ct and human development: towards building a composite index for asia

8/12/2019 CT and Human Development: Towards Building a Composite Index for Asia

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ICT and HumanDevelopment: TowardsBuilding a CompositeIndex for AsiaReali sing the Mi llennium

Development Goals

Published for the

United Nati ons

Development

Programme

ELSEVIER

A Division of Reed Elsevier

India Pvt. Ltd.

2004

2004

Technical Paper



Published By:

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Abbreviations

ALA- Arab and Lat in America

DM-Division by Mean

EDC-Educa tiona l Development Centre

FDI-Foreign Direct Investments

GCR-Globa l Compe titiveness Report

GDP- Gross Domestic Product

HDI-Human Development Index

HDR-Human Development Report

ICT- Informat ion Communication Technology

IDRC- Interna tiona l Development Research Centre

MDG-Millennium Development Goa l

ODA- Overseas Development Assistance

OECD-Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

PPP-Purchasing Power Parity

RE-Rang e Eq ualisat ion

SIBIS-Stat istical Indicato rs Benchma rking the Information Society

UN-United Nat ions

UNDP-United Nations Development Programme

UNIFEM-United Nations Development Fund for Women

WDR-World Development Repo rt

WHO-World Health Orga nisat ion

WSIS-World Summit on Informa tion Society


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ContentsPrologue iiiAbbreviations iv

Sections1

1 Int ro duct io n

2 Pattern of interdependence between development of ICTand attainment of the MDGs:A cross-country analysis 22.1. Relationships betw een ICTand MDG-linked indicators:175 countries of the world 32.2. Interrelationships betw een ICTand MDG-linked indicators across the four

regions of the world 4

3 Impact of ICTon socio-economic development as observed in developing countries 5

4 Anchoring ICTin Millennium Development Goals 94.1. Overview of recent initiatives and limitations of existing data sources 94.2. A framework for identification of indicators for construction of a

compo site index 10

4.3. Identification of different dimensions of development and theirconstituent ICTindicators 11

4.4 Rat ionale for selection of indicators 12

5 Working out component indices pertaining to different aspects of ICTdevelopmentand the aggregate index 135.1. The methodology 135.2. Indices obtained through range equalisation method5.3. Indices obtained through division by mean method 165.4. Comparison of the alternate sets of indices 17

6 In Brief 19

List of Tables

Table 1. Five component indices and the a gg regate index as obtained by range eq ualisationmethod for nine Asian countries 15

Table 2. Five component Indices and the ag grega te index obta ined by division by meanmethod for nine Asian countries 17

List of Figures

Figure 1. Availab ility-linked compo nent indices by RE methodfor nine Asian countries 15

Figure 2. Efficiency and speed component indices by RE methodfor nine Asian countries 15

Figure 3. Social sector targeting component indices by RE method

for nine Asian countries 15Figure 4. Vulnerable group ta rgeting compo nent indices by RE method

for nine Asian countries 16Figure 5. Agg regate index of ICTcomponent indices by RE method

for nine Asian countries 16Figure 6. Availab ility-linked component indices by DM method

for nine Asian countries 16


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Figure 7. Efficiency and speed component indices by DM methodfor nine Asian countries 17

Figure 8. Social sector target ing component indices by DM methodfor nine Asian countries 17

Figure 9. Vulnerable group targeting compo nent indices by DM methodfor nine Asian countries 17

Figure 10. Agg rega te index of ICTcompo nent indices by DM methodfor nine Asian countries 18

Appendices

Appendix I : List of indicators used for correlation analysis 22Appendix II : Indicators of ICTdevelopment under different Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs), as per the guidelines of the UN ICTTask Force 24Appendix III: Indicators used for construction of indices pertaining to ICTdevelopment 26Appendix IV: Methodology for construction of composite indices 27Appendix V : Mean and coefficient of variation of the indicators pertaining to d ifferent

aspects of ICTdevelopment 28

References 29

ICT and Human Development: Towards Building a Composite Index for Asia



Introduction

Planners, policy makers and researchers hold

highly polarised and equivocal views on the dif-

fusion of Information and Communication

Technology (ICT), its role in promoting ob jectives

such as poverty a lleviat ion, universal education,reduction in mortality and health hazards, and

sustainable development, and in bridging t he

digital as well as socio-economic divides in the

world. Many consider ICTto b e the o nly possible

means of achieving the above-mentioned goals

within a reasonable time frame,through techno-

logical leapfrogg ing. An equally vociferous view,

on the other hand , is tha t ICTis of no g reat value

and could even be detrimental to the less-

developed world,particularly for populations that

are economically and socially underprivileged.

Notw ithstanding the controversy, most po licystatements, research reports and overview docu-

ments at both international and national levels,

have regarded positive impact of ICTon socio-

economic development to be self-evident.1 These

have applied standard measures like the share of

ICTin income or investment and the number of

consumer units relat ive to population, for cross-

country compa risons.Such measures would hard-

ly reveal whether or how the grow th o f ICTs or

their diffusion in different countries lead to reduc-

tion in poverty or to o ther socio-economic goa ls.

Understanda bly, opinions of planners andresearchers on choice of indicators vary widely,

often depending on their own experience.

Indeed, the impact of ICTin a country or a region

depends on its nature, the purpose of its deploy-

ment and its spatial spread, besides the econom-

ic, administrative and social environment backing

up the strateg y of its diffusion. In this context,

assembling empirical evidence on the impact of

ICTon human development is of key importance.

It would,therefore,be useful to begin by ana lysingthe nature of interdependencies between the

indicators of ICTdevelopment and those reflect-

ing human development concerns for the

achievement of the Millennium Development

Goa ls (MDGs),that were adopted by 191 countries

at the historic UN Millennium Summit in

September 2000.2 This should be done sepa rately

for the developed and less-developed countries.

In the present report,a n attempt is made to map

the pace and pattern of development of ICTin

less-developed countries, ba sed on in-dept h

empirical studies conducted in recent years,

focusing on t he Asian region. A critical review ofthe UNDP-sponsored country studies on the pro-

mot ion of ICT tow ards achieving the MDGs is

extremely useful in this regard, as these stud ies

specifically look into the g rowth of ICTin the con-

text o f at ta inment of the MDGs. This will help in

the ident ification of indicators tha t reflect the lev-

els of development of ICTin terms of t he capacity

of the countries to promote economic and social

well-being of t he people. This, however, is a far

more complicated and challenging task than

measurement of the level of ICTdevelopment.

The present st udy a ims at exam ining the devel-opment o f ICT-linked se rvices in ha rnessing

critical concerns of human development and

contributing towards the achievement of the

1

ICT and Human Development:

Towards Building a CompositeIndex for Asia

1 ICT and Human Development: Towards Building a Composite Index for Asia

1 The World Bank in its World Develop ment Report for t he year 1998, ent itled ‘Know ledg e for Development ’, stressesthe increasing role of ICTin social and economic development .2 Emanat ing from the Millennium Declaration Summit held in Septemb er 2000, the Millennium Development Go als

constitute a global set of human development objectives ranging from eradication of poverty and hunger to devel-oping g lobal partne rship, to b e achieved by 2015. Eight specific goals have been set, clearly structured into 18 spe-cific target s which are t o b e monitored through 48 specific indicators.The b ase yea r for these g oals is 1990.




3 The correlation mat rices are availab le a t the UNDP w ebsite:http://hdrc.undp.org .in/initiatives/apri/ict.html4 It may be me ntioned t hat t his cate go risation is in line with t he UNDP scheme of grouping the less-developed coun-tries and,further,identifying tw o specific categ ories (c &d) with regard to t heir prog ress towards a tta inment of MDGs(UNDP 2003,pp 1-13). It also sug gest s tha t the impact of ICTdiffers a cross different regions.5 The OECD countries with low or middle per capita income, i.e., Korea ,Turkey and Mexico, have no t been included inthis categ ory, following the UNDP classification in HDR for the yea r 2003.

MDGs. The st udy focuses on nine count ries in

Asia:China,India,Indonesia,Malaysia,Mongolia,

Pakistan , Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam. The

broad objectives of the study are as follows:

i. Examining the interdependency between

ICTand human development;

ii. Identifying ICT indicators reflecting

human development concerns inachieving the eight MDGs;

iii. Construction o f composite indices for

capt uring the ICT-linked p rog ress in

abo ve-mentioned nine countries, in the

context of a tta inment of the MDGs.

At the outset, the present paper provides an

overview of the controversy concerning the meas-

urement of development of ICTacross countries

and identification of ma jor components and objec-

tives of the analysis. The second section examines

the pattern of interrelationship between the ICT

indicators and those of human development and

MDGs.This has been done at two points of time

and for the changes registered in between. The

empirical analyses and country studies conducted

in less-developed countries, perta ining to the role

of the ICTsector in national or regional develop-

ment, are the subject of the third section, with

special emphasis on the experiences of Asian coun-

tries.The fourth sect ion makes an at tempt to devel-

op a framework for identification of appropriate

indicators and their composition, on the b asis of

initiatives launched by various UN and intergovern-

mental organisations. Further, it presents a list of

indicators and provides the rationa le for their inclu-

sion in the present study covering nine Asian coun-

tries. The next section presents the methodology

for composition and gives the ranking of the coun-

tries, using the data for the latest year. The last

section summarises the conclusions and provides a

perspective for future exercises in assessing the

development of the ICTsector in Asia.

Pattern of interdependence

between development of ICT

and attainment of the MDGs:

A cross-country analysis

In the present study, the impact of the develop-

ment of ICTon huma n development for achieving

2

the MDGs has been examined by constructing cor-

relation matrices3 between the indicators of ICT

and tho se of t he MDGs across 175 countries at

tw o po ints of time, viz., years 1991 and 2001. A

set o f indicato rs (See Appen dix I) pert aining to

the eight MDGs are taken from the Human

Development Report (HDR) for the year 2003

(UNDP 2003). A few ad ditional indicat ors such

as level and g rowth of Gross Domestic Product

(GDP) per capita, flow of Foreign Direct

Investm ent s (FDIs), flow o f Overseas Develop -

ment Assista nce (ODA), numb er of rad ios and

televisions in use have been compiled from

World Development Reports (WDRs) for the

yea rs 1990 and 2000. All the indicat ors could

not be obtained for these two specific years

and a few p ertain to either the previous or sub-

seq uent year. The reference years, 1991 and

2001, may be seen as the mid years around

wh ich information ha s been o rgan ised. Further,

the number of indicators for the early 1990s is

less than that for 2001 because of non-avail-

ab ility of data . The indicato rs of ICT are the

numb er of (a) telephone ma inlines, (b) cellular

subscribers, (c) televisions in use, (d) rad ios in

use, (e) personal computers, (f ) internet users

and (g) internet ho sts, all represented relat ive

to the population of the country. (See

Appendix I for complete list o f indicat ors).

