Mauritius has lost six rankings. The country is losing ground in its degree of preparation to participate in and benefit from Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) developments. This is at least the conclusion of the Global Information Technology Report published recently by the World Economic Forum (WEF). While Mauritius claims to be a cyber-island, how come it has gone down by six ranks in one year?
Dev Kisoondoyal, head of the IT department of Teleforma and involved in the making of the first report of this type in 2001 as an expert for Mauritius, attenuates this fall. “There are numerous factors that explain the drop. First, six new countries were involved in the list so it may have disrupted the ranking.” However, he is very critical about the fact that “Mauritius has not taken any further initiative as far as ICT is concerned for a whole year.”
This report is a benchmarking tool to determine national ICT strengths and weaknesses and evaluate progress. It also highlights the continuing importance of ICT application and development for economic growth. The Networked Readiness Index – used to assess the countries – is based on three main components: the environment for ICT offered by a country or a community, the readiness of the community’s key stakeholders (individuals, business and governments) and the use of ICT among these stakeholders.
E-leadership from the government
E-government is among the initiatives that have stood still during the past year. “Denmark, which has reached the first place, has benefited a lot from e-leadership by government. It had a clear vision to use e-services to reach growth and has succeeded,” stated Dave Kisoondoyal. “The Mauritian government also can do it. But it has to accelerate the use of ICT at all levels – individual, business and state.”
In Mauritius, about a quarter of the population is said to have access to the Internet while an average of only 8% of the population accesses the Internet in African countries.
But ICT minister, Etienne Sinatambou, agrees that we should see beyond these statistics. “With globalisation, Mauritius must be more competitive to become a reference.”
This is why the government has been making some efforts to try and reach out to even more people. “As everyone can’t have a computer at home, we started a programme that will enable people to access the Internet in any post office,” said the executive director of the National Computer Board (NCB), Kemraz Mohee.
Dormant initiatives
The Infotech Fair is becoming an annual event and has attracted no less than 50,000 visitors this year. The primary objective of this fair was to promote the ICT sector with the Small and Medium Enterprises by showing them all the opportunities that IT could bring them in terms of growth.
Education is also an important way of making ICT accessible to all and making sure it contributes to the development of the country. The NCB executive director also recalled the fact that ICT is also part of the school syllabus from Forms I to III. Likewise, 400,000 persons are expected to be trained with the ICT Programme in the medium term.
However, in view of the conclusions of the report, all these efforts are obviously not enough to make sure ICT contributes to the development of the country. But, for Roshan Seetohul of Euro CRM, “this report should be a signal for policy-makers to face challenges”. He pointed at the “efforts made by the ministry” but said that there may be a “need to go quicker in making some decisions and improving the access to ICT”.
As for Dave Kisoondoyal, all the efforts made by the government and aimed at educating the public are laudable but “the public is not the only one to be concerned. The private sector and the government should also do their share”. Among other dormant initiatives, he wondered where the country is with the “electronic identity cards” and the “central database in hospitals”.
Likewise, he acknowledged that the private sector is making efforts individually but the government also has its role “as facilitator”. It could, for instance, help in the networking of SMEs and the setting up of an e-market place. “Other African countries have also dropped and the Mauritian situation is not so serious. But it is a pity that Mauritius has the means of making progress and even took some initiatives to do so without it going ever further,” concluded Dave Kissoondoyal.
Quelle/Source: L'express,15.08.2007
