SADC’s ICT performance disappointing

Lazarus Sauti

Southern Africa has been hard hit with poverty and disease and this has had an immense effect on the quality of social, cultural and political lives of its citizens.

This has made development in the region to move at a snail pace in the past decades.

Nevertheless the presence of modern technologies has to some extent imprinted out an alternative path to development.

This is so because information and communication technologies hold the potential of transforming economies and societies.

Espen Barth Eide, the Managing Director of the World Economic Forum (WEF) agrees.

“The ICT revolution holds the potential of transforming economies and societies and of addressing some of the most pressing global challenges of our time.

“This ICT revolution is well under way in some parts of the world.

“In these places, it is even accelerating as a result of the ubiquity of broadband Internet, the democratisation of technologies, and the accelerating pace of innovation,” he noted.

With its potential, and judging from the Global Information Technology Report 2015, a special project within the framework of the WEF’s Global Competitiveness and Risks Team and the Industry Partnership Programme for Information and Communication Technologies, Southern Africa’s information technology (IT) performance in terms of leveraging ICT in overall political and business environment, the level of ICT readiness and usage of ICT among the population, businesses and government, as well as the overall impacts of ICTs on the economy and society at large is disappointing.

The report states that 30 of the 31 Sub-Saharan African countries included in the sample appear in the bottom half of the Global Information Technology Report 2015 Executive Summary Networked Readiness Index (NRI) rankings.

“The performance of sub-Saharan Africa is particularly disappointing: 30 of the 31 countries included in the sample appear in the bottom half of the NRI rankings.

“The only exception is Mauritius, at 45^th. This country has progressed three places since last year and eight since 2012,” states the report, adding that South Africa drops five to 75^th – it is now third in the region behind Mauritius and Seychelles (74^th).

Other SADC countries are ranked as follows: Namibia (102), Botswana (104), Zambia (114), Zimbabwe (121), Tanzania (123), Lesotho (124), Swaziland (125), Mozambique (129), Malawi (133), and Madagascar (135).

According to the report, like many other developing nations, SADC member-states are failing to exploit the potential of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to drive social and economic transformation.

For instance, despite great progress in Internet uptake and enormous growth potential of Internet services, a large portion of the SADC’s urban and rural population still have no access to the Internet.

In addition, although ICTs are becoming increasingly affordable in many developing countries, most SADC countries lag behind. “The difficulty faced by this region in mastering the infrastructure-affordability-usage nexus is particularly worrisome,” affirmed the report.

Data from the report’s NRI – which measures 143 economies in terms of their capacity to prepare for, use and leverage ICTs – cements this notion as it revealed that the gap between the best and worst performing economies is also widening.

Those in the top 10 per cent have seen twice the level of improvement since 2012 as those in the bottom 10 per cent.

“This demonstrates the scale of the challenge facing developing and emerging nations as they seek to develop the infrastructure, institutions and skills needed to reap the full benefits of ICTs,” read the World Economic Forum statement.

To close the digital gap, countries in the SADC region need embrace ICTs as tools of development.

They also need to develop their ICT ecosystems, and this implies long-term as well as costly investments in infrastructure and education.

Government sectors and business leaders in the region can create an enabling environment by promoting competition through sound regulation and liberalisation.

“Policymakers must accelerate liberalisation, boost public investment, and work closely with international and domestic businesses to attract private investment and encourage innovation,” noted the report.

The Global Information Technology Report 2015 also established: “In this effort, connecting rural areas of developing countries to broadband networks must be a priority.

“Since those areas lack other infrastructure and access to public services, the benefits brought about by ICTs will have especially momentous impact.

“Improving the framework conditions and the readiness of the population will also increase the potential of this impact.”

Honestly, ICTs hold the potential of transforming economies and societies.

They can help address some of the most pressing issues of our time along with supporting inclusive growth, but to realise this all-important potential of ICTs as a growth amplifier, SADC countries must take action to close the digital gap.

They must pay attention to the growing gap within their borders, between the younger and the older generations, the urban and rural dwellers, the information-rich and the information-poor, the digitally literate and those left behind.