• South Africa ranks first in Africa with a global score of 43.4 points
• Mauritius and Morocco complete Africa’s top three in the VIGS 2025 index
• Sub-Saharan Africa posts strongest relative growth between 2017 and 2022

South Africa, Mauritius, and Morocco have the most advanced digital entrepreneurship ecosystems in Africa, according to a Dec. 16 ranking published by The Vienna Institute for Global Studies (VIGS). The 2025 edition of the Digital Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Index is based on data for 2022, compared with 2017, which served as the reference year for the first edition released in 2021.

The index assesses ecosystem performance across 170 countries using more than 50 indicators. These include the quality of ICT regulation, cybercrime prevention capacity, the number of secure internet servers per million inhabitants, digital skills within the population, internet freedoms, intellectual property rights, the number of fintech companies, locally developed digital applications, access to venture capital, the availability of startup incubators and accelerators, and access to electricity.

The indicators are grouped into four main sub-indices: digital infrastructure, digital citizenship, multi-sided digital platforms, and digital technology entrepreneurship. Each country is scored on a scale of 0 to 100 for both the sub-indices and the overall index.

South Africa ranks 59th globally and leads Africa with an overall score of 43.4 points. Mauritius follows in second place on the continent at 60th globally, ahead of Morocco in 83rd position worldwide. They are followed by Tunisia (87th), Egypt (92nd), Cape Verde (93rd), Botswana (101st), Kenya (104th), and Ghana (105th). Algeria, ranked 111th globally, completes Africa’s top 10.

At the global level, the United States retains the world’s most developed digital entrepreneurship ecosystem, with a score of 87.9 points. Home to Silicon Valley, it is followed by Denmark, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Singapore.

An analysis of regional performance between 2017 and 2022 shows that Europe recorded the strongest absolute improvement, with its average score rising from 50.9 to 62.4 points, an increase of 11.5 points. North America also posted strong gains, with its average score up by 9.4 points to 83.

The Middle East and North Africa region recorded the third-largest increase, up 8.5 points to 36.4. Asia also saw solid progress, with its average score rising from 32.2 to 40.6 points. By contrast, sub-Saharan Africa, which started from the lowest base, posted the smallest nominal increase, with its average score rising by 4.1 points, from 9.7 to 13.8.

However, in relative terms, sub-Saharan Africa recorded the fastest growth. The 4.1-point increase represents a 42.27% rise between 2017 and 2022, compared with a 22.58% increase for Europe over the same period. This suggests that while regions with higher initial scores tend to advance faster in absolute terms, regions that started from a lower base are catching up more rapidly in proportional terms.

The strong growth recorded in sub-Saharan Africa over the period mainly reflects progress in the digital infrastructure and digital citizenship sub-indices.

Walid Kéfi