The World Economic Forum recently published its Global Information Technology Report 2014, entitled “Rewards and Risks of Big Data”. Itis a special project within the framework of the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking Network and the Industry Partnership Programme for Information and Communication Technologies, and evaluates countries based on their information and communication technologies (ICTs).
Here is what the World Bank had to say about Egypt’s IT-status in 2014:
Egypt, at 91st place, falls 11 positions despite a slight improvement in individual ICT uptake (71st), which has nevertheless been smaller than the improvement seen by other countries that have evolved faster. Overall, Egypt continues to lag behind in terms of developing its ICT infrastructure (99th), although it remains fairly affordable (16th). ICT uptake by government is average (42nd), but penetration among citizens (71st) — with less than half its population using the Internet (75th)—and businesses, in their interaction with other businesses (81st) and consumers (70th), remain modest. Weaknesses in the political and regulatory environment (115th) and the business and innovation environment (117th) result in a low innovation capacity by Egyptian companies (111th) and thus limited economic (59th) and social (65th) positive outcomes.
What Egypt was good at (Worldwide Rank of 20 and below – out of 148):
- Affordability of network – Rank 16
- Mobile cellular tariffs, PPP $/min – Rank 8
- Fixed broadband Internet tariffs, PPP $/month – Rank 11
- E-Participation Index – Rank 15
What Egypt was bad at (Worldwide Rank of 130 and above – out of 148):
- Effectiveness of law-making bodies – Rank 135
- No. of days to enforce a contract – Rank 132
- Intensity of local competition – Rank 131
- Quality of Management Schools – Rank 145
- Quality of educational system – Rank 145
- Quality of math & science education – Rank 145
- Gov’t success in ICT promotion – Rank 131
- Importance of ICTs to gov’t vision – Rank 141
- Extent of staff training – Rank 138
To find out more, download the complete profile.
