia | West Africa | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | Yes |
| Libya | Northern Africa | NA | NA | 3 | 2 | 1 | No |
| Madagascar | East Africa | 4 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2 | No |
| Malawi | Southern Africa | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | Yes |
| Mali | West Africa | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Mauritania | West Africa | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | No |
| Mauritius | East Africa | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Yes |
| Morocco | Northern Africa | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | No |
| Mozambique | East Africa | 4 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Namibia | Southern Africa | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Yes |
| Niger | West Africa | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | No |
| Nigeria | West Africa | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 3 | Yes |
| Rwanda | East Africa | 4 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | No |
| Sao Tome and Principe | Central Africa | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | No |
| Senegal | West Africa | 4 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | No |
| Seychelles | East Africa | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Yes |
| Sierra Leone | West Africa | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Yes |
| South Africa | Southern Africa | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | Yes |
| Sudan | Central Africa | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | No |
| Swaziland | Southern Africa | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | Yes |
| Tanzania | East Africa | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | Yes |
| Togo | West Africa | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | No |
| Tunisia | Northern Africa | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | NA | No |
| Uganda | East Africa | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 | Yes |
| Zambia | Southern Africa | 3 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 3 | Yes |
| Zimbabwe | Southern Africa | 4 | 3 | 4 | NA | NA | Yes |
| Country | Ease of Doing Business--Worldwide (by quarter) | Corruption Perceptions Index (by quarter) | HDI rank (by quarter) | English (native or official language) |
| Ireland | 1 | 1 | 1 | Yes |
| Mexico | 1 | 2 | 2 | No |
| Slovenia | 2 | 1 | 1 | No |
| Brazil | 2 | 2 | 2 | Yes |
| Italy | 3 | 2 | 1 | No |
| China | 3 | 2 | 2 | No |
| India | 4 | 2 | 3 | Yes |
Table 3: Selected African Countries with Hospitable Business Conditions
| Region | Country | Ease of Doing Business--Worldwide (by quarter) | Ease of Doing Business--Africa (by quarter) | Corruption Perceptions Index (by quarter) | HDI rank Worldwide (by quarter) | English (native or official language) |
| Northern | Morocco | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Eastern | Mauritius |
1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Seychelles |
3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
| Kenya | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | |
| Western | Cape Verde |
4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Ghana | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | |
| Senegal |
4 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | |
| Southern | Botswana | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Namibia |
2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | |
| South Africa |
1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 |