In view o f the wide disparity in terms of levels of

economic growth as well as progress towards

MDGs,besides other factors,the countries of the

world have been grouped into four regions.4

These a re (a) Europe a nd the Orga nisation for

Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD), (henceforth referred to as Europe), (b)

Arab and Latin America (henceforth referred to

as ALA), (c) Sub-Saha ran Africa (hen cefort h

referred to as Africa) and (d) the Asia-Pacific

region (hencefort h referred t o as Asia). This

grouping has been obtained by combining the

categ ories reported in HDR 2003, for the pur-

pose of the present study. Most of t he countries

in the Europe group (52 in all) have high levels

of income as well as human development.5 The

other three regions (comprising 51, 44 and 28

countries in ALA, Africa and Asia, respect ively)

are differentiated, in terms of both level and pat-




6 The correlations discussed in the text a re those that are significant at 5 percent level.

tern of economic and human d evelopment .The

ana lysis in this study is focused o n Asia, in order

to assess whether the pattern of interdepen-

dencies here is different from tha t no ticed in the

other regions or in the world as a who le.

In addition to the two-point analysis (1991 and

2001), a study of cha ng es in ICTindicato rs dur-

ing the intervening period and their relation to

changes in MDG indicators has also been

att empted to understand the dyna mics of inter-

relationships exhibited in the process of devel-

opment. This wo uld be necessary, as ICT is a

recent phenomenon and one has to examine

the impact on t he process of development, of its

growt h rather than of the levels it ha s reached.

Correlat ion coefficients6 between indicators, at

the tw o points of time studied, as well as those

reflecting change during the study period,

therefore, provide interesting insight s into the

patt ern of interdependency bet ween ICT and

development, in terms of atta ining t he MDGs,

across the countries of the world.

2.1.Relati onships between ICT and MDG-

linked indicators: 175 countr ies of t he world

2.1.1. Interrelat ionships in the early 1990s

For the year 1991, the indicato rs of ICTsho w

positive and strong relationship with per capita

income and Human Development Index (HDI).

Most of t he indicators pertaining to t he at tain-

ment o f different MDGs too ha ve significant a nd

desired patterns of interdependency with ICT

indicators. For example, the correlations

between ICTindicators and the indicators relat-

ed to universal primary education, such as net

primary school enrollment ratio, children reach-

ing grade 5 and youth literacy rate, are all posi-

tive and sta tistically significant . The same is the

case with the indicators reflecting empower-

ment o f women.There also appea rs to be sign if-

icant reduction in child mortality and improve-

ment in maternal health with t he development

of ICT, across the co untries of the w orld. This is

evident from the strong negative correlation

between television users,telephone and cellular

mobile subscribers, etc. and rates of infant mor-

tality, child mortality and maternal mortality.

Further,percentages of people with sustainable

access to water sources and urbanites having

improved sanitation facilities show strong posi-

tive correlat ion with all the ICT indicators, the

coefficients being stat istically significant .

2.1.2. Interrelat ionships in the early years of the 21st century

The pat tern o f relationship bet ween ICTindica-

tors and indicators pertaining to income and

HDI values has strengthened during the early

years of 21st century, as may b e inferred from

the correlat ions in 2001.Of particular note is the

impressive increase in the value of correlation

coefficients between the use of personal com-

puters and per capita income and HDI.The same

is the case w ith respect t o MDG indicato rs. The

relationship of ICTindicators with the percent-

age of the non-poor is positive and improved

over the years. It ma y not b e possible to sugg est

a unidirectional causality and argue t hat eradi-

cation of poverty has been possible due to the

development o f ICT, since the impact could be

the other wa y round. Indeed, developed coun-

tries that have low levels of poverty would have

bet ter access to ICT. ICTseems to have p layed a

significant role in improving health standards

across count ries over time. Almost a ll the MDG

indicators pertaining to health standards,

including life expectancy a t birth, exhibit

strong er correlations w ith ICTin 2001, as com-

pared to 1991.Even prevalence of HIV cases and

other diseases shows a stronger nega tive corre-

lation with the development and diffusion of

ICT. The o nly tw o indicators that report w eaker

correlations in 2001 than in 1991 are access to

improved sanitation and water in urban areas.

This implies tha t ICThas not been used a s a t ool

in improving urba n facilities. The role of ICTin

attracting foreign direct investment and over-

seas development assistance appears to be

inconseq uential as the correlation in the case of

the former has become wea ker,w hile tha t of t he

latter has turned nega tive. Understandably,

mere increase in ICTis unlikely to improve the

foreign investment situation as other socio-

political factors play an important role here.

2.1.3.Changes in indicators during the 1990s and their interrelations

For the purpose o f understanding t he d ynamics

of the relationship of ICTindicators with MDGs

and huma n development indicators, a correla-

tion matrix has been constructed, based on t he

differences between the values of the indicators

in years 2001 and 1991. It ha s been observed




that the progress in ICT contributes to t he

enhancement of human development across

the countries of the wo rld, as the correlation

betw een them turns out to b e highly significant.

Interestingly, such correlation does not exist

betw een the growth of ICTand income growt h,

which could be due to the fact that break-

throug h in ICTis a recent phenome non and has

not yet made an impact on the economic

growth in all the countries of the world.

Especially in the case of the developing coun-

tries,there is a time lag betw een the ad option of

ICT and registering th e growt h in income.

Further, progress in ICTdoes not seem to ma ke

a significant impact in the progress towards

achievement of universal primary education or

reducing infant/child morta lity.

2.2. Interrelat ionships between ICT and

MDG-linked indi cators across the fou r

regions of t he world

2.2.1. Interrelat ionships in the early 1990s

The analysis of interdepend encies across coun-

tries belonging to the four categories (Europe,

ALA, Asia and Africa) brings out certa in striking

features. In Europe, ICTmade a n impact o n the

process of economic development even in the

early 1990s.This is evident from the highly posi-

tive correlation between the indicators of ICT

and the indicators of per capita income a nd HDI.

In the case of less-developed countries belong-

ing to t he ALA, Asia and Africa reg ions, ICTis

mostly restricted to t he use of radios, televisions

and telephones. The diffusion of new forms of

ICT too k off since the mid-1990s only.

Notw ithstanding the time lag factor, the pat tern

of relationship of ICTindicato rs with t hose o f per

capita income and HDI wo rk out to be similar to

those noted in Europe.The coefficients ob ta ined

for the Asian region seem to be stronger than

those obt ained for the other catego ries. The

strong pattern observed here implies that many

low-income countries within Asia have not got

very far in developing ICT; on the ot her hand, ICT

initiatives are well taken by the high income

countries. One may a lso note t he presence of

various socio-cultural factors inhibiting technol-

ogy diffusion across countries in Asia.

The relationships between indicat ors of ICTand

those of educat ion-linked MDGs reveal contrast-

ing patterns across the four categories of coun-

tries. Primary schoo l enrollment ratio show s sig-

nificant positive correlation with the develop-

ment o f ICTin Europe a nd Africa, but not in ALA

and Asia. Further,t here exists a strong correlation

bet ween indicato rs of ICTand children reaching

grad e 5 in the African count ries, which is not

there in any other region. Furthermore, there

seems to be no interrelationship between ICT

and youth literacy, as the correlation coefficients

turn out statistically insignificant across all the

regions. Given this pattern,o ne w ould infer that

the impact of ICTin achieving universal literacy

is not very sign ificant .

Indicators pertaining to gend er equa lity a rticu-

lated through the enrollment ratio of girls to

boys in primary schools and female to male

ratio among literates have weak correlations

with indicat ors of ICTin European co untries dur-

ing the ea rly 1990s as there is no g ender-ba sed

discriminat ion in accessing the technolog y. But

in Africa, the relationship appea rs to be strong.

On the other hand, the coefficients are weak in

the ca se of Asia, possibly beca use of low levels

of ICTin ma ny of these countries.

An inverse relationship betw een ICTand child/

maternal mortality rate is observed in all the

four categories of countries in the early 1990s.

Indeed, infant mo rtality rate shows strong a nd

negative correlation with ICTin Asia as well as

ALA and Africa. One would infer tha t the devel-

opment of ICTprovides better access to health

facilities. In cont rast, the indicators of environ-

mental sustainability, such as access to

improved wa ter sources and san itation fa cilities,

part icularly in urban areas, do no t exhibit corre-

lation with ICTin all four regions.

2.2.2. Interrelat ionships in the early yearsof 21st century

The relat ionships of ICTindicators with t hose of

the MDGs have not, unfortunately, improved

significant ly across the reg ions in 2001, except

in the case o f per capita income and HDI. In the

case of indicators linked with eradication of

poverty and hunger, such as percentag e of

undernourished people and of underweight

children a ged below 5, the correlations turn out

to be high and statistically significant only for

ALA and Africa. In Asia, the interdepend encies

are insignificant. One w ould,therefore,infer tha t

deployment o f ICTin improving a griculture a nd

food distribution systems and thereby impact-

ing poverty a nd ma lnutrition, is not significant

in Asia in 2001.

The relationship betw een d evelopment of ICT




7The reasonsfor low correlation coefficients obtained inEuropean countries can be attributed to the randomnessof the dis-

tributionof indicators across the countries,as most of the countries have higher female to male participation inschooling.

and education also has not improved signifi-

cantly in 2001 in any of the fo ur reg ions. In Asian

countries, the relationships were w eak in 1991

and ha ve remained so even after a decade. It is

only in the case of the youth literacy rate that

the relationship w ith ICT has improved an d

become significant. One would,therefore, argue

that the progress of ICTmay not have had a sig-

nificant impact on the level of primary educa-

tion across Asian countries.

Regarding the environmental sustainability

indicators in terms of per capita emissions of

carbon d ioxide and CFC consumpt ion, the t rend

unfortunately is of secular increase and shows

strong positive relationship with economic

development in all the four regions. Growth o f

ICTdoes not seem to help reduce air pollution.

However, it has impacted po sitively on availab il-

ity of drinking water and sanitation facilities in

Europe, and to some extent in ALA as w ell as

Africa. This unfortuna tely is not the case in Asia.

Further, the correlations betw een indicators of

ICTand flow of FDI are weak and have gone

dow n over the years in Asia. The correlation o f

the flow of ODA (as percent of GNP) has

remained negative and statistically insignificant

in 2001, which confirms the marginal role

played by ICTin development of a globa l part-

nership in t his region.

