A new report from the World Bank Group titled Information and Communications for Development: Extending Research and Increasing Impact looks at the ICT sector indicators in 150 economies and introduces new performance measures in terms of access, affordability and ICT adoption in government and businesses. The economies have been evaluated and given a score on a scale from 1 to 10, corresponding to the performance deciles, for each of the dimensions of ICT sector performance: (i) access to ICT services, (ii) affordability of ICT services, and (iii) adoption of ICT applications in government and businesses.
Overall, as would be expected, there is a close relationship between the country ICT performance measures and income levels. The leading economies in ICT performance are mainly developed economies, attesting their high levels of accessibility, affordability and ICT usage. Canada, Denmark, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom score 10 (the maximum) on all three measures.
Among developing countries, some stand out as better ICT performers than their incomes would suggest, such as Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Syria, Jordan, Vietnam and Moldova in terms of access and Malaysia, Jordan, Peru, Guatemala, India and Mongolia in terms of adoption of ICT applications.
The highest-scoring developing economies are all upper middle-income and mostly countries in Central and Eastern Europe (Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, and Turkey) and Latin America (Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico), but they also include Malaysia and Mauritius. Most of these countries have effective regulation, competitive telecommunications markets and strong governmental support for ICT. In case of Central and Eastern European countries, convergence of domestic legislation with the EU telecommunications framework has led to more liberalised ICT industries. These countries have also benefitted from the establishment and strengthening of robust institutions to enforce fair competition rules.
Among the high-scoring Latin American countries, results show that the early ICT sector reform practiced by Chile and Mexico is paying dividends. While Costa Rica historically has had a relatively uncompetitive sector, the government has dedicated resources to telecommunications, particularly fixed telephony, throughout the country. In addition, Costa Rica?s comparatively high level of literacy and efforts to develop an export-oriented, IT-enabled services industry contribute to its high applications score. Similarly, Malaysia and Mauritius have pursued outward-looking export strategies for ICT goods & services and liberalised their telecommunications sectors to attract infrastructure investment.
Within the group of lower-middle-income countries, China, Jordan, Thailand and Ukraine score highest, while Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Pakistan have the highest performance measures in the low-income bracket.
At the bottom of the overall measures are seven countries with a score of 1 (the minimum) in all three dimensions, all of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.
In each of these seven countries, access to telephony is below 5% of the population, access to the Internet and personal computers below 0.1%, and less than 10% of the households have a television. Combined tariffs on fixed and mobile phone services and Internet services in these countries are two to five times the average income, and there are extremely low levels of ICT application use. Although weak ICT performance of these countries is partly the result of low-average incomes, it is mainly due to weak regulation, limited competition, lack of private investment and lack of supporting infrastructure such as electricity. In many other countries in the region, significant improvements have taken place, particularly in the access and affordability dimensions.
In fact, sub-Saharan Africa has experienced the highest mobile phone growth rate of all regions since market reform began in about 2000. Some developing countries?such as Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine, Macedonia, Syria, Jordan, Vietnam and Moldova in terms of access and Malaysia, Jordan, Peru, Guatemala, India and Mongolia in terms of adoption of ICT applications?stand out as better ICT performers than their incomes would suggest.
However, some countries are not doing as well in ICT performance as they could be given their income level. Countries in this category include upper-middle income economies such as Botswana, Cuba, Gabon and Libya (see figure). The country ICT performance measures also illustrate different levels of achievement for the various dimensions in each developing region (see figure). Europe and Central Asia scores highest in the access measure, whereas the Middle East and North Africa lead in affordability and Latin America and the Caribbean leads in adoption of ICT applications. The developing region with the lowest measures is Sub-Saharan Africa, scoring less than 3 on the 1-10 scale in all three dimensions.