South Africa amongst top leading countries in terms internet inclusion
Communications Deputy Minister, Pinky Kekana is currently in Barcelona, Spain representing South Africa at the GSMA Mobile World Conference 2019. The Deputy Minister launched the Internet Inclusion Index during an expert panel discussion led by Facebook and the Economist.
The index benchmarks national level internet inclusion, concentrating on four categories: Availability, Affordability, Relevance and Readiness. The latest index covers approximately 100 countries.
The key findings of the index were that:
South Africa is ranked highly in terms of competitiveness in broadband markets, and first in Africa and second on the continent in so for as internet availability is concerned. With regard to affordability South Africa is ranked second on the continent and 31st in the world.
Most notably South Africa is ranked 4th in world in terms of internet readiness. Internet readiness has four components namely e-infrastructure , e-participation, IT-environment, and government e-services.
“Our regulator, the Information Communication Authority of South Africa is on the verge of finalizing a comprehensive end user subscription policy, which will have the effect of reducing the cost to communicate substantially. It is documented that good policies have a direct bearing on the affordability data, said Pinky Kekana.
“We are also convinced that if we focus on creating platforms for the creative industry to utilize on the internet the relevance of the content on the internet from a South African perspective will improve significantly.”
“From the index it appears that South Africa is certainly on the right path and this internet index proves that there is a necessity for government in this sector capacitate, itself and fill in the gaps where they arise such as the digital gender gap,” added the Deputy Minister.
The internet inclusion index can be accessed on: https://impact.economist.com:443/projects/inclusive-internet-index/
Inquiry:
Chrispin Phiri
Cell: 066 304 6598