2.2.3.Changes in indicators during the 1990sand their interrelations

The ‘chang e indicato rs’built by ta king the differ-

ence in the values of ICTand MDG indicators

and HDI reveal an interesting pat tern of interde-

pendency. Highly significant correlations are

observed between HDI and ICTindicators in all

the regions, excepting Asia. Apart from indica-

tors of ICTpertaining to use of television and

telephones, no indicato r is sign ificant ly correlat -

ed w ith HDI in Asia. The g rowt h in per capita

income show s strong correlation w ith growt h of

ICT only in Europe. These correlat ions are

insignificant for ALA, Asia and Africa. Further,

progress in ICT bea rs no relat ionship w ith

change s in primary enrollment rate, gend er dis-

parity in education or representation in parlia-

ment. This is observed in Asia a s well as ALA and

Africa. However, it is encourag ing t hat correla-

tions bet ween progress in ICTand improvement

in life expectancy rate and maternal mortality

rate are significant in Europe, ALA and Africa.

Further, the indicators of child morta lity, mat er-

nal morta lity, incidence of ma laria and other dis-

eases exhibit strong negative relations with ICT

indicators and t his, in general, has strengthened

over time. Unfortunately, this is not t he case in

Asia, as the relevant correlations are sta tistically

insignificant and have not improved over the

decade. Here, infant mortality rate and urban

households with no access to drinking water

and sanitation, exhibit no d ecline with progress

in ICT. The incidence o f HIV/AIDS, to o, do es not

seem to decrease w ith the development o f ICT,

contrary to the pattern observed in other

regions. One wo uld, therefore, infer that g rowth

of ICTin Asia has not been a critical factor in

achieving t he MDGs.

Correlations with indicators pertaining to gen-

der equality follow a similar pattern.

Improvements in interdependencies during the

1990s are noted as marginal and statistically

insignificant.7 Interestingly, in this context, the

situation do es not seem to b e very distressing in

Asian countries. Not o nly have female to ma le

ratios go ne up in enrollment rates a t various lev-

els of education and among literates, but even

their correlations w ith ICTincreased during the

1990s.This should be ha iled a s a po sitive devel-

opment in gender relations,t he credit for w hich

may be part ially a tt ributed t o ICT. The impa ct,

however, remains at tha t level and d oes not g o

beyo nd.The sha re of females in non -ag ricultural

wage employment has remained low and its

correlation with ICT has we akened over the

decade. Furthermore, no positive correlation

exists betw een ICTand the share of seats held

by wo men in the parliament.

Impact of ICT on socio-

economic development as

observed in developing

countries

The literat ure on t he role of ICTin promot ing

socio-economic development is rich in terms

of empirical rigour and diversity of opinions,

despite having a short history. Most of the

stud ies [Brynjolfsson and Hitt 1996; Lehr and

Lichtenbe rg 1999; Oliner and Sichel 2000;

Jalava and Pohjola 2002; and Dewan and

Kraemer (in press)]pertain to developed coun-

3




8 The first few rigorously empirical studies on this subject are those und erta ken in the United St ates using firm leveldat a on ICTinvestment a nd econo mic performance.9 The study has g enerated valuable information on d igital literacy and use of ICTfor various social and economic pur-

poses for d ifferent OECD countries, using survey d ata .

tries8 and suggested the positive impact of ICT

on income and employment g rowth. However,

it has been noted that this relationship is

absent in several OECD countries. Also, in

developing count ries where non -ICT invest-

ments tend to have a higher payoff than ICT

investment s, a positive relat ionship is either

weak or absent. In view o f this, scholars have

argued tha t g rowt h of ICTshould not become

a ‘techno-q uick-fix’ for solving development

problems. It ha s unacceptable tradeoffs with

MDGs in less-develo ped coun tries (Wilde

2003). These scholars be lieve tha t w e are only

beg inning to understand how the a pplication

of ICT relates to t he achievement o f social

goa ls and econo mic growt h and there are seri-

ous doubts whether the benefits truly out-

weig h the cost s (Kenny 2003,Wilde 2003).

The most pow erful argument ma de a ga inst ICT

is tha t it has resulted in sharp differentiat ion not

only among countries but a cross groups of pop-

ulations, and such differentiat ion is likely to be

further accentuated.Existing inequalities,partic-

ularly in less-developed countries, in terms of

access of households to natural and capital

resources,ha ve intensified with the launching o f

the prog ramme of liberalisation. The lega l and

administrative structures that are considered

important for providing eq uitab le access to a ll

sections of the population are yet to be institu-

tiona lised (de Soto 2000). Given these fact ors, it

is understandable that introduction of a new

technology strengthens the position of eco-

nomic and political elites vis-a-vis others. They

have larger resources at t heir command to o wn

or access the technology,can acq uire the neces-

sary skills easily due to their higher levels of

education and can establish links with other

production a nd social sectors throug h ICT, for

appropriating new facilities and opportunities.

ICThas a requirement of specific skill and that

comes in the way of its adoption by underprivi-

leged g roups/regions, even with general

improvement of literacy in a country.

This proposition finds empirical substan tia tion

in a study sponsored by the European

Commission under its ‘Information Society

Program’ (SIBIS Report 2001).9 It identifies the

absence of appropriate skills as a critical factor,

constraining t he access to ICTand resulting in a

digita l divide.What is more disturbing is tha t the

divide ha s sharpened over the 1990s. Income

emerges as yet another important factor

responsible for the d ivide. It is only with regard

to gender that the gap seems to be declining

over the years. Although similar data have not

been g enerated for Asian count ries, impact of

education and income disparity on access to

information technolog y is likely to be eq ually, if

not more,serious.

Scholars have also demonstrated empirically

tha t d iffusion o f ICTin developing count ries do

not b enefit the social sector in the same wa y as

in industrial count ries. This is beca use of t he

existence of ba rriers to know ledge a nd informa-

tion asymm etry in the former. The ab sence of

skilled huma n cap ital,lack of funds for moderni-

sation, etc. in the social sectors becomes an

impediment to the a doption of ICTand the dis-

semination o f benefits throughout t he country.

These factors pose a serious q uestion ma rk on

the role of ICTin a chieving the MDGs.

Those scholars who d isag ree with the a bove

propositions have argued that harnessing the

pow er of ICTand ushering in the ‘digita l revolu-

tion’ can transform production processes, com-

merce, government and education a nd create

new forms of economic growt h tha t w ill benefit

all sections of the population. Furthermore, ICT

can cont ribute t o t he realisation of social goa ls

through greater dissemination of health and

reproductive information, training of medical

personnel and teachers, equitable access to

education an d training facilities, opening up of

opportunities for women a nd expanding scope

for citizen pa rticipat ion. Taking a sample o f 37

developing countries,Baliamo une (2002) estab-

lished that ICThas a strong positive effect on

the process of socio-economic development,

provided a liberal po litical environme nt is main-

tained.

The proposition t ha t specific skills and human

capita l are prerequisites for disseminat ion of

ICTha s been refuted, citing the ca se of Arab

States which, despite low literacy, have regis-

tered high g rowth in ICT. Here, uneducated

persons as well as the poor have been able to




10Households having no addressin a city,forexample,can have an e-mailadd ress and accessinformationor receive letters.11They have sho wn this to b e the ca se in Turkey.12 It is possible to a rgue tha t the process of awareness building ca n be used for political purposes. An overview ofrecent experience in Asian countries, however,reveals that the sta te ha s found it more convenient to d eny access toinformation to peo ple than provide th em with w rong information.Once the channels of communication are opened,

ensuring selectivity in information has g enerally bee n beyo nd t he control of t he public machinery.

access the technology as costs are relat ively lower

than those for accessing quality knowledge and

formal information.Understandably,ICThas led to

reduction in information asymmetry bet ween the

rich and the poor and between the educated and

the uneducated. Indeed,people located in a given

geographical area can access the technology

(available as public facilities or in commercial

joints) and benefit through spillover effects, irre-

spective of their socio-economic status.10 There is

no reason why ICT in Asian countries cannot

reduce the existing barriers to knowledge and

bring down the inequality in accessing the infor-

mation base,which currently is extremely high as

it is linked to income ineq uality.

For assessing the progress of Asian countries

tow ards different MDGs, the country studies

sponsored by UNDP are particularly useful.

Nonetheless, q uantitative assessment of the

multiplier effect of ICTdiffusion on poverty, illit-

eracy, ailment, gender divide, environmental

deg radation, etc. is extremely difficult and has

not b een a ttempted in any study. The difficulty

lies in the multifarious and informal nature of

linkages of ICTwith the rest of the economy on

which no data can be obtained from official

sources.

The most important g oa l is poverty reduction,

the impact of ICTin this context has generally

been t aken as positive because of its capa city t o

generate employment at a reasonable level of

productivity and its growing share in incremen-ta l GDP. Althoug h the volume of employment in

the sector is not very high in most Asian coun-

tries,its grow th rate over the past deca de holds

forth a promise. Despite occasional slumps in

the market and pessimistic projections of

growt h w ithin the formal sector,t he expectation

is tha t ICT will reduce poverty by creat ing

numerous informal jobs. It is the semi-skilled

and unskilled workers in the assembly lines

(producing computers and linked ga dg ets),d ata

processors,a nd operators in call centres,not the

engineers and softw are programmers despite a

likely increase in the ir number,who hold t he keyto poverty alleviation.

Despite the difficulties of capturing the direct

and indirect impact o f ICT, there is no doubt tha t

it has given a boost t o income and employment

growth at macro level by improving productivi-

ty and competitiveness in non-ICT sectors as

well. The resultant reduction in cost of produc-

tion in the latter has resulted in higher demand

for the products and services in the domestic as

well as international markets, giving an impetus

to growth and leading to substantial poverty

reduction. Indeed, the jobs created d irectly in

the ICTsector are of less significance (since com-

puters to some extent are replacing labour) as

compared to the multiplier effect created by it,

throug h up-scaling a ctivity levels in user sector

pushing up the earnings o f wo rkers. Taking all

the direct and indirect impacts into considera-

tion, it can be assumed that ICThas a positive

effect o n poverty reduction in Asian countries.

ICTis expected t o cont ribute tow ards the o bjec-

tive of poverty alleviation through appropriatedesigning,management and implementation of

anti-poverty programmes. Irrespective of the

composition, there is little doubt tha t growt h

and spread o f ICTsector has increased the level

of awareness about rights and responsibilities

and a lso enhanced ‘information’ availab ility

among the masses. As a consequence, the level

of ICTcan be taken as an indicator of progress

tow ards poverty alleviation.

