Government is failing to use information and communications technology to improve its operations; and the costs of access to the wired world remain way too high, stifling productivity.
This is according to the findings of a report by the World Economic Forum, in association with Insead Business School of Switzerland, on the progress and impact of information technology around the world.
While such reports and rankings are a useful policy guide for emerging markets seeking to accelerate economic growth, the link between income growth on the one hand and technology on the other is unclear.
Is it that higher incomes foster the communications technology usage which in turn leads to faster economic growth, or does the initial impetus come from growth itself?
Certainly, the Chinese experience seems to suggest that rising incomes promote information technology usage rather than the other way around.
One point, however, that is clear from the report is the close correlation between network readiness and competitiveness. The report includes a graph showing that household broadband penetration and a country’s competitive ranking are closely correlated. The lesson for emerging markets in Africa, most of which score very poorly on competitiveness, is that infrastructural, market and legislative obstacles to technology uptake must be eradicated.
In SA’s case, the key task is to improve education standards, especially in the sciences, but policy makers are well aware of that already.
The Global Information Technology Report (2010-2011) ranks 138 countries on its network readiness league table.
Access costs in SA are high and the country ranks 129th for monthly residential telephone subscriptions, 102nd for mobile cellular tariffs and 79th for broadband Internet tariffs. The report says government is also failing to provide adequate e-services to its citizens.
SA does score highly on a wide range of indicators, including the first-class quality of its markets and regulatory environment along with excellent financial markets and well-developed intellectual property legislation. Nonetheless the uptake of ICT remains weak, which the report suggests largely reflects “poor educational standards”, notably in science and maths, where the country ranks 136th out of 138 countries worldwide.
The table highlights the leadership of Nordic countries and the Asian Tiger economies in the adoption and implementation of information and communications technology to achieve accelerated growth and development.
The top 10 in the league table include the four Nordics, led by Sweden in first place and Finland in third, along with Singapore (2nd), Taiwan (6th) and South Korea (10th). The other three in the top 10 are Switzerland (4th), the US (5th) and Canada (8th). Sub-Saharan countries cluster towards the bottom of the table, filling seven of the bottom 10 places, four of them SADC countries — Swaziland, Angola, Zimbabwe and Madagascar. As is often the case in global league tables, Mauritius gets the highest ranking for a sub-Saharan economy at 47th, up six places since last year, followed by SA, up one in 61st place.
The index is compiled on the basis of three subindices — one for the environment, one for readiness and the third for usage, all with 33% weightings. On the whole, readiness rankings mirror income levels. No surprise therefore that sub- Saharan Africa — the region with the lowest per capita incomes — also has the lowest average score for network readiness of 3,3 compared with 4,7 for high- income countries. With just two exceptions, Gambia and Kenya, all low-income countries rank in the bottom third of the table.
For all the hype about Brics, none makes the top 30 of early adopters. China does best, placed 36th, and well ahead of all the others, especially Russia (77th). China is ranked amongst the 10 most dynamic countries, having leapfrogged 23 places in the past five years. The category , surprisingly, includes four sub-Saharan countries: Gambia, Kenya, Zambia and Mozambique. But India has slipped back to 48th position while all the Brics, except Russia, rank ahead of wannabe SA.
Below the top performers in terms of technology usage is a second tier of states ranked between 76th and 84th on the index, comprising Gambia, Senegal, Kenya, Namibia and Cape Verde, several of which have made impressive moves up the league table in recent years. But the bulk of sub-Saharan countries are laggards, apparently unable to move up the table — or actually losing ground.
The report notes that even though ICT penetration rates in sub-Saharan Africa have soared recently, boosted by mobile telephony, the region has failed to match the progress of other emerging markets. Underdeveloped infrastructure, inefficient markets, opaque regulatory environments, inadequate educational standards and widespread poverty are, it says, “powerful obstacles” to the more extensive and efficient use of new technologies for increased development and prosperity.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Tony Hawkins
Quelle/Source: FM, 05.05.2011
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