DHL Global Connectedness Index 2014

42 2. How Globalized are Individual Countries and Regions
in this report. Relative comparisons both within and
among countries can help identify areas to target for
improving connectedness.
• Benchmark Policy Enablers of Connectedness: Each
country profile provides data on a set of policy
metrics that may help countries deepen their global
connectedness. Benchmarking scores on these
measures can help identify policy initiatives that
merit further study. An even wider range of policy
measures are discussed in Chapter 5 of the DHL
Global Connectedness Index 2011.
• Understand Structural Enablers and Barriers
to Connectedness: Some factors that influence
connectedness are beyond a country’s direct control.
A large landlocked country faces very different
challenges in terms of fostering connectedness
than a small country built around a port on a
major shipping lane. Structural drivers and barriers,
also listed in the country profiles, provide useful
perspective to inform cross-country comparisons
and can help guide policy customization. If, for
example, being landlocked poses a major barrier to
connectedness for a particular country, then specific
remedies can be tailored to that constraint, including
both obvious ones, such as connecting better to
coastal neighbors, as well as less obvious ones, such
as promoting exports that have sufficiently high
value-to-weight ratios to merit transport by air, or
even digital exports that can be transmitted over the
Internet.
In the complex and diverse world described in this
report, recommending more specific policy initiatives
without further fine-tuning to individual countries’
contexts is clearly inappropriate. Rather, policymakers
are encouraged to use this report as a convenient and
consistent cross-country reference tool as they work
to craft policies that are well tailored to their national
conditions and objectives.
The country rankings and supporting data in the
country profiles can also inform business strategy,
as described in the conclusion of Chapter 1. Before
turning to the country profiles, though, this report will
proceed next to further examination of the changes
in global levels and patterns of connectedness within
which country-level and firm-level strategies must be
crafted. Chapter 3 examines the changing depth of
the world’s trade, capital, information, and people
flows, and then Chapter 4 turns to how the big shift of
economic activity to emerging economies is reshaping
the breadth of global connectedness.