In the cont ext of universal primary educa tion, a

few studies reveal tha t introduction of comput-

ers may not help improve the school system orreduce illiteracy in a country (Schware and

Jaramillo 1998).11 The co untry stud y for India

shows that introduction of computers in

schools has resulted in misallocation of

resources and neglect of infrastructural facilities

which should be a higher priority. Not-

withstand ing the specific examples, the tota l

impact of ICTin eradicating illiteracy is signifi-

cantly positive, as has been a rgued in the case

of povert y alleviat ion. This is part icularly so

whe n its impact on non -formal education, like

creating the awareness among people about

society, government, market, etc., is taken intoconsideration.12 Asian countries with low levels




of literacy and aw areness of rights and respon-

sibilities have certainly benefited through

increasing use of radio, television, internet, etc.,

which have helped in awareness building and

strengt hening the formal education system. Of

course, the impact w ould be higher if certain

kinds of ICTapplication or their use by certain

target groups in the po pulation a re encourag ed,

but it is hard to get reliable information on this

subject.

Regarding the MDGs pertaining to t he improve-

ment in health situation, identification of indi-

cators is extremely difficult because there are

many factors other than communication tech-

nology that are relevant. Although temporal

data on child mortality, maternal health a nd

diag nosis and treat ment of HIV/AIDS, malaria

and other major diseases a re availab le,it is diffi-

cult to apportion a part of the improvement

observed during a certain period, to ICT. In com-

ba ting HIV/AIDS and erad icat ing malaria a nd

other diseases, how ever,most of the count ries in

Asia a re in w hat may b e termed a s the first stag e

applicat ion of ICT. What is import ant at this

stag e is dissemination o f information ab out t he

seriousness of the problem, causes, preventive

measures and facilities for treatment. This is

valid in the context of the programmes for

reduction in child mo rtality or improving mat er-

nal hea lth. With levels of literacy being very low

in the region, ICThas a major role to p lay in the

dissemination o f informat ion. While creat ing

awareness in rural areas and distant towns

should be a priority, the grow th of media and

communication systems at the national level is

desirab le,a s aw areness level is low even in large

urban centers.

The role of ICTin promo ting gend er eq uality is

perceived as positive through deductive rea-

soning as empirical data on this are not avail-

ab le at t he na tiona l level (UNDP 2003a). Given

the fact that women in Asia continue to be

linked to family and household activities and

face numerous social and cultural constraints

restricting their mob ility, their access to public

places is limited a s compared t o men. Not o nly

are cultural barriers far more binding on

women in accessing health and education

facilities, even geo graph ical distance is rela-

tively more restrictive. The a bility to access a

facility without being physically present at a

fixed location would,t herefore,be a big ad van-

ta ge for them . The studies reveal that the t ech-

nology has indeed enabled women to access

education and medical facilities much more

effectively than b efore.Further, they a re able to

take up contract job work out of factory or

office premises, sitting a t their homes through

this technology.

It may be argued that adopting ICTwould be

useful in monitoring the natural resources and

handling of the stress and strain generated

through the development process. The new

technology is of help in adopt ing modern meth-

ods of environmenta l sanitation, and p ollution

control,et c. Unfortunately,d ata on these indica-

tors are not available for Asian countries.

A strong relationship has been no ted betw een

ICTinvestment and the degree of openness to

the wo rld market. Scholars have argued that

countries having an open-trade policy benefit

more from development of ICTthan those with

a closed-door po licy.Higher levels of ICTlead to

greater international linkag e and higher trade.

However, there is not enoug h empirical evi-

dence to confirm or to indicate how the ICT

investment will help the less-developed coun-

tries achieve the MDG related to global partner-

ship. Consequently, this aspect has not been

brought within the framework for identification

of the indicators.

This overview of t he earlier studies sug gests

that determination of the impact of ICTin terms

of MDGs is extremely difficult. The d irect ion of

relationship stipulated in these studies is often

based on deductive reasoning, observance of

such a patt ern in some developed countries, or

the sta ted objectives or claims made by certain

ICTprojects.

The o ther po int emerging from t he overview is

that spatial inequality is a constraint in achiev-

ing social go als in Asian count ries, as ICTis con-

centrated in a few large cities and regions. Lack

of skills and affordability is another obstacle on

the w ay of peo ple in small towns and rural areas,

restricting the generation o f demand for knowl-

edg e-ba sed products a nd b enefiting from ICT.

This assessment prompts us to consider alter-

nate sets of indicators. For example, location-

specific indica tors like ‘ICTfacilities in rural a reas

and small tow ns’ma y be included for capturing

its spatial spread. Similarly, choosing user-

specific indicators like ‘adoption of ICTin social

sectors or ICTfor defined purposes’wo uld reflect




13 See wb ln0018.wo rldba nk.org/ict/projects.nsf/14 http ://cyb er.law.ha rvard .edu/itg /projects/15 As part o f the UN ICTTask Force Action P lan, WHO has initiat ed a literat ure review on ICT/hea lth pro jects (carriedout by CIDA).16 See http://ww w.uneca .org/aisi/scanict .htm and htt p://ww w.connect ivitya frica.ca

greater success in moving towards the MDGs.

Bringing in the nature and purpose of ICT

would, thus, be important in the context of the

MDGs.

Anchoring ICT in Millennium

Development Goals

4.1.Overview of recent init iati ves and limi ta-

ti ons of existing dat a sources

The emerging need to assessthe progress of ICTin

achieving a set of socio-economic goals for the

purpose of policy formulation has prompted a

number of regional and international organisa-

tions to undertake studies and propose frame-

works,despite serious methodo logical difficulties.

These studies have the basic objective to opera-

tionalise a mechanism to monitor the progress of

ICTand propose broad policy guidelines as and

when required.An important contribution in this

context is Orbicom’s ‘Monitoring the Digita l

Divide,13whicha ssesses the magnitudeof the dig-

ital divide,or more specifically,t he progress of dif-

ferent countries toward the ‘infostate’ by building

thematic clusters of indicators related to info-

density and info-use.The other important study is

‘Global Information Technology Report’ brought

out by the Global Economic Forum (2001), which

a g ain g ives a fra me wo rk fo r m onit oring t he

progress of countries in adoption of ICT.This pro-

vides an index which comprises three elements:

(a)environment for ICT;(b)readiness of stakehold-

ers;and (c)usage of ICTamongst the stakeholders.

But,they are not of great help in developing coun-

tries despite their claims to the contrary, due to

enormous data requirements and the huge costs

involved in bridging the data gaps through survey.

In education, progress in the development o f

indicators for cross-country comparison seems

promising. The World Bank Institute tog ether

with the Educational Development Centre

(EDC), Informa tion Techno logies Group at

Harvard University has developed a survey-

based informat ion system. This will help deter-

mine the progress of developing countries in

the integration of ICTinto their education sys-

tem. Further, ‘Globa l Survey and Guide t o ICT

4

Planning in Education’ is an important instru-

ment in assessing ICTprogress in the field of

education.14 Similarly, the World Health

Organisation is working on a set o f ICT-related

indicators for the health sector.15 Data o n Asian

countries from this source have not yet become

available to researchers and po licy ma kers.

The study b y the Europea n Commission dis-

cussed in the previous section has built Statistical

Indicators Benchmarking t he Informat ion Society

(SIBIS) for a large number of OECD countries. It

provides the information on access of ICT by

households for various purposes like business,

educat ion, health-care and the location of such

access. Unfortunately, a similar exercise has not

been carried out for Asian count ries.

Scan-ICT project b y Internation Development

Research Centre (IDRC), Canada 16 gives, besides

the supply indicators,the informat ion on users and

usages. The country reports brought out under

this project provide user-based information con-

tent d isseminated throug h ICT.They provide stat is-

tics on telemedicine, research, information

systems, software application, distance learning,

health promotion,etc. These sta tistics are very use-

ful for building up indicators for cross-country

comparison of the role of ICTin promoting human

development for the achievement of the MDGs.

Statistics on schools having computer and internet

connectivity, and student/computer ratios can be

obta ined from this source. However, the da taba se

is restricted for the use by African countries only.

The most important initiat ive in this context is

tha t o f the United Nations ICT Task Force

(referred t o as the Task Force herea fter), esta b-

lished in March 2001 at the request of the

Economic and Social Council to the UN

Secretary-General. It ha s att empted to place the

initiatives and research studies which analyse

the development of ICTin the context of larger

socio-economic go als, within a coherent policy

framework.This is helpful in assessing t he role of

ICTto meet the MDGs. It provides an overview,

largely in qua lita tive terms, of current applica-

tions o f ICTin different countries and offers a set

of indicato rs to cha rt prog ress. This promises to




17 These problems are igno red in the present ana lysis, in view of the enormous costs involved in checking and ensur-ing comparability of the data generated through the national statistical system.18

Besides, the role of ICTin these countries would depend on the institutional and policy safeguards tha t they a reable t o evolve and it is hard to predict t heir capability, a priori. In this sense,a chievement of socio-political objectivesdepend not merely on sector, region or gend er-specific use of the t echnology b ut on the overall system of go ver-nance. It is,t herefore,n ot po ssible to d etermine the appropriate indicators of ICTwithout bringing into consideration

larger issues of g overnance.19 Countries like India a nd Pakistan are new comers in the field and one w ould expect t he impact of ICTto mate rialiseon the ground only with a certain time lag.20 Given this perspective, the g rowth o f ICTper se can be taken as desirable for achieving t he MDGs,a s it has been

done in existing literature for developed countries, unless there is evidence to the contrary.This implies that impor-tance of supply-side indicators of ICTmay not be underplayed in the developing countries.

be o f help in setting up ta rgets for ICT,commen-

surate with t he a chievement of larger go als.

The Task Force has co me up w ith a matrix tha t

maps ICTw ith MDGs in eight key spheres. This

matrix basically sugg ests a path, translating the

MDGs into a set o f indicators and then working

out corresponding ICT goa ls. It then proposes

construct ion of a set of compatible ICTindicators.

Following the guidelines propo sed by the Task

Force, a list of t he indicators under different

MDGs has been worked out (Appendix II). The

Task Force sugg ests that the views expressed and

experiences documented in various international

reports such as the UN Millennium Project and

WSIS (World Summit o n Informa tion Society)

should be taken into consideration in opera-

tionalisation of t he indicato rs. Unfortunately, it is

not possible to obtain information about Asian

countries for many of these indicators,from inter-

nationa l websites.Besides, fulfilling the da ta defi-

ciencies through cross-country surveys, as

proposed by the Task Force, would b e highly

expensive.

4.2.A framework for identif ication of indica-

tors for construction of a composite index

The critical prob lem in anchoring ICT within

MDGs is the choice of appropriate indicators and

assigning weightages to these for composition.

The earlier studies on this subject are largely

restricted to industrialised countries. Since the

problems involved in diffusion of technology

across sectors, regions and populations are less

serious here, there was no t much of controversy.

The indicato rs selected were mostly on the sup-

ply side, pertaining to usag e of personal comput-

ers, internet facility, density of telephones,use of

electronic g oods, ratios of enrollment in, or of

passing out from,technical institutions and so on.

