Measuring the Information Society Current status & the role of ESCWA

1. Measuring the Information SocietyCurrent status & the role of ESCWA ICT Indicators & Capacity-building for ICT measurement in the Arab Region Amman, Jordan Rami Zaatari First IT Officer ICT Division www.escwa.un.org 25-26 Sept. 2010

2. Outline • About ESCWA • Challenges of Measuring the IS • Evaluation of Measurement Models • Status of Measuring the IS in the ESCWA Region • Capacity-Building on IS Measurements • Advisory Services to Member Countries • Publications/Studies • IS Portal • Statistical tools and Database

3. About Us • United Nations - Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; (1974) - الإسكوا • Part of the Secretariat of the United Nations; • One of five regional commissions which report to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); • Promotes economic and social development through regional and sub-regional cooperation and integration; • The ICT division aims to increase the capabilities of member countries in harnessing ICT for their development.

4. 14 Member Countries Bahrain Egypt Iraq Jordan KSA Kuwait Lebanon Oman Palestine Qatar Syria UAE Yemen Sudan

5. “To measure is to know” “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (1824–1907) British physicist and engineer

6. Challenges of Measuring the IS • It is not easy to measure a concept; • Multi-dimensional: technological, economic, social, political • Requires a framework, statistical methods, surveys, data collection, monitoring and evaluation; • Multitude of terms: digital divide, Information Society, knowledge society, knowledge economy, knowledge divide • Involves many stakeholders: • International Organization (UN, ITU, UNCTAD, UIS…) • Public sector (NSOs, MoICT, MoE) • Private sector (Telcos), NGOs, Communities • A fast and continuous evolution in ICTs; • Requires awareness, capacity building, efforts, partners.

7. Why measuring it? • Assess the gap between the “Haves" & "Have-Nots“; • Provide valuable information to decision-makers, policy makers to update/fine tune strategies and implementation plans; • Compare countries to others in the region and globally; • Identify development goals and how to reach them; • Identify market trends, and reveal potential economic opportunities; • Mandated by WSIS

8. Evaluation of measurement models • None has so far covered all dimensions of the IS; (what about e-applications, enabling environment, building security & trust, digital content, etc…) • Do not take into account different levels of development & national circumstances of our region: • Fast growing population • Young generation (45% under age of 15) • High ICT illiteracy rates • Regional DD (mobile sub., UAE:176.5%, Yemen:15.6% ITU 2007) • Conflicting results; • Not all Arab countries are covered; • Affordability of ICT and GDP - not taken into account.

9. Role of ESCWA • Active member of the Partnership since 2004; • Profiling the IS nationally and regionally since 2003; • Building the capacities of member countries on IS measurement, core ICT indicators, hands-on training on data collection & analysis, and statistical tools; • Developing new Indicators (Arab Women in S&T); • Providing advisory services to member countries; • Publications/Studies; • IS Portal and statistical database.

10. Status of Measuring IS in the Region • Recognition of the importance of ICT indicators at decision making level is still weak; • Almost all countries collect basic ICT access indicators (availability) while fewer on ICT usage; • In most EMCs, core ICT indicators adoption and data collection are not institutionalized and are often partial; • ICT sector/ICT goods statistics are practically inexistent; • Few countries collect indicators, through specific surveys (Household & Business); • Scarcity of Indicators referring to the barriers to ICT use.

11. Status in 2007 • In 2007 ESCWA collected core ICT indicators through surveys sent to national focal points. (2006 data)

12. Status in 2009 • In 2009 ESCWA collected core ICT indicators through surveys sent to national focal points. (2008 data) (*) Countries not responding to the survey

13. Status of Measuring IS in the Region • Improvements are seen, but progress is slow  only 5 years away from 2015 targets; • These countries are more advanced than the others: • Egypt: Dedicatedand updatedICT Indicators Portal • Jordan: Household survey and Impact assessment of KS • Oman: Conducting Business surveys • Good collaboration at the regional level, particularly with ESCWA, AITRS* and ITU regional office, and at the international level with ITU, UNCTAD, OECD and UIS. (*) Arab Institute for Training and Research in Statistics

14. Capacity-Building on IS Measurement • Training workshops carried out at the regional, sub-regional and national level; • Collaboration with regional and international organizations (ITU, UNCTAD, UIS, OECD, AITRS) and national statistics offices; • From awareness on core ICT indicators to hands-on training on data collection & analysis and statistical tools; • Household/business surveys constitute major components.

15. Capacity-Building on IS Measurement • Capacity-Building Workshop on ICT Core Statistics, April 2008, Jordan; • Training Workshop on ICT data, statistics and indicators for Iraq’s Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology (COSIT), June 2008, Lebanon; • Training Workshop on Measuring ICT Indicators for the GCC - April 2009, Kuwait; • Training workshop on Measuring ICT Indicators for Syria, Palestine, Soudan, Yemen, Iraq - July 2009, Syria.

16. Advisory Services • Ministry of National Economy and Information Technology Authority, Oman, March 2008; • National Information Centre, Yemen, April 2008; • Qatar Statistics Authority, Qatar, March/April 2008; • Central Agency for IT, Kuwait, March/April 2009; • ITA, Oman, April 2010. • Designing and framing questionnaires • Providing definitions of data to be collected • Conducting household and business surveys

17. Publications/Studies • “Regional Profile of the Information Society in Western Asia”, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009 (Ar/En); • Biennial Flagship publication, widely disseminated in the region; • The 2011 edition will be available in Q4 of 2011.

18. Publications/Studies • “Impact of ICT on Community Development in ESCWA Member Countries” (Dec. 2009) (Ar/En); • “Guidelines for ICT Indicators Measurement”, 2007 (Ar).

19. Publications/Studies - Upcoming • “Building a Common Benchmarking Model for the ESCWA Region” (Dec. 2010) (En); • Focus on statistical irregularity and shortcomings found in some measurements models given the specificities of the region; • Irregularities lead to flowed and unfair benchmarking; • Seek to harmonize IS measurements models; • Propose a benchmarking model which is able to encompass the broad differences in the economic and social landscape found in the region.

20. Publications/Studies (Partnership) • Contributed to the “Core ICT Indicators” 2005; • Published in Arabic in collaboration with AITRS – 2007.

21. Publications/Studies (Partnership) • Contributed to the “Core ICT Indicators” 2010; • Currently working on an Arabic version - available in November 2010.

22. Publications/Studies (Partnership) • Working on an Arabic version of UNCTAD’s “Manual for the Production of Statistics on the Information Economy”; in collaboration with Egypt’s CAPMAS (November 2010) • Will be available in November 2010.

23. Information Society Portal (ISPER) • http://isper.escwa.un.org • Main Content: • IS Indicators Database • IS Profiles (03, 05, 07, 09) • Regional action plans/projects • Arab ICT Strategy • Publications Library • Online collaboration tools

24. Statistical Tools & Database - ESIS • http://esis.escwa.org.lb • ESIS Database: Web-based and a desktop application versions, facilitating the distribution of ICT indicators to policy makers and decision makers in the region.

25. Recommendations • Recognize & adopt the core list of ICT indicators; • Develop national plans for the collection and dissemination of IS statistics; • Involve NSOs in IS measurement; • Cooperate with ESCWA, AITRS, ITU-RO for the capacity-building of Arab statistical offices; • Use software tools for data collection and statistical analysis (ESIS); • Make ICT indicators available on the Internet; • Incorporate ICT surveys into existing census surveys and business surveys;

26. Thank you zaatari@un.org www.escwa.un.org