Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 03 | Page 26

COUNTRY FOCUS
transformation of industries and societies are to deliver long-term gains . A digital economy calls for new types of leadership , governance , and behaviors . A critical ingredient for success of the emerging system will be agile governance that allow societies to anticipate the impact of emerging technologies and react to changing circumstances . From an economic stand-point there are implications for competition in product markets and labor market dynamics .
Governments can play a supportive role in creating a level playing field by ensuring a business environment that allows firms to quickly react to new developments . This includes speedy procedures for opening a new business and bringing products to market , providing a supportive innovation ecosystem , ensuring that barriers to entry stay low by enforcing a competition regime , promoting and facilitating ICT adoption by having a clear ICT strategy .
The spread of digital technologies is creating winners and losers within the labor force . As digital technologies are increasingly allowing for automation of routine jobs , they are currently accelerating polarisation of income distribution because middle-skilled workers are most affected up to this point . Many middle-skilled workers have been seeing their earnings decline or their jobs evaporate .
Economies need to face the challenge of upgrading the skills of workers at the upper end of the spectrum while ensuring that the rest of the population also receive necessary training to prosper in the digital world . Complex problemsolving skills comprise the set of skills that will be considered a core requirement by the largest share of jobs across industries . Skills that are not considered crucial today will account for about a third of the most-needed skills by 2020 .
Excerpted from Global Information Technology Report 2016 .
Networked Readiness Index
Trends in the value of Networked Readiness sub-Indexes .
Launched by the World Economic Forum in 2001 , the Networked Readiness Index can help to assess a country ’ s ability to capitalise on the digital revolution .
Environment The success of a country in leveraging ICTs depends in part on the quality of the overall operating environment . The environmental subindex is a weighed combination of the political and regulatory environment and the business and innovation environment within the country .
In order to assess the strength of the political and regulatory environment of the country the following parametres are used : Effectiveness of law-making bodies , Laws relating to ICT , Judicial independence , Efficiency of legal system in settling disputes , Efficiency of legal system in challenging regulations , Intellectual property protection , Software piracy rate , Number of procedures to enforce a contract , Number of days to enforce a contract .
In order to assess the internal business climate that fosters innovation the following parametres are used : Availability of latest technologies , Venture capital availability , Total tax rate , Number of days to start a business , Number of procedures to start a business , Intensity of local competition , Tertiary education gross enrollment rate , Quality of management schools , Government procurement of advanced technology products .
Readiness The readiness sub-index measures the extent to which a country has in place the infrastructure and other factors to support the uptake of ICTs . The readiness sub-index is a weighed combination of the infrastructure , business affordability and skills availability environment of ICT within the country .
The infrastructure indicators capture the state of a country ’ s ICT infrastructure as well as infrastructure that matters for ICT development . In order to assess the quality of the infrastructure within the country the following parametres are used : Electricity production , Mobile network coverage , International Internet bandwidth , Secure Internet servers .
The affordability indicators assess the affordability of ICTs in a country . In order to assess the business affordability , the following parametres are used : Prepaid mobile cellular tariffs , Fixed broadband Internet tariffs , Internet and telephony sectors competition index .
The skills indicators measure the capacity of the population to make effective use of ICT .
In order to assess the skills availability environment , the following parametres are used : Quality of education system , Quality of math and science education , Secondary education gross enrollment rate , Adult literacy rate .
Usage The usage sub-index assesses the level of ICT adoption by society ’ s main stakeholders : government , businesses , and individuals . The usage sub-index is a weighed combination of individual usage , business usage , and government usage of ICT . The individual usage indicators measure the level of diffusion of selected ICTs among a country ’ s population . In order to assess individual usage of ICT the following parametres are used : Mobile phone subscriptions per 100 population , Percentage of individuals using the Internet , Percentage of households with computer , Households with Internet access , Fixed broadband Internet subscriptions per 100 population , Mobile broadband Internet subscriptions per 100 population , Use of virtual social networks .
The business usage indicators capture , the extent to which businesses in a country use the Internet for business-to-business and businessto-consumer operations , as well as their efforts to integrate ICTs in their operations . In order to assess the business usage of ICT the following parametres are used : Firm-level technology absorption , Capacity for innovation , Patent applications per million population , ICT use for business-to-business transactions , Business-toconsumer Internet use , Extent of staff training .
The government usage indicators assesses the leadership and success in developing and implementing strategies for ICT development , as well as in using ICTs . In order to assess the government usage of ICT the following parametres are used : Importance of ICT to government vision , Government Online Service Index , government success in ICT promotion .
Impact The impact sub-index gauges the broad economic and social impacts accruing from ICTs . The impact sub-index is a weighed combination of the economic and social impact from usage of ICT .
The economic impact measures the effect of ICT on competitiveness through overall shift of an economy toward more knowledge intensive activities . In order to assess the economic impact of ICT the following parametres are used : Impact of ICTs on business models , ICT patent applications per million population , Impact of ICTs on organisational models , Knowledge intensive jobs .
The social impact measures the country ’ s societal progress brought about or enhanced by the use of ICTs . In order to assess the social impact of ICT the following parametres are used : Impact of ICT on access to basic services , Internet access in schools , ICT use and government efficiency , E-Participation Index .
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