These data are easy to obtain and, in fact, are

available for all the countries in international

publications and worldw ide websites.These indi-

cators can, therefore, be easily constructed for

Asian countries,althoug h there a re problems17 of

comparability of da ta in case of a few of them.

However,t he a bove o verview o f interdependen-

cies and country studies makes it amply clear

that there is a strong case to go beyond supply-

linked indicators in order to assess whether the

technology is promoting the development

process in the d esired direction. One would

have to collect information on ICTapplication,

purpose of use, ag encies involved and legal

framew ork rega rding a doption o f ICT. It is only

through such user-specific indicators that it is

possible to a ssess whet her the development of

ICTis in harmony w ith promot ing huma n devel-

opment for achieving the eight MDGs.

In the case of Asian countries, the existing data

sources do not permit building up of user-specific

indicators for cross-country compa rison. Further,

generat ion of fresh da ta on ICT,classified by users

and applications, would ma ke difficult financial

and a dministrative demands on the international

statistical system. In add ition, one can put for-

ward analytical reasoning against use of

extremely specific indicators.These countries a re

so very diverse in terms of levels of economic

development, deg rees of openness to the wo rld

market and socio-cultural specificities that it is

difficult to draw generalisations and reach con-

sensus o n user-specific indicat ors.18 Further, one

may a rgue tha t a review of literature and a nalysis

of interdependencies of ICTindicators in devel-

oping countries,a re not enoug h for taking a posi-

tion w ith regard t o its role in future, particularly

because ICTis still in its infancy.19

4.3. Identification of dif ferent dimensions of deve-

lopment and t heir constit uent ICT indicators

In view of the difficulties in reaching general

ag reement on user/sector/region specific indi-

cators,20 one is constrained to use straight for-




21 Given the a bsence of a clear policy perspective in many Asian count ries, it may be proposed tha t ea ch country

designs a system of incentives and cont rols that w ould lead to t he desired social outcome.22 The institution of hosts ha s not de veloped due to different org anisational structures and d oes not a ffect grow th ofthese te chnologies.So this indicator is not included in the construction of the ICTindex.23 These da ta are comp iled from t he Internat ional Telecommunicat ion Union (ITU), UNESCO and WITSA. Seehtt p://ww w.worldba nk.org/da ta /count ryda ta /ictg lance.htm24 Rating s range from 1 to 7; the higher the value,the bet ter is the country in terms of ICTdiffusion to ot her spheresof a ctivity.

ward indicators reflecting the degree of avail-

ab ility o f ICT21 (See the list of supply-side indica-

tors under the e ight MDGs in Append ix II).These

indicators may be combined w ith a few sector-

or user-specific indicators tha t a re easily ob ta in-

able from international do cuments or web sites

of UN ag encies and t he World Bank.The indica-

tors, thus obt ained, are classified into five cate-

gories (See Append ix III); (i) availability-or sup-

ply-linked — skill-independ ent ; (ii) ava ilab ility-

or supply-linked — skill-dependent ; (iii) efficien-

cy and speed; (iv) ta rget ing social sectors and (v)

target ing vulnerable groups.

4.3.1.Availabi lit y-linked indicators

Availab ility-linked ICT indicato rs have bee n

placed in two sub-categ ories: skill-independ-

ent ICT an d skill-depe nden t ICT. The first

includes popular ICTtools such as (i) teleph one

mainline connect ions, (ii) cellular subscribers,

(iii) television sets, and (iv) radio se ts, all being

presented per 1,000 peop le. Under skill-

dependent ICTcateg ory22 the indicators iden-

tified a re (i) internet users per 100 persons, (ii)

personal comput ers per 100 persons, and (iii)

per capita ICT expenditure. Higher expendi-

tures would imply great er use of the techno lo-

gy b y larger sections of the population as they

cover purchase of ICT products fo r business,

households, governments and educational

institutions, including telecommunication

facilities. Two sepa rate cat eg ories have been

kept on the supply side so as to increase the

importance of availability-linked indicators

in the overall ag grega tion scheme. Skill-

indepe ndent ICTs require no or very low level

of skills to use w hile using or ad opt ing the skill-

dependent ICTs call for cert ain skills.

4.3.2. Indicators of efficiency and speed

It has been possible to build up the following

efficiency indicat ors,using a vailab le official data

sources: (i) internet service provider charges; (ii)

telephone usag e charge for internet ; (iii) cost of

peak rate local call per three minutes from the

fixed line; (iv) cost of peak rate ca ll to the United

State s per three minutes; (v) internet speed a nd

access; and (vi) IT training a nd education.

Information on these indicators are compiled

from the World Bank web site on da ta and sta tis-

tics23 and the Global Competitiveness Report

(GCR), 2001-02 (World Econo mic Forum 2001).

Internet service provider charge is the monthly

dial-up access charge for 20 hours of use and

telephone usage charge is the telephone call

charge for 20 hours of access. Understand ab ly,

higher costs would imply lower efficiency and

less access.The last tw o a re positive indicators of

efficiency as they assign higher values to coun-

tries where ICTfacilities are relatively more effi-

cient, as manifest in g reater speed of access and

higher expend itures incurred in t raining of per-

sonnel.

4.3.3. Indicators of targeting social sectors

Indicators capturing coverage of social sectors

th roug h ICT(or secto ral diversificat ion o f ICT)

comp rise (i) internet a ccess in schoo ls, (ii)

computers in educational institutions per

1,000 stud ent s, (iii) prioritisation of ICTby the

g overnment , and (iv) go vernment online serv-

ices availability. In view o f the importance of

universal literacy a mong the MDGs, one can

justify inclusion o f tw o ed ucat ional indicators.

Similarly, tw o g overnment-linked indicators

have been included, as the stat e continues to

play a ma jor role in promot ing social develop-

ment in Asian countries.Da ta o n comput ers in

educational institutions are ob tained from t he

World Bank web site and all othe r indicat ors

are compiled f rom GCR 2001-02. These indica-

tors simply show t he ‘rating’ of the countries,

as assigned b y GCR. It may be pointed out tha t

these ratings, reflecting the performance of

the countries, are based on a n opinion survey

of 4,600 senior business leaders from 75

countries.24

4.3.4. Indicators of targeting vulnerable groups

Lastly, the following five indicators have been

ident ified to assess ICT’s contribut ion to socially

deprived sections of the populat ion: (i) percent-

ag e of women among professionals and technical

workers;25(ii) pub lic access to internet ; (iii) gov-




25The informat ion on percentag e of fema le workers in ITsector is not a vailable.Hence, this indicato r is taken as a proxy.26 The Bank has a lso given a ranking t o count ries ba sed o n t he existence of a highly skilled ITjob market. However,this may not be very useful in our analysis as its impact in terms of poverty a lleviation or meet ing ot her MDGs wouldbe marginal.27 See ww w.nua.ie28 These da ta a re available from Women’s Indicato rs and Stat istical Databa se, Wistat , Version 4,United Nat ions.

ernment ’s success in ICTpromo tion; (iv) compe-

tition in provision o f internet services; and (v)

efficacy of laws relating to ICT use. Data on

women professionals and technical workers

have been taken from Human Development

Report, 2003 and the informat ion on ot her indi-

cators, showing the ‘rating’ of the countries, is

from GCR 2001-02. Public a ccess to internet

facilities and high competition among serviceproviders are expected to lead to g reater diffu-

sion of technology, lowering o f the price and

improvement in accessibility, resulting ulti-

mately in the increased access by the poor.

Further,g reater compe tition is likely to g enerate

greater employment in the informal sector,

which ag ain would benefit the poo r and vulner-

ab le groups like wo men. Government ’s success

in ICTpromotion as also the greater sensitivity

in the legal system to e-commerce, consumer

protection, etc., would reflect the outreach of

techno logy.This too ,one may argue, will benefit

the vulnerable sections of the population thattend to get marginalised under the free func-

tioning of the market, without adeq uate protec-

tion from state or legal institutions.

4.4 Rational e for selection of indicators

It is important to discuss the extent to which

selected indicators can map the attainment of

MDGs. In the co ntext o f go als like eradicat ion of

poverty, the important q uestion is whet her the

income and employment e ffect of ICThas a b ias

in favour of the poor that could help them rise

abo ve the poverty line. Despite o pinions on the

matter being equivocal, there is adequateempirical evidence to suggest that the overall

impact of the availability of ICThas been posi-

tive for the poor. This would justify inclusion of

availability-linked and efficiency indicators of

ICT development. Besides, the state playing a

role in providing public access to internet a nd in

ensuring competition among service providers,

and the legal system promoting ICTdevelop-

ment will contribute to better penetration of

technology a mong the masses26 and lead to a

reduction in poverty.It w ould be useful to con-

struct other indicators articulating whether i)

the technology being a dopte d is poor-friendly

or accessible to the poor; ii) it is reaching the

backward areas and economically underprivi-

leged g roups. But this is not possible using the

existing official as well as non-official da ta sets.

The role of ICTin improving education has been

noted as positive and justifies inclusion of the

availability-linked a nd efficiency indicato rs, in

the context of meeting the education-related

MDG.In addition,internet access in schools and

computer use in educational institutions have

been considered as extremely useful sectoral

indicators in articulating the progress of coun-

tries in a chieving universal primary educa tion.

Statistics on women’s access and usage of ICT

relat ive to that of men are useful in under-

standing t he gender divide. These are available

in ‘The World’s Women 2000’, by United Nations

with citat ions from Cyber Atlas.27 Unfortunately,

there are serious information ga ps and prob-

lems of reliab ility, as the da ta sources are of dif-

ferent quality for Asian countries (UNIFEM

2000).There a re also anom alies and inconsisten-

cies with regard to data collection procedures

ado pted by different countries, particularly for

temp oral compa rison (Hafkin, 2003). One alter-

native is to ta ke percentag e of wo men with ter-

tiary level of education like university degree,

teachers’training, professional deg ree, or enroll-

ment of women in science and engineering,28

as the indicato rs, but this would be a bit remote

for capturing gend er sensitivity in ICT.It is,t here-

fore, proposed to capture this dimension

through the percentag e of females among pro-

fessiona ls and technical workers.

In the context of maternal and child health,

access to basic amenities including sanitation

facilities and ot her social sectors, indicators per-

taining to the role of government, such as pub-

lic access to internet, success of the state in

internet promotion and efficacy of laws in ICT

use, etc., have been considered useful as the

state plays a key role in social development in

Asian co untries. These indicato rs may be

included here to indirectly reflect the coverage

of social sectors, as disag grega ted dat a on use




29 The role of the g overnment is likely to be significant in the context of a chieving other MDGs as well.30 It is hoped tha t t he Theory of Large Numbers will tend t o minimise the b ias implicit in the method ology, over a

large number o f such applications.

of ICT in these sectors are not ava ilab le.29

Besides,one would have to depend on availability-

linked indicators since the g rowt h of ICTper se

can help in achieving these goals through the

functioning of the ma rket. This indeed is possi-

ble if countries follow certain kinds of ICTpolicy

which as our overview sugg ests, is still in the

formative stag e in most o f the Asian countries.

