THE Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, through its publication Foreign Policy magazine has ranked Botswana as the most globalised nation in Africa. In its fourth annual "Globalisation Index" released at a ceremony in Washington DC this week, Botswana at position 30 is the highest ranked African nation in world ratings.

Importantly Botswana is next to world giant Japan at position 29. Among the countries classified as developing, Botswana was ranked number three after Malaysia (20) and Panama (27) and just ahead of South Korea (32). The other African states that were

ranked in the index's top fifty were: Tunisia (35), Uganda (38), Senegal (40), Nigeria (42), Morocco (47), and South Africa (49).

For the third year in a row, Ireland was ranked as the world's most globalised nation, followed by Singapore, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Finland

The report, which is based on data compiled for 2002, found that global economic integration had actually declined in the wake of the world economic slowdown in 2001.

Investment of foreign assets into domestic structures, equipment, and organizations, already down some 40 percent in 2001, fell another 21 percent in 2002 to $651 billion, while global flows of portfolio capital also dropped significantly. Overall, economic integration measures dropped to their lowest levels since 1998, according to the Index, a joint project of Foreign Policy magazine and AT Kearney, one of the world's largest management consulting firms.

But when political, technological and personal contact and communication variables were taken into account, the Index found that overall globalisation actually increased in 2002.

Among other factors, it tracked strong gains in trans-border telephone use and Internet connectivity, particularly in a number of developing countries including Botswana, which pointed to the resiliency of trends that promote greater global integration.

Rankings on the Index are determined by the combined score of a dozen weighted variables covering economic, personal, technological and political categories.

Botswana was ranked seventeen (17) in the world in the economic category, whose variables included the percentage of trade as a share of the country's GDP, inward and outward FDI and other portfolio investment, and international income payments and receipts as shares of GDP. In this category, Botswana was weakest in the area of FDI, but nonetheless was number four in the world in the area of returns on investment income.

Personal variables cover the number of minutes of international phone calls, the number of travellers per capita, and remittances from expatriate workers as a share of GDP.

Technological variables were Botswana's lowest, but also most improved, sub-category- being ranked 50 in the world and third in Africa.

The category included the percentage of the population with Internet access and the number of Internet hosts and secure servers.

Botswana's political ranking was seventeen 17 in the world. The variables in this category included participation in international organisations, peacekeeping missions and other international contacts, as well as issues of transparency and good governance. In terms of government transfers, Botswana was ranked number one in the world.

Europe was followed by North America and East Asia were ranked as the world's most integrated regions. The least integrated regions were South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.