#wtis2016: Kenya ranks position 129 in the Global ICT Development Index 2016

Kenya has maintained its position as at last year. In Africa, Kenya was ranked position nine after Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa, Cape Verde, Botswana, Ghana, Namibia and Gabon.

However, Kenya achieved an improvement in its IDI score by 0.21 up from 2.78 in 2015 to 2.99 in 2016. Côte d’Ivoire achieved an improvement in its IDI value of 0.44 points between 2015 and 2016 making it the most dynamic country in Africa in terms of IDI value. It also moved up six places in the global IDI rankings. Namibia improved its IDI score from 3.20 in 2015 to 3.64 in 2016 ranking it second from Cote d’Ivore.

The Global ICT Development Index (IDI) as part of the Measuring the Information Society Report, an annual report that presents a global and regional overview of the latest developments regarding information and communication technologies (ICTs), based on internationally comparable data and agreed methodologies.

The report aims to stimulate the ICT policy debate in ITU Member States by providing an objective assessment of how countries have performed in the field of ICT and by highlighting areas that need further improvement.

“This year’s results show that nearly all of the 175 countries covered by the index improved their IDI values between 2015 and 2016. During the same period, stronger improvements have been made on ICT use than access, mainly as a result of strong growth in mobile-broadband uptake globally. This has allowed an increasing number of people, in particular from the developing world, to join the information society and benefit from the many services and applications provided through the Internet,” said Brahima Sanou, Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT), ITU.

According to the report Africa region registered by far the lowest regional average IDI performance. Only three countries in the region – the Indian Ocean island states of Mauritius and Seychelles, together with South Africa – fall into the two upper quartiles of the IDI distribution or exceed the global average value in IDI 2016, while only these and two other countries – Cape Verde and Botswana – exceed the average value of 4.07 for developing countries.

By contrast, 29 out of 39 African countries in the Index rank as Least Connected Countries (LCCs) in the lowest quartile of the distribution, and the region includes all ten countries at the bottom of the global rankings. A number of African LDCs are not included in the Index, and it is likely that at least some of these would also have IDI values within the lowest quartile if data were available.

These findings illustrate the extent to which Africa lags behind other regions in ICT development, and the importance of addressing the region’s ongoing digital divide. All countries in the region showed some improvement in IDI value between 2015 and 2016, although in 11 countries this improvement was marginal (less than 0.10 points). The average improvement recorded was 0.18 points, less than the average improvement of 0.22 points for developing countries.

The ten countries at the top of the African rankings achieved an average improvement in their IDI values of 0.33 points, well above the global average of 0.20, while the remaining countries in the region, all of which are in the LCC quartile, managed an average improvement of just 0.14 points.

Only four countries in the lower half of the regional distribution – Rwanda, Liberia, Ethiopia and Burundi – raised their IDI value by more than 0.20 points. This supports the suggestion that LDCs may be falling further behind other developing countries in ICT development.

Across the Africa region as a whole, the indicators making up the IDI which showed the greatest improvement were mobile-cellular penetration and mobile-broadband penetration. A particularly strong improvement in mobile-cellular penetration was recorded in Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, South Africa and Tanzania, although this indicator also fell in nine countries in the region, including by a substantial margin in Namibia and Mali.

Various factors may account for these reductions: in Mali, for example, the reduction followed a change in the law requiring identification of mobile subscribers.2 Particularly strong improvements in mobile-broadband penetration were recorded in Botswana, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Namibia and Rwanda.

The most significant increases in fixed telephony and fixed broadband occurred in South Africa.The biggest improvements in IDI values in the region were made by Côte d’Ivoire (up 0.44 points, lifting it out of the LCC quartile), Namibia (0.43 points), Botswana (0.38 points), Cape Verde (0.37 points) and Rwanda and South Africa (each 0.34 points).The countries which were in the top group of African performers secured only marginal improvements in their global rankings in spite of strong performances in terms of IDI values. Namibia and Botswana moved up only one place in the global rankings, and Cape Verde two places, while South Africa actually dropped down two places in the global rankings in spite of

The countries which were in the top group of African performers secured only marginal improvements in their global rankings in spite of strong performances in terms of IDI values. Namibia and Botswana moved up only one place in the global rankings, and Cape Verde two places, while South Africa actually dropped down two places in the global rankings in spite of improvement in its IDI value that was well above average.

This is because they were ranked alongside other middle-income developing countries which also achieved a relatively high improvement in their average IDI. Countries lower down the African distribution, such as Côte d’Ivoire and Rwanda, made much bigger leaps up the global rankings because they were ranked alongside lower-income LCCs whose average IDI improvement was much smaller.

This discrepancy in dynamism within the Index between IDI rankings and values again illustrates the growing gap between middle-ranking countries and LCCs.