It ma y be pointed out tha t t he Task Force con-

cedes the point that selection of indicators at

any point o f time wo uld b e g uided by availabili-

ty of da ta. It argues in favour of maintaining a

certain amo unt of flexibility in the methodology

so that experiences gained over the years can

be brought in to improve and refine indicators

over time. Further, it recog nises its ow n limita-

tion of not being able to put together hard

empirical evidence to justify the selection of

indicators or determine their relative impor-

tance. It, therefore,a rgues that assembling a nec-

dotal evidence and success stories would be

useful and complementa ry in the direction of

developing an analytical framework for the

exercise. It is in line with this perspective tha t a n

att empt has been ma de in the following section

to work out a few composite indices reflecting

various dimensions of ICTdevelopment as well

as its o verall progress.

Working out component indices

pertaining to different aspects

of ICT development and the

aggregate index

5.1.The methodol ogy

In view of t he g rowing popularity o f composite

indices and the possible usage of ranking of

countries in national and international policy

deba tes, it is proposed not to use complex mul-

tivariat e tools in the composition exercise. The

methodology attempts aggregation of the indi-

cators at several stag es, as has been done by

UNDP in working out the Human Development

Index (HDI). The metho d o f assigning weigh-

tag es on the b asis of a correlation mat rix, such

as Principal Compo nent Analysis, has not been

considered appropriate here since the pattern

of interdependencies is likely to change as the

technology takes firm root in the region.As one

5

has no other empirical ba sis to w ork out t he rel-

ative importance of indicators, it ha s been

decided to assign the equal weights to all the

indicators. 30

The other important problem to be sorted out is

the elimination of the b ias of scale that charac-

terises each indicator. In comput ing HDI, UNDP

adopts the Range Equalisation (RE) method

wherein each indicator is divided by the range

(after subtraction of the lowest value) so that

scale-free values vary betw een 0 and 1.In recent

years UNDP has changed its methodology

sligh tly as it uses a fixed rang e computed on the

basis of predetermined ‘goalposts’reflecting the

feasible upper and lower limits to the values.

This enables one to m ake tempo ral compar-

isons, not only of the rank scores of countries

but also of t heir HDIs. The disadvantag e in this

method is that the three constituent indices

pertaining to life expectancy, education and

GDP have lost the feature of having a fixed

rang e of unity. The highest value in each index

falls short of unity as the value for the top-

ranking co untry is below the g oa lpost.The same

explanat ion holds for the minimum value being

higher than zero. In view of t he familiarity and

popularity of this method among practitioners

and policy makers,it has been the first choice for

constructing composite indices in the present

analysis.

It may nonetheless be pointed out that fixing

the range of the constituent indices through

division by range discriminates against indica-

tors that have g reater disparity. Moreover, as

inequalities in different indicators show differ-

ent trends, it would be inappropriate t o force

these to ha ve uniform and constant rang e over

time. Indeed, with the introduction of the con-

cept of goalposts to compute the range, the

(scale-free) values of t he indices no longer have

the constant range of unity (and thereby have

lost their uniq ue property). However, the maxi-

mum and minimum values have been specified,

based on the possible values over recent years

and division by rang e is expected to ensure tha t

the difference in disparity of the constituent

indicators does not get reflected in HDI.

Furthermore, there can b e disagreements in fix-

ing the goalposts for indicators like GDP per




31 The mean for each indicator has been ob tained b y add ing up the values of all the countries and dividing t he tot alby nine.The new or scale-free value of each co untry,ob tained through t he division by mean, shows its relative posi-

tion vis-à-vis the average of the nine countries, on t hat indicator.See Appendix IV.

capita and life expectancy as the issues involved

here are empirical. The two bounds for literacy

and gross enrollment, on the other hand, are

mat hema tical.While inequa lity in the lat ter two

indicators would decline over time as the maxi-

mum value is fixed, the same may no t be t he

case with per capita income (Kundu 2003).

Nota bly, the RE method ology treats the two

types of indices in a n ident ical manner.The po p-

ularity and acceptability of the HDI among poli-

cy makers seems to have come in the way of

these issues being investigated adequately in

the literature. It is therefore proposed to use an

alternate method that permits the coefficients

of variation of d ifferent indicato rs to remain dif-

ferent even after making t hem scale free, and

lets these differences be reflected in the com-

posite index and ranking. To a chieve this, all the

indicators have been made scale free (See

Appendix IV) through division by their own

mean which may be ca lled t he Division by Mean

(DM) method.31 The coefficients of variat ion of

the original indicators, thus, become the stan-

dard deviations of the scale-free indicators,

which then are carried into the composite

indices.

Another important point is temporal compara-

bility of the indices. As the present exercise is

undertaken to make comparison only across

countries, elimination of scale effect ha s been

done by dividing each indicator by range or

mean, computed for the chosen year. In case

such comparisons are to be ma de over time, it

wo uld be necessary to fix the va lues of the divi-

sors, as is now being d one in computing HDI in

Human Development Report s. Indee d for com-

puting ICT compo site indices for any future

year, it would make sense to use the same

means as in the base year in the denominator

for each indicator. However, in case the base

year is not considered representative of the

early years of the 21st century, it should be pos-

sible to work out the mean of the first three

years, say 2001, 2002 and 2003, and fix these as

the denominators for eliminating the scale b ias

for all subsequent exercises.

Five component indices have been constructed

by the RE method as well as the DM method of

indexing, in the first sta ge . These perta in to the

five set s of indicators discussed a bove: (i) skill-

independent ICT;(ii) skill-dependent ICT;(iii) effi-

ciency and speed of ICT(iv) social sector t arge t-

ing; and (v) vulnerable group targeting. Before

composition, all the indicators need to b e made

uni-directional within each category.Indeed,the

indicators reflecting the costs of communica-

tion, such as internet service provider charges,

telephone usage charge for internet, cost of

local call and cost o f call to U.S.,canno t b e com-

bined w ith t hose articulating internet speed or

IT training. It has, therefore, been considered

proper to reciprocate these cost figures so that

efficiency indicators get defined as (i) internet

time availab le per dollar, (ii) telephone t ime for

internet usag e per dollar, (iii) local telephone

time (at p eak period) available per dollar, and

(iv) US telepho ne t ime per dollar.This has b een

done on t he basis of the understand ing that t he

higher the accessibility of ICTtime per unit of

money, the g reater is the efficiency of the sys-

tem. This problem does no t exist in case of a ny

other categ ory of indicators. Lastly, the agg re-

gate index of development o f ICTin the context

of MDGs has been obtained by combining the

five co mposite indices.

5.2 Indices obtained through range

equalisation method

Following the RE method, the compo nent index

for a categ ory has been ob tained by first making

each indicator scale free by subtracting its mini-

mum value from each observation and then

dividing it by its range. The averag e of these val-

ues across the indicators (within the categ ory) for

each country then becomes the value of its com-

ponent index. If a country has ma ximum values

for all the indicat ors in a categ ory, it will score an

index value of 1. Similarly, a country will ob ta in a

component score of zero only when it has the

minimum value for all the indicators. The larger

the value of group-specific or aggregate index,

the higher the role played by ICTtowa rds atta in-

ment of MDGs in the country. Furthermore, an

aggregate index for ICTdevelopment has been

computed with the same methodologies used

for comput ing the categ ory-specific indices.

The ind ices of skill-de pen de nt an d skill-

independent ICTavailability measure the rela-




The index o f vulnerable group ta rgeting measures

the efficacy of the system in extending the bene-

fits of ICTto women and o ther vulnerable sections

through lega l and g overnmental support systems.

India is placed in the top position here,followed by

Malaysia, and this is due to the high values report-

ed in (i) public access to internet , (ii) government’s

success in ICTpromotion, (iii) competition a mong

internet service providers, and (iv) a developed

legal system concerning ICTuse (Figure 4).

The ag gregate index is a summary mea sure of thefive composite indices, discussed a bove. It ma y,

therefore, be ta ken to reflect the overall progress

a country ha s made in promoting the ICTin the

context of goals of human development or mil-

lennium development.Malaysia obtains the high-

est value, followed by China and Thailand (Figure

5). India ob tains the fourth position, which is due

to its high values in categories other than avail-

ability of ICT. Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia

have values in the middle level,indicating a mod-

est role for ICT in promoting socio-econo mic

development .Mongo lia and Viet Nam have a long

wa y to go in promoting the ICT,particularly in ta r-geting social sector and vulnerable groups.

M a l a y s i a

T h a i l a n d

C h i n a

M o n g o l i a

I n d o n e s i a

I n d i a

P a k i s t a n

5.3 Indices obtained t hrough division

by mean method

In applying the DM method, the indicato rs in

each category have been divided by their

respective means. The values thus obt ained

have been ad ded for each country to ob tain the

component index for the cat ego ry. An identical

procedure has been a dopted for computing the

ag grega te index of ICTdevelopment, based on

the category-specific component indices.

The unique position of Malaysia in terms of ICT

development emerges in all categories of indica-

tors, excepting the social sector target ing index

where China seems to take the initiative (Tab le

2).The position of Malaysia is particularly impres-

sive in the case of availability of skill-dependent

ICTfor which the value works out t o be about 25

times that of the Indo-Pak averag e, the two

countries occupying the b ottom positions. In

skill-independent ICTaga in, Malaysia ha s a very

high va lue (followed by China),exhibiting a huge

gap with India and Pakistan (Figure 6).




In the case of ICT efficiency, both India and

Pakistan show impressive performances, almost

similar to Malaysia a nd China. Interestingly SriLanka,which secures modest values in availability-

linked indicators, att aining the to p position in

terms of efficiency. This index does not show

much variation across the countries (Figure 7), as

costs are becoming similar around the world,

under the impact of g lobalisation of the technol-

ogy. In t argeting social sectors, China secures the

highest value and this is basically because of ICT

being used in a b ig way in educational institutions

and g overnment assigning it a high priority, as

noted earlier. It is only in this category tha t we see

Malaysia sinking very low (Figure 8), going below

the average of the series while India and Thailand

notch significant ly higher positions. In targeting

vulnerable sections of the population, India and

Malaysia seem to be doing well (Figure 9). In both

countries,the state seems to be playing an impor-

tant role in prioritising ICTas also creating a fair

competitive environment among the service

providers.Here ag ain, inter-country d isparity does

not show any alarming proportions because of

the na ture of the indicators.

Understandab ly, Malaysia has the highest value in

the aggregate composite index,followed by Chinaand Thailand, the countries that have been a part of

the globa lly linked rapid development process, at

least for some time during the past two decades.

