Nigeria Ranks Low in Connectivity Rating
- By Abimbola Tooki
- Published May 16th, 2011
- News
- Unrated
NIGERIA is one of the lowest ranking nations in terms of connectivity scorecard. The scorecard is a global Information and Communications Technology (ICT) index, the first of its kind to rank 50 countries not only on their deployment of ICT infrastructure but also to measure the extent to which governments, businesses and consumers make use of connectivity technologies to enhance social and economic prosperity.
Connectivity Scorecard 2011 highlights the continued need for investment in information and communications technology (ICT) to stimulate a return to economic growth.
The rating, which was sponsored by Nokia, the global giant in handset manufacturing, divided the 50 countries into two halves of 25 each: the Innovation Driven Economies and Resource and Efficiency Driven Economies. Nigeria belongs to the latter and ranked 23 out of the 25 countries in this category. The last two countries in this category are Kenya and Bangladesh. Malaysia ranks number one followed by Chile and Russia. Sweden tops the Innovation Driven Economies.
According to the report, Nigeria, as one of the Resource and efficiency-driven economies, is less developed than any of the innovation-driven economies. It sometimes faces barriers to attaining a widespread connectivity infrastructure in geographical or policy form. The report, a copy of which was obtained by BusinessWorld Intelligence, also listed other challenges to include a market place not suited to foreign investors and a short-fall in the human capital needed to make use of the available infrastructure and thus increase connectivity.
The report noted that it is very difficult to separate ICT or connectivity from the overall developmental challenges that Nigeria and other countries in this category face. “It may well be the case that any effort to kick-start economic growth by investing heavily in connectivity related infrastructure may provide only a limited return as the human capital and infrastructural capital like roads, electricity and schools that are required to successfully utilise infrastructure remain under-developed,” the report said.
To a very large extent, the Connectivity Scorecard for Resource and Efficiency economies betrays a very high correlation with broader measures of economic development. This rather suggests that disparities in ICT adoption across what might be called the “developing” or “emerging” markets are perhaps significantly influenced by the relative costs of ICT. For instance, even the worst-performing countries like Nigeria in the rating have about 50 per cent of their population covered by mobile telephony, and adoption rates of at least 40 per cent of the population. On other measures, such as personal computer penetration, the disparities are far more pronounced.
Such evidence suggests that whereas some technology and some services have been successfully localised and made affordable and relevant to local needs in Nigeria, a lot of other ICT is perhaps too expensive and not yet adapted for use.
Conversely, the report said poor skills might be a major factor preventing adoption of such technologies in emerging markets like Nigeria’s.
This suggests a two-pronged effort to bring technology to the masses (and to make it an everyday part of business life) in the poorest emerging markets: First, an effort to develop lower-cost products such as low-cost laptop computers that are made easy-to-use yet functional, and second, an effort to improve skills (which must primarily stem from governments) so that people can make use of existing technologies. These (particularly the latter) are not easy challenges to face up to, but doing so would carry many benefits.
Connectivity Scorecard 2011 highlights the continued need for investment in information and communications technology (ICT) to stimulate a return to economic growth.
The rating, which was sponsored by Nokia, the global giant in handset manufacturing, divided the 50 countries into two halves of 25 each: the Innovation Driven Economies and Resource and Efficiency Driven Economies. Nigeria belongs to the latter and ranked 23 out of the 25 countries in this category. The last two countries in this category are Kenya and Bangladesh. Malaysia ranks number one followed by Chile and Russia. Sweden tops the Innovation Driven Economies.
According to the report, Nigeria, as one of the Resource and efficiency-driven economies, is less developed than any of the innovation-driven economies. It sometimes faces barriers to attaining a widespread connectivity infrastructure in geographical or policy form. The report, a copy of which was obtained by BusinessWorld Intelligence, also listed other challenges to include a market place not suited to foreign investors and a short-fall in the human capital needed to make use of the available infrastructure and thus increase connectivity.
The report noted that it is very difficult to separate ICT or connectivity from the overall developmental challenges that Nigeria and other countries in this category face. “It may well be the case that any effort to kick-start economic growth by investing heavily in connectivity related infrastructure may provide only a limited return as the human capital and infrastructural capital like roads, electricity and schools that are required to successfully utilise infrastructure remain under-developed,” the report said.
To a very large extent, the Connectivity Scorecard for Resource and Efficiency economies betrays a very high correlation with broader measures of economic development. This rather suggests that disparities in ICT adoption across what might be called the “developing” or “emerging” markets are perhaps significantly influenced by the relative costs of ICT. For instance, even the worst-performing countries like Nigeria in the rating have about 50 per cent of their population covered by mobile telephony, and adoption rates of at least 40 per cent of the population. On other measures, such as personal computer penetration, the disparities are far more pronounced.
Such evidence suggests that whereas some technology and some services have been successfully localised and made affordable and relevant to local needs in Nigeria, a lot of other ICT is perhaps too expensive and not yet adapted for use.
Conversely, the report said poor skills might be a major factor preventing adoption of such technologies in emerging markets like Nigeria’s.
This suggests a two-pronged effort to bring technology to the masses (and to make it an everyday part of business life) in the poorest emerging markets: First, an effort to develop lower-cost products such as low-cost laptop computers that are made easy-to-use yet functional, and second, an effort to improve skills (which must primarily stem from governments) so that people can make use of existing technologies. These (particularly the latter) are not easy challenges to face up to, but doing so would carry many benefits.
