Johannesburg - Local experts say a lack of government direction is a key reason for South Africa falling lower on an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) ‘ICT Development Index’ (IDI).
The ITU this week unveiled its 2014 Measuring the Information Society (MIS) Report that ranks 166 countries on their technology performance in areas such as ICT infrastructure, access, use and skills.
The report details data and analysis on the state of global ICT development, while the ITU has also said the report “is extensively relied upon by governments, financial institutions and private sector analysts worldwide”.
And results from this year’s report indicate that South Africa has fallen from position 89 in 2012 to 90 in 2013 as it has an IDI value of 4.42.
Three other African nations have scored higher than South Africa with these being Egypt (89), Seychelles (75) and Mauritius (70). Meanwhile, the top five nations in the index are Denmark, South Korea, Sweden, Iceland and the United Kingdom.
“The African regional IDI is the lowest of all six regions,” said the ITU in its report.
“Only two countries – Mauritius (5.22) and Seychelles (4.97) – lie above the global IDI average (4.77).
“South Africa, with an IDI value of 4.42, falls just below the global average, but together with Cape Verde and Botswana achieves a higher value than the developing-country average (3.84) in the IDI 2013,” said the ITU.
The research, though, stated that Mauritius, Seychelles, South Africa and Cape Verde (at position 93) are the only African countries in the top 100 of the IDI 2013.
On a more positive note, the ITU said that wireless broadband usage in South Africa is growing, as it reached 29% of mobile users in the country at the end of 2013.
“Wireless broadband is of particular importance in the region because fixed-broadband infrastructure is lacking,” said the ITU.
Regarding fixed line services, the ITU added “Cape Verde and South Africa are the third and fourth African countries with the highest fixed (wired)-broadband penetration, at 4% and 3%, respectively”.
SA government direction lacking
Two South African technology experts say that the country’s government and regulatory decisions are holding back its ICT prospects.
“Regulatory sloth is a key issue, when one considers that WiMAX still has not been licensed about six or seven years after it should have been rolled out, and LTE remains forever on the horizon,” Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of research firm World Wide Worx, told Fin24.
“Implementation of policy has slowed to a standstill after a highly promising bout of planning and policy development under the previous Minister of Communications, Yunus Carrim.
“The inability of government to move on digital terrestrial TV simply underlines the stagnation we are experiencing,” Goldstuck added.
Adrian Schofield – manager for the Applied Research Unit at the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) – told Fin24 that in a country such as Egypt, the government there provides better support for the ICT sector than in South Africa.
Schofield further told Fin24 that SA’s lower ITU ranking could be blamed on “government’s lack of comprehension about the potential contribution of ICT to growth and development across the board and failure to recognise damage done by abysmal performance to date”.
Last week, Schofield also hit out at the South African government’s slow pace on developing an ICT policy for the country.
His report on South Africa’s ICT skills landscape further painted a bleak picture by indicating that the country’s basic education system is not up to scratch.
The report highlighted how 45% of corporate respondents to the ICT skills survey said South Africa’s skills shortage is having a major effect on their business.* Follow @GarethvanZyl on Twitter. For more tech news, follow Fin24tech @Fin24_Tech.