May 2006
Down Time
By Karen B. Bitagun

With the theme “Leveraging ICT for Development,” this year’s Global IT Report, produced by the World Economic Forum together with the Information for Development Program (infoDev) of the World Bank and INSEAD, confirms the strong link between a country’s Networked Readiness Index and its overall global competitiveness. Simply put, Networked Readiness Index compares a country’s state of ICT environment with the rest of the world (represented by those included in the WEF annual survey). To generate the NRI, WEF uses a three-fold quantitative measure gauging: how much a country takes advantage of ICT (usage), how much prepared a country is for ICT revolution (readiness), and how much a country creates an atmosphere for future innovation (environment). The index is based on 66 variables.

In the 2006 Report, the United States grabbed the No. 1 spot with a 2.02 NRI score and overtook last year’s topnotcher, Singapore, which garnered a 1.89 score this year. A positive NRI score means that a country belonging to the top 50% of the countries surveyed fares relatively better in utilizing ICT compared to half a number of countries being surveyed. On the other hand, a negative NRI score means a relatively poor performance in the use of ICT. A score of zero, meanwhile, means a country performs relatively better than the countries that garnered negative scores. This year, the United States reaped the highest NRI score of 2.02 while Ethiopia posted a NRI score of minus 1.39 out of 115 countries surveyed.

Aside from the excellent quality of research and education as gauged by the survey, the United States’ top-notch performance was driven by its technical infrastructure and supportive market environment. On the other hand, Singapore, although named second best, remains a strong force in ICT because of its effective regulatory environment and world-class education and training. Nordic countries—Denmark, Iceland, Finland, and Sweden— maintained their places at No. 3, No. 4, No. 5, and No. 8 respectively, because of high ICT penetration rate in their economic activities.

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