South Africa ticked up two notches in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) latest Global Information Technology Report, of which the Networked Readiness Index was central. But a number of factors still weighed on the information and communication technology (ICT) industry’s ability to accelerate growth.

The index examined the growth effects of the network and tabled ten subindices dissecting the effectiveness of business, government, policies and education on the ICT sectors in 144 countries.

These included the political and regulatory frameworks, business and innovation, infrastructure and digital content, afford- ability and skills development, as well as individual, government and business use, and economic and social impacts.

South Africa ranked 70th out of 144 countries, an improvement from its ranking of 72nd out of 142 last year, being one of only two sub-Saharan African countries reaching the top half of the index.

Mauritius, the other higher-scoring African country, ranked 55th, while the Seychelles, Cape Verde, Rwanda, Morocco and Ghana were ranked 79th, 81st, 88th, 89th and 92nd respectively.

Kenya, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe were among the many African countries polled and ranked 95th, 96th, 111th, 115th, and 116th respectively.

South Africa’s ICT sector performed below its Brics counterparts – Russia ranked 54th, China 58th, Brazil 60th and India 68th.

Despite ranking 59th in the development of its ICT infrastructure, including international Internet bandwidth capacity and mobile network coverage, besides others, South Africa failed to improve the afford- ability and skills of the sector, where it only ranked 104th and 102nd respectively.

In terms of mobile pricing, South Africa came in at 117th, making it one of the most expensive countries surveyed, not much cheaper than Switzerland and Australia at 120th and 121st.

The average per-minute cost was cheapest in Liberia, Ukraine and Hong Kong.

The monthly charges for fixed broadband in South Africa were slightly cheaper, with the WEF ranking the country 89th, compared with Germany at 88th and Australia at 94th.

The quality of South Africa’s education system was ranked 140th, while its quality of maths and science education was ranked 143rd, ahead of only Yemen.

Further, the country was unable to leverage its ICT sector to improve its social performance, such as Internet in schools, access to basic services, ICT use and government’s efficiency and e-participation, which, when combined as an index, achieved a low ranking of 112th.

The economic impacts within South Africa, however, were ranked 51st. Economic impacts included the impact of ICT on new products and services, new organisational models and patents and applications for patents.

The country reported a strong uptake of ICT by the business community, where it ranked 33rd, but government use and indi- vidual use were ranked 102nd and 81st respectively.

“The perception of a lack of clear government vision (105) to orchestrate and implement a holistic ICT strategy for the country, coupled with deficiencies in the education system for some segments of the population (102), plays negatively in this process and outweighs a rather positive political and regulatory framework for ICT development (21) and [the] probusiness environment (55),” the report stated.

Finland, Singapore, Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway comprise the top five of the index.