Economy
Impact of Digital Economy Varies Widely Throughout the World
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A country’s ability to take advantage of information and communications technology in order to increase its competitiveness and well-being depends on its readiness quickly to implement and adopt new technologies as they appear. The World Economic Forum identifies this ability as network readiness, and in its 2016 “Global Information Technology Report” calculated a network readiness index (NRI) for 139 countries based on a country’s “preparedness to reap the benefits of emerging technologies and capitalize on the opportunities presented by the digital transformation and beyond.”
The index aggregates data from 53 indicators, organized on the basis of a networked readiness framework that incorporates four drivers, or subindexes:
Developed countries where citizens enjoy high-incomes dominate the top of the list. This group is known as the “Advanced Economies” and includes 34 of 35 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member nations in the top 50 nations (the exception is Mexico, ranked 76th).
Of the 32 nations categorized as Sub-Saharan Africa, 31 are among the bottom 39 ranked countries and just one, Mauritius in 49th, breaks into the top 50. This group dominates the bottom third of the list.
In between the top and bottom groups reside the world’s two largest developing nations, China at 59th and India at 91st. This middle group is dominated by Latin American and Asian nations that are often characterized as developing nations.
A few more highlights from the full report:
The report concludes:
[I]ndividual adoption is growing steadily across the globe as efforts continue to close the digital divide. Business executives are optimistic about their countries’ growing innovation capacities, yet the digital innovation impact is so far coming through much more strongly in some countries than in others—the gap between seven digital front runners and the followers is wide.
The following list shows the ranking of all 139 countries in the report.
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