Africa’s Readiness To Use ICT

The World Economic Forum recently released the Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009. The Network Readiness Index (NRI) shows countries are prepared to use ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) effectively.

The report, sponsored by Cisco articulates that Denmark, Sweden, U.S, Singapore and Switzerland occupy the first five slots respectively.
Africa is not doing well, probably as expected. Of the 134 countries indexed, Tunisia is at number 38, Mauritius 51, South Africa 52, Egypt 76, Botswana 77, Senegal 80, Morocco 86, Nigeria 90, Gambia 91, Namibia 92, Kenya 97 and others. At the other end, Zimbabwe is two places from behind at 132 ahead of (East Timor) and Chad, Uganda is at 120 while Ethiopia is at 129.

According to The Zimbabwe Standard, 10 years ago, the country had the second fastest growing ICT sector in Sub-Saharan Africa behind South Africa. Years of economic turmoil seem to have reversed the trend. The paper reports…

Nelson Chamisa, Information Communication Technology Minister said the ministry is on a consultative process with stakeholders on how the sector could be improved.

To date the ministry has held two meetings to plot the way forward which Chamisa said “will inform our policy matrix as a government”.

Chamisa said players have also raised the issue of accessories such as laptops, sim cards, computers and cellphones being regarded as luxury goods and the ministry was liaising with the Treasury on how the goods should be classified as necessities.