India and Sri Lanka come next (Figure 10).They are

at about the same level but the latter gets past the

former by reporting significantly higher values in

availability and efficiency linked indicators.

Immediately following them are Mongolia and

Indonesia. Interestingly, these two report medium

level values in all the five categories of ICTdevelop-

ment. Pakistan and Viet Nam a re at st ill lower level

Development

Skill- Skill- Efficiency Socia l Vulnerab le

inde pende nt d ep ende nt a nd sp eed se ctor g ro up

ICT ICT index targeting targeting Aggregate

Country index index index index index Rank

China 6.18 2.20 6.40 10.14 4.81 1.37 2

India 1.64 0.71 6.58 4.36 5.59 0.79 5

Indonesia 2.65 1.12 5.06 2.75 4.79 0.71 7

Malaysia 10.12 15.24 6.86 3.84 5.61 2.17 1

Mongolia 2.91 1.42 4.90 2.50 4.82 0.72 6

Pakistan 1.50 0.51 6.24 3.14 4.88 0.67 8

Sri Lanka 2.83 1.12 8.12 2.47 4.67 0.80 4

Thailand 5.63 3.62 5.11 4.31 5.36 1.12 3

Viet Nam 2.53 1.06 4.71 2.49 4.48 0.66 9

Table 2. Five component indices and aggregate index obta ined by division by mean method for nine Asian countries




The difference in ranking occurs even in categ ory-

specific component indices.Sri Lanka and China

get top positions in terms of efficiency and tar-

geting social sectors respectively by the DM

metho d, leaving beh ind Malaysia (which is

placed at number one position in both, by the

RE method ).It may b e ob served t hat most of t he

indicators in the two categ ories have low inter-

country variat ion. All the countries have similar

values except for telephone charge for internet

services and computers installed in educational

institutions. Both the indicators are important

within their respective categories and are

responsible for much of the variation among

countries. The advanta ge of Sri Lanka lies in

charging a low price for internet services while

that of China is in promoting computer educa-

tion in schools. The DM method, by implicitly

giving higher weighta ge t o these indicators,ha s

placed the tw o countries abo ve all the ot hers in

the cat egories mentioned ab ove. Similarly,

Malaysia is able to g et pa st India in terms of ta r-

ge ting vulnerable group index (the lat ter having

the top position by RE method) as it has a high-

er percentage of female professionals among

wo rkers and the method implicitly gives a high-

er weightage to the indicator because of its

higher d isparity.

It is not the purpose of the statistical exercise

attempted here to establish the superiority of

one method to the other as their suitability

would very much depend on the objectives of

the exercise and the empirical regularities

observed in the region under investigat ion. The

above discussion makes it clear that change in

the methodology of composition can and does

bring abo ut significant chang es in the values of

component indices and alters even the ranking

of the countries. Issues of value judg ment,

implicit in the met hodolog y cannot, therefore,

be dismissed.

It has been demonstrated that the RE method

implicitly gives lower weightages to indicators

pertaining to availability and a few other

aspects of ICTdevelopment that are observed

to have high disparity.The disparity,in the coun-

tries under consideration, has been caused

through the process of development, mediated

largely through t he ma rket, with limited control

being exercised by the government.In the earli-

er sections on the process of development, it

has b een a rgued tha t ICThere is still in the initial

stages of development and consequently,

increase in its availability itself could prompt

socio-economic development. Several econo m-

ic, social and cultural facto rs are currently

inhibiting the process of growt h and an increase

in the availability of this technology would help

in giving exposure to po licy makers,a dministra-

tors and common people to the g lobal informa-

tion system. Further, this would lead to the

establishment of better communication net-

works even within countries and facilitate deci-

sion making of public and private agencies.

Important ly, supply of ICT has been strongly

linked with economic affordability of the coun-

tries,resulting in high d isparity in the former. In

future, economic factors affecting affordability

wo uld also be important for the development

of ICT. This is a fact w hich cannot be denied at

the present time. In view of all this, giving high

importance to availability indicators does not

appea r to be misplaced.

It is indeed true that national governments in

the Asian region have tried to give a direction

to t he development o f ICTb y intervening in

the m arket, controlling prices, introducing it in

social sectors, fixing priorities, strengthening

the legal structure for ensuring access to all,

etc. The cross-country d ifferences in the ind ica-

tors are not very hig h, as may be inferred from

the low coefficients of variation of the indica-

tors (Append ix V) belonging to the third,fourth

and fifth cat eg ories. Irrespective of socio-polit-

ical structures, each country has t aken meas-

ures to give a push to the dissemination of

technology in the desired direction. Indeed,

there are specific measures adopted by indi-

vidua l government s to direct ICTtow ards MDG

objectives but it is impossible to generate

comparable cross-sectional data on this

aspect . Also, the success of such mea sures has

been limited a nd uneven across countries,d ue

to the overwhelming nature of the market

which has proved formida ble. This is reflected

in unbalanced sectoral and spatial growth of

ICT, evident from th e high dispa rity in the first

and second categories of the indicators of

availability.

In view of the a bove ob servations, maintaining

the inter-country variation of indicators (by

making the standard deviation of the original

indicator the coefficient o f the sca le-free indica-

tor) and then giving equal weightage to their

variations in the aggregation scheme appears

to be more appropriate. Studies have shown




that the indicators that play a significant role in

the development dynamics of less-developed

countries like India exhibit high disparity in

space (Kundu 1984). Undoub ted ly, this kind of

regularity observed in certain contexts cannot

become an a xiom as it cannot claim universality.

However, given the pa ttern of development

noted through correlation analysis and review

of literat ure pertaining to the Asian reg ion, one

can, with some degree of confidence, justify

retention of the variation in availability indica-

tors in the process of composition.

Understand ab ly, this implies giving implicitly

higher weightage to availability-linked indica-

tors,t he rationale for which has b een d iscussed

while analysing the development dynamics in

the region.

In brief

ICTindicators have shown strong positive rela-

tionships with per capita income and HDI across

the countries of the wo rld in 1991. The MDG

indicators related to health and education, such

as net primary school enrollment ratio, children

reaching g rade 5, youth literacy rate, reduction

in child mortality and improvement in maternal

health, have also shown a significant and

desired pattern of interdependency with ICT

indicators. Similarly, the percentag e of people

with sustainable access to w ater and sanitation

facilities (in urban areas) is highly correlated

with ICTindicators.

In 2001, the pa ttern of relationships betw een

ICT indicators and those o f income a nd HDI

across countries, has strengt hened. Further, the

correlations bet ween ICT and MDG indicato rs

related to he alth and education have improved

over time. Important ly, the positive relationship

between ICTindicators and the percentage of

the non-poor, has improved significantly. The

correlation of ICTwith MDG indicators related to

environmenta l sustainability, particularly to

wa ter and sanitation in urban a reas has, howev-

er, wea kened over the decade.

For indicators of growth or change in the level

of ICTand progress towards MDGs during the

1990s, no reg ular patt ern of relationship is dis-

cernible. One may argue t hat diffusion of ICTto

different social spheres is a recent phenomeno n

and its manifesta tions wo uld be visible only

with a certain time lag. In any case, the positive

impact o f grow th in ICTon the process of socio-

6

economic development has not yet become

statistically visible.

Classifying the countries of the world into four

categ ories such as Europe and OECD, Arab a nd

Latin America, Asia-Pacific a nd Africa, an

attempt is made to examine the the nature of

interrelationships between ICT indicators and

MDGs across regions. Expectedly, one not ices

high correlat ions of ICTindicato rs with per capi-

ta income and other manifestat ions of econom-

ic development in Europe, even in the ea rly

1990s. This is true in th e o the r three less-

developed regions as well, although ICT here

wa s restricted t o use of radios, televisions and

telephones. Importantly, the interdependency

of ICTindicators w ith MDGs emerges as positive

in the case of Europe. This, however, is not the

case in the less-developed regions of Arab and

Lat in America, Africa and Asia. MDG indicato rs

pertaining to primary education, health, gend er

eq uality and environmental sustainability, for

example, have shown strong interdependency

with ICTin Europe. These a re either weak or do

not exhibit any pattern in the other three

regions o f the wo rld in 1991.

The relat ionships of ICTindicators with t hose of

MDGs, in 2001, are similar to or strong er than

tho se of 1991 in Europe. In t he less-developed

regions, this is not the ca se. For Arab and Lat in

America, and Africa, the correlations betw een

ICTand certain social development indicators,

such as access to educat ion, child and mat ernal

health a nd a vailability of drugs, show desirable

signs and are sta tistically significant . This is not

so in Asia as most of such interdependencies

have been estimated to b e insignificant, includ-

ing tho se betw een ICT and education-linked

MDGs. Furthermore, ICT is strong ly correlated

with the availability of drinking water and sani-

ta tion fa cilities in Europe in 2001. This, to some

extent , is the case in Arab a nd Latin America a nd

Africa as well. However, the same, is not

observed in Asia.

The indicators articulating cha ng e or grow th in

the level of ICTor progress tow ards MDGs, over

the d ecad e from 1991 to 2001, exhibit no d is-

cernible pa ttern of interdependency.The indica-

tors of change in the level of ICTshow no posi-

tive correlation with change in primary school

enrollment rat e or gender disparity in educa tion

in any of the four regions. Important ly, the cor-

relations between progress in ICTand that in


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/ct-and-human-development-towards-building-a-composite-index-for-asia 28/3522 ICT and Human Development: Towards Building a Composite Index for Asia

Appendix I:List of indicators used for correlation analysis

1. ICT indicators i. Internet users (per 100 people)

ii. Internet hosts (per 1,000 people)

iii. Personal computers in use (per 100 people)

iv. Telephone mainlines (per 1,000 people)

v. Televisions in use (per 1,000 people)

vi. Cellular subscribers (per 1,000 people)

vii. Radios in use (per 1,000 people)

2. Indicators of economic and human development i. GDP per capita (PPP US$)

ii. Human development index (HDI)

3. Indicators reflecting poverty (related to MDG 1)i. Undernourished people (%of total population)

ii. Population surviving on less than one dollar per day (%)iii. Poverty gap rat io (%)

iv. Share of poorest 20%in national income or consumption (%)

v. Children underweight for age (%of children under 5years of age)

4. Indicators pertaining to education (related to MDG 2 and others showing broad educational statistics) i. Adult (age group 15–49) literacy rate

ii. Children reaching grade 5 (%)

iii. Net primary enrollment ratio (%)

iv. Net secondary enrollment ratio (%)

v. Combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrollment ratio (%)

vi. Tertiary level students in science,maths and engineering (as %of all tertiary level students)

vii. Youth literacy rate (%of age group15–24)

viii. Scientists and engineers in R&D (per million people)

