The Gambia has gone two places up in the 2025 global soft power ranking.
The Global Soft Power Index report released by Brand Finance, measures a country’s ability to influence international preferences and behaviours through attraction and persuasion rather than force. This influence is assessed through various criteria, including diplomacy, economy, business, media, culture, sports, and social issues.
In 2024, The Gambia was placed at 158 out of 193 countries ranked, improving to 156 in 2025 with an index score of 27.
Brand Finance, a chartered accountancy firm based in the UK, is regarded as the world’s leading brand evaluation and strategy consultancy company, and has been conducting an annual “Nation Brands” study on the world’s most valuable and strongest nation brands for twenty years.
In compiling its index, Brand Finance weighs familiarity, reputation, influence, business and trade, international relations, education and science, culture and heritage, governance, media and communication, sustainable future and people and values of countries around the world.
In the 2025 index, it ranked The Gambia above 16 countries in Africa including Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Burkina Faso, Chad, Togo, Benin and Equatorial Guinea. Senegal is ranked at 102 having fallen 8 places from a high of 94 in 2024. Mauritania is at 153, Guinea at 154 and Nigeria at 77.
Despite a long-standing tradition of diplomatic leadership in West Africa and a reputation for political stability, Senegal’s stagnant economic performance and challenges in governance seemed to have contributed to the decline in its ability to project its influence abroad.
Globally, the United States with a score of 79.5 leads the index with, China, United Kingdom, Japan and Germany making the top five due to their effective use of soft power through culture, technological innovation, and active diplomacy. These nations have consistently leveraged their cultural appeal, economic strength, and strategic international relations to maintain their influential status.
Dr Paul Temporal, an associate fellow at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, a co-author of the study, stated: “The political scientist Joseph Nye, who popularised the term ‘soft power’, argued in his book The Future of Power (2011) that a nation’s soft power is derived from three principal resources: ‘its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when others see them as legitimate and having moral authority).’ These resources can make a nation more attractive to others and co-opt – rather than coerce – them into aligning with their interests.
“Since the launch of the Global Soft Power Index in 2020 we have seen a more complex and dynamic picture emerge, particularly in the intersection of soft power and nation branding. While nation branding efforts are typically focused on improving performance of a country in attracting, for example, investment and tourists, metrics more usually associated with soft power are also being shown to be influential in these areas.”
