Towards Meaningful ICT Indicators for Developing Countries

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Towards Meaningful ICT Indicators for Developing
Countries
Government and Education
Dr. Ahmed M. Darwish EGYPT
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Agenda

• Why?
• What?
• Macro-level Indicators
• Micro-Level Indicators
• Observations
• Recommendations
• Egypt Efforts

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Why?
Why

• E-readiness assessments
• Guide development efforts by providing benchmarks
  for comparison and gauging progress
• Determine the current situation in order to plan
  for the future and advocate specific changes
• Help Policy and decision makers.

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ICT Indicators
Level

• ICT indicators measure
• Readiness
• Use/intensity
• Impact
• Outcome
• Macro Level (Global) Indicators Country level
• Micro Level (Local) Indicators Ministries,
  Governorates, Directories, and Individual
  Administrative Units.

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What?

• Infrastructure and access indicators
• Households and individuals indicators
• Business indicators
• ICT impact indicators
• ICT in education
• E-government
• ICT for health applications
• Indigenous status
• Content

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Macro Level ICT Indicators

• Telephone Network
• Carrier services
• Fixed telephony services
• Mobile telephony Services
• Other services (Data Services)
• Private network services
• Data transmission services
• Traffic
• Staff
• Quality of Service
• Tariffs
• Revenue and Expense

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Macro Level Indicators

• Capital Expenditure (Investment)
• Broadcasting
• Information Technology
• Internet Indicators
• Internet backbone services
• Internet access services
• Other internet telecommunications services
• Household levels
• Accessibility
• Broadcasting
• Policy and regulations

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Micro level Indicators

• Methods for Gathering information through
• Personal interviews
• Telephone interviews
• Computer based questionnaires
• Internet Service Providers (ISP) surveys
• Internet traffic and web site analysis
• Other sources and methods used in private sector
  surveys

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Observations

• A range of assessment tools
• developed to measure a country ICT e-readiness
• 16 just in the past few years!
• (Mostly Macro country level)
• Tools widely vary in
• Definitions
• Methods of measurement
• Assessments vary considerably in
• Goals
• Results!!
• ?No standard e-readiness assessment policy
• No global unified set of ICT Indicators.

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Problem / Opportunity

• These reports are gaining popularity
• They are used by Investors and Donors
• Some of them achieved credibility

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Recommendations
Can we re-think

• Review formulas to reflect realistic meaning full
  situation
• Q? Is it sound/fair to relate to population?
• Q? Will it be more reasonable to think of
  population (demographic) structure?
• Mechanism to collect and update
• Are we all using the same definition for the
  same year for all measured data?

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Egypt Efforts
EGYPT

• Ministry of State for Administrative Development
• Got the mandate to
• Measure and Publish
• ICT readiness on the micro-level

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Objectives
Scope

• Measure the level of information technology use
  in government organizations to
• Enhance the level of performance of work cycles
  in administrative units of the state.
• Improve efficiency of performance and work among
  government organizations.
• Facilitate and help civil servants and IT staff
  for better use of information technology.

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Benefits

• Create an effective e-culture and work field
  environment in government administration units in
  coordination with IT representatives of
  ministries and administrative units.
• Study the impact of Readiness Index on the
  economic and investment environment of the state
  to attract investment in Egypt.
• Contribute to the enhancement of the
  International competitiveness index for Egypt.
• Create opportunities for e-government candidate
  projects

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Procedure

• An Initial scan questionnaire to measure internal
  ICT infrastructure has been developed and
  distributed.
• A database was designed for the collected data
  and deduced results.
• Some statistical analysis have been performed on
  the collected results.

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Details

• Initial scan questionnaire w2ere designed to
  evaluate the ICT infrastructure readiness of both
  
• Central Government Local Governorates and
  Directories (579 Unit - 229350)
• The questionnaire was divided into 7 sections
• Hardware and Peripherals
• Networking facilities
• Software and applications
• Internet and Web presence
• Human resources
• IT usage plan
• Security and protection systems

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Produced Bi-Annually

• A 2nd questionnaire was designed to measure the
  work automation, work cycle and readiness to
  offer e-government service.
• It has 11 sub index categories to measure and
  assess.
• The same procedure was followed to calculate
  outcome results

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Glimpse of 1st release

• 81.1 of government departments use office
  applications.
• 94.5 of computer (PC) users in Government are
  not from an Engineering/Computer background nor
  did they have a formal certificate of computers
• (Just regular training courses or sessions)
• ?Shows how employees are interested to upgrade
  themselves and
• how do they think that ICT is an important
  factor for career pursuing.

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Response 163 out of 229 in Central Government

• Of surveyed government entities
• 66 have e-mail
• 60 have web sites
• 84 of those who have a web site update it
  regularly (term regular vary in definition!)
• 31 use an Intranet
• 36 exchange some data with other entities over
  the Internet
• 76 have plans for upgrade and development.

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Response 333 out of 350 entities in Local
Government

• Of surveyed government entities
• 19 have e-mail
• 22 have web sites
• 58 of those who have a web site update it
  regularly (term regular vary in definition!)
• 8 use an Intranet
• 13 exchange some data with other entities over
  the Internet
• 29 have plans for upgrade and development.

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Glimpse of 2nd release

• 58 of government departments have work
  automation strategy and plans (86 central 34
  local).
• 40 of government departments have undergoing ICT
  projects (51 central 30 local)
• the overall number of ICT projects is 279 (169
  central 110 local).

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Central Government

• Of surveyed government entities (163)
• 67 have citizen complain system
• 66 provide internal training facilities for
  their employees
• 69 of ICT projects are financed by the
  government
• 75 has internal technical support

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Local Government

• Of surveyed government entities (333)
• 68 have citizen complaint system
• 50 provide internal training facilities for
  their employees
• 55 of ICT projects are financed by the
  government
• 50 has internal technical support

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Education

• 38K schools
• All connected to Internet
• (dial-up, less than 1000 via DSL)
• All have computer labs
• (ration is smaller than 1 PC for each 20
  students)
• New Project Smart Schools
• Use Computers for teaching
• Ratio 1 PC for every 5 students
• Make sure at least 2 contact hrs per day

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• Thank you
• For more information
• Please visit us
• http//www.ad.gov.eg
• http//www.egypt.gov.eg
• Or contact us
• darwish_at_ad.gov.eg
• info_at_ad.gov.eg