5. Indicators promoting gender equalit y and empowerment of women (related to MDG 3) i. Ratio of literate females to males (age group 15–24)

ii. Seats in parliament held by women (%of total)

iii. Female share of non-ag ricultural wage employment (%)

iv. Ratio of girls to boys in primary education

v. Ratio of girls to boys in secondary education

vi. Ratio of girls to boys in tertiary education

6. Indicators pertaining to reduction of child mortalit y, improving maternal health and com- bat ing HIV/AIDS,malaria and other major diseases (related to MDGs 4,5 & 6) i. Infant mortality rate (per 1,000 live births)

ii. Life expectancy at birth (years)

iii. Births attended by skilled health personnel (%)iv. Physicians (per 100,000 people)

v. Population with sustainable access to affordable essential drugs (%)

vi. One-year-olds fully immunised ag ainst measles (%)

vii. Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 live births)

viii. Under five morta lity rate (per 1,000 live births)

ix. Tuberculosis-related mortality rate (per 100,000 people)

Appendices



x. Malaria-related mortality rate (all ages)

xi. Malaria-related mortality rate (children aged 0–4)

xii. Malaria cases (per 100,000 people)

xiii. Tuberculosis cases (per 100,000 people)

xiv. Tuberculosis cases cured under direct observat ion treat ment (DOTS) (%)

xv. Tuberculosis cases detected under direct observation treatment (DOTS) (%)

xvi. Adults living w ith HIV/AIDS (%)

xvii. Women living with HIV/AIDS (%)

xviii. Children living with HIV/AIDS (%)

7. Indicators on environmental sustainabilit y (related to MDG 7) i. Consumption of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (ODP metric tons)

ii. Carbon dioxide emissions per capita (metric tons)

iii. GNP per unit of energy use (PPP US$ per kg of oil equivalent)

iv. Land area covered by forests (%)

v. Ratio of protected area to surface area

vi. Urban population with access to improved sanitation (%)

vii. Population with sustainable access to an improved wa ter source in rural areas (%)

viii. Population with sustainable access to an improved wa ter source in urban areas (%)

8. Indicators on developing a global partnership for development (related to MDG 8) i. Flow of foreign direct investment funds (FDI) (in million US dollars)

ii. Overseas development assistance (ODA) as percentage of g ross national product (GNP)

32 Developme nt of ICT, besides playing a role in achieving t he ot her MDGs,has be en conside red as a g oa l in itself.Thiswo uld enab le inclusion of a large numb er of supply-side indicators perta ining to ICT, as listed



Appendix II:Indicators of ICT development under different Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs),as per the guidelines of the UN ICT Task Force

MDG 1:Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger i. Average income from ICTas percentage of GDP

ii. Number of ICTinitiatives related to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger

iii. Preps (poverty reduction strateg y papers) that include development of ICT(IMF)

MDG 2:Achievement of universal primary education i. ICTaccess and usage in primary school

ii. Number of teachers trained in the usage of ICT

iii. Initiatives related to ICTuse in primary education

iv. Presence of ICT-related content in primary education, particularly in terms of availability of

learning mat erials in digital form in local lang uag es, educational web sites, e-learning

products/services, etc.

MDG 3:Promot ion of gender equalit y and empowerment of women i. Women’s ICTaccess and usage

ii. ICTliteracy among girls

iii. Sensitivity of ICTpolicy environment to gender issues assessing importance of wome n in

ICTplanning, policy or strat eg y (Hafkin 2003)iv. Role of women in ICTpolicymaking

v. Percentage of female ITworkers or female technical workers

vi. Initiatives to bring about women’s advancement through the use of ICT

MDGs 4, 5 & 6: Reduction of child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS,malaria and other major diseases

i. Initiatives promoted through ICTfor sensitisation of population on health-related issues

like child mortality,ma ternal health, HIV/AIDS,ma laria and other ma jor diseases

ii. Investment,penetration, usage of ICTin health institutions and by medical professionals

and other health w orkers

iii. Importance given to health and healthcare needs in terms of allocation of resources and

sett ing perspectives,in country’s ICTplan

iv. Number and coverage o f specific programmes and campaigns related to ICTin health sector

MDG 7: ICT impact on environmental sustainabilit y i. Presence of content related to environmental protection and sustainability including cli-

mate chang e biodiversity, etc. in education and information, disseminated t hrough ICT

ii. Indicators pertaining to prevention/monitoring of environmental disasters

iii. Initiatives related to reduction in consumption of energy, water and other essential

resources throug h introduct ion of ICT

MDG 8:Developing a global partnership for development 32

i. Number o f telephone connec tions

ii. Number of personal computers

iii. Number of people trained in ICT(local capacity building)

iv. Number of local companies registered w ith ICTas main/major businessv. Number of domain names registered locally or domain addresses registered to an address

in a country

32 Development o f ICT,b esides playing a role in achieving the other MDGs,has be en conside red as a g oa l in itself.Thiswo uld enab le inclusion of a large numb er of supply-side indicators perta ining to ICT, as listed



vi. Number of PCs, phones, mobiles, radios, radio stations,etc.

vii. Degree of competitiveness and regulatory controls in the market

viii. Number of internet service providers (ISPs)

ix. Patents registered related to local ICT

x. Number of registered software licenses

xi. Number of health and educational institutions connected electronically

xii. Number of web pages in major local languages

xiii. Number of IP addresses, domain names and e-mail accounts

xiv. Number of people employed in ICTsector




Appendix III:Indicators used for construction of indices pertaining to ICT

development

1. Availabilit y or supply-linked — skill-independenti. Telephone mainlines (per 1,000 people)

ii. Cellular subscribers (per 1,000 people)

iii. Television sets (per 1,000 people)

iv. Radios (per 1,000 people)

2. Availabilit y or supply-linked — skill-dependenti. Internet users (per 100 people)

ii. Personal computers in use (per 100 people)

iii. ICTexpenditure per capita (in US dollars)

3. Efficiency and speed i. Internet service provider charges (in US dollars)

ii. Telephone usag e charge for internet service (in US dollars)

iii. Cost of local call per 3 min (in US dollars)

iv. Cost of call to US per 3 min (in US dollars)

v. Int ernet speed a nd a ccess

vi. Training and education in IT

4. Targeting social sectors i. In ternet access in schools

ii. Computers installed in education (in thousands)

iii. Government prioritisation in ICT

iv. Government online services availability

5. Targeting vulnerable groups i. Female professional and technical workers (%of total female workers)

ii. Public access to internet

iii. Government’s success in ICTpromotion

iv. Competition among internet service providers (ISPs)

v. La w s re la ted t o ICTuse




Appendix IV:Methodology for construction of composite indices

Range Equalisation (RE) method

Step 1: Making the indicators scale free

i. Computation of the range for each indicator.For the j th indicator belonging to t he r th cat-

egory,t he range R* rj would be (X rjmax X rjmin ) where X rjmax and X rjmin are the ma ximum and

minimum va lues for the j th indicator in the r th category.

ii. Compute (X rij X rjmin ) and divide ea ch value by R* rj .We thus ob ta in the sca le-free values ofthe j th indicators as (X rij X rjmin )/R*rj for a ll i where i = 1,2,… Z.Z is the number of countries,

which is 9 in the present case for each indicato r in ea ch categ ory.

Step 2: Adding up the scale-free values of the indicators within each categ ory for each country.

The group ‘skill-independ ent ICTavailability ’ (category 1), for example, has 4 constituent indicators

and hence we shall have N 1 as eq ual to 4.The compo nent index for skill-independ ent ICTavailabil-

ity Y 1i for the i th country would then be computed as

Y 1i (X 1ij X 1jmin )/R* 1j , j 1....N 1 .

Describing Y ri as the component index for the r th categ ory for the i th country, one w ould w rite

Y ri (

X rij

X rjmin )/R*

rj, for each

j = 1....N r where

N r is the number of indicators in the

r th categ ory.

The ag greg ate index for the i th country Y i would be Y ri /N, where N is the number of categories

which in the present exercise is 5.

Division by Mean (DM) method

Step 1: Making the indicators scale free

i. Computation of the mean for each indicator.For the j th indicator belonging to t he r th cat-

egory, the mean X* rj would be X rij /Z where X rij is the value of the ith country for j th indi-

cator in the r th category and i = 1,2,… Z.Z is the number of countries,w hich is 9in the pres-

ent case for each indicator and each categ ory.

ii. Division of each observation of the indicator (X rij ) by respect ive mea n (X*rj).We thus ob ta in

X rij / X*rj.These ma y be called the scale-free values of the indicato rs.

Step 2: Adding up the scale-free values within ea ch g roup for each country.‘Skill-dependent ICT

availability ’ (cate go ry 2), for example, has 3 constituent indicators. The skill-depe ndent ava ilab ility

index Y 2i for the i th country would then be computed as

Y 2i (X 2ij /X* 2j ), j 1....N 2 .N 2 would be 3 as there are only 3 indicators in this category.

Describing Y ri as the component index for the r th categ ory for the i th country,one w ould write

Y ri (X rij / X*rj),for each j 1....N r where N r is the number of indicato rs in the r th category .

The ag greg ate index for the i th country Y i would be Y ri /N, where N is the numb er of cat egories,

which is 5.




Appendix V:Mean and coefficient of variation of the indicators

pertaining to different aspects of ICT development*

Mean Coefficient of variation

Skill -independent ICT

Telephone mainlines (per 1,000 people) 73.78 80.28Cellular subscribers (per 1,000 people) 80.22 122.31

Television sets (per 1,000 people) 144.67 51.68

Radios (per 1,000 people) 182.00 57.07

Skil l-dependent ICT

Internet users (per 100 people) 4.70 183.65

Personal computers in use (per 100 people) 2.52 152.63

ICTexpenditure per capita (US$) 59.09 132.94

Indicators of efficiency

Internet time available (per US$) 0.10 51.92

Telephone time for internet (per US$) 6.45 82.51

Loca l telephone time (at peak period)available (per US$) 65.48 53.3

US telephone time (per US$) 0.29 35.24

Internet speed and access 3.54 15.7

ITtraining and education 3.99 20.89

Sectoral diversification in ICT

Internet access in schools 2.76 17.53

Computers installed in education (in thousands) 318.67 210.93

Govternment prioritisation in ICT 4.58 14.31

Government online services availability 2.78 26.75

User group specific indicators

Female professiona l and technical workers(as %of total female workers) 44.71 25.99

Public access to internet 3.20 13.62

Govternment success in ICTpromotion 3.98 13.34

Competition among internet service providers 4.18 15.37

Laws relating to ICTuse 3.34 23.84

Note: * The indicat ors a re available a t UNDP w ebsite: ht tp://hdrc.undp.org.in/initiatives/apri/ict.html



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