The Global Network Readiness Index (NRI) for 2023 has just been released. The NRI is compiled annually by the Portulans Institute on the basis of a robust collection of data along four segments but closely linked pillars. Portulans Institute is an Independent, nonpartisan research and educational institute that aims to foster metrics-based and better policymaking on technology, innovation, and ICTs, based in Washington DC
According to the design of the NRI, there are four pillars. These are technology, people, governance and impact. Together these four pillars have a total of 70 sub-pillars, some of which are not directly related to digital technology. The NRI has remained for many years, the only globally recognized ICT readiness assessment that is comprehensive and rigorously compiled with a transparent methodology.
Last year, Nigeria was ranked 109 out of 131 countries with a composite score of 36.67. Its best performance was in the Technology pillar ranked 88 while for People pillar, Nigeria was number 99, No. 115 in Governance pillar and 118 for the impact pillar.
This year Nigeria was ranked 106 out of 134 with a composite score of 35.73, below top African continent performers of Kenya (70), South Africa (74) and Mauritius (76). Several other countries such as Ghana, Tunisia, Tanzania, Senegal, Algeria and Cote d’Ivoire outperformed Nigeria. In terms of position the country has moved one step from 106 to 105. However in terms of score, it performs poorer than last year with move down of score from 36.67 to 35.73.
Our performance on the Technology pillar remained at 88 as it was last year while our position for the People Pillar slightly improved from 99 to 96, for Governance moved from 115 to 114. Similarly, the Impact pillar, we have a two-step improvement from 118 to 116. Overall, it is not a good performance.
The poor performance of the country is even more visible when we move to the individual scores of the country along the pillar. Our best score of the four is in Governance at 37.40, followed by Impact at 37, 20 while we have 34.42 for Technology Pillar. The worse is for the People Pillar which stood at 33.89. If these scores were that of a student, it is an unredeemable failure.
In September this year, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) organized a workshop to deliberate on the 2022 NRI Report. In that workshop, I made the observation that, there were two major problems for Nigeria. One is about the lack of or inadequate data for the computation of the various indices of the NRI while the second is the reality of the digital eco system in the country/
Access for which Nigeria scored 55.57 is a necessary pre-condition for use and therefore is the base upon which digital transformation is built. Access is critically related to technology. Now, with new technology it is easy to provide last mile connectivity. For instance, Starlink has theoretically covered all the parts of the country. In fact in the current NRI, Nigeria scored 95.22 in the population covered by mobile network sub-pillar. Without Starlink, a study by the USPF has indicated there are 97 clusters of communities that are classified as either underserved or unserved, with an estimated population of about 27.1 million people. These people have no access to internet. To enhance the score of the Technology people, we need to bridge this gap in connectivity. In spite of this, Nigeria scored 55.57 on the access sub-pillar.
With respect to content which is also a Technology sub-pillar, the country scored 22.29 while for Future Technologies the country has 25.40 score. With respect to the People Pillar comprising of Individuals, governments, businesses, trust and regulation among other key sub-pillars, the performance of was only good with respect to regulation at 50.62.
Some of the sub-pillars in which there was either no data or there was an insufficient amount of data thus making them to record zero for Nigeria include high/medium tech manufacturing, robot density, AI talent concentration, Internet access in schools, AI talent concentration, GERD financed by business enterprise, Gender gap in Internet use and several others
The sub-pillar where the country did well include International Internet bandwidth (71.81), Cybersecurity (84.49), Population covered by at least a 3G mobile network (95.22), ICT regulatory environment(87.00) and Annual investment in telecommunication services (86.47).
The country also performed poorly in the SDG related sub-pillars such as SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being (26.65), SDG 4: Quality Education (0.00), and SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities (23.29).
The comprehensiveness of the NRI is its utility in that it reveals the areas of weaknesses of a country and therefore defines what it ought to do to improve. In the workshop that NCC organized, a number of recommendations were made including for Nigeria to pilot test sub-national level NRI self-assessment, including incentivizing state governments so that they could do more to promote the mainstreaming of digital technology. While one cannot say to what extent those recommendations have been or are being implemented, what is clear is that a lot needs to be done to improve Nigeria’s ranking in the NRI and therefore position citizens to derive the benefits of digital technology.
We at the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), we would like to recommend as follows:
- Learning from global good practices, Nigeria should license a new tier of last mile connectivity provide to address the gaps in ways that will also take into consideration affordability. This is to allow for community networks which small, nibble networks set up by communities and managed by them to meet their communication need. The advantage of this is that government does not need of finance these networks nor does it have to wait endless for MNOs which will not go into these communities because they are not profitable either due to sparse populations or the people of the communities are to poor.
- The USPF was set up as a bridging mechanism, to address gaps in access and affordability. It should do this through, among many others, receiving applications for loans and grants from eligible persons such as community-based communications operators, providing loan recipients and grantees with technical and managerial assistance, such as resolution of equipment vendor issues and setting up of billing systems. At the moment is strategy is mainly subsidies private sector to provide connectivity to unserved communities which has not been effective. In the interest of promoting greater access, the USPF needs to tweak its strategy and find a way to implement the number 1 of its functions as provided in section 118 (1) of the Act establishing it
- We need to address the seeming lacuna in the broader ICT location in our constitutional setting. Right now, because of Item 66 of the exclusive list of legislation (Wireless, broadcasting and television other than broadcasting and television provided by the Government of a state; allocation of wave-lengths for wireless, broadcasting and television transmission.) of the Exclusive List , we continue to treat telecommunication as falling in the exclusive list. This has implication in what state governments can and what they cannot do. But while telecommunication can be regarded as falling on the exclusive list, ICT cannot because it has become mainstreamed in such sectors as education, health and commerce, all of which have concurrent list components, we cannot have a federal system and continue to treat the ICT sector in a unitary form. Our future policy initiative must take this into consideration. One of the advantages of doing this is that, state governments will not only be empowered but also made to be responsible for making policy that will promote technology rollout and access to citizens in their states. That will enhance access, use and content and this ultimately, push the Tehcn0olgy Pillar higher and faster.
- Telecommunication and use of digital technology is driven by availability of stable power supply, which at the moment is lacking in the country. A future technology policy must align with the energy sector policy in two important respects. One is to ensure that users have access to affordable and convenient energy that will allow use digital technology. The second is that also we are still an energy-hungry country; we must also be sensitive to the burden of current pattern of energy consumption to climate change. Specifically, net grid is a major contributor to carbon footprint globally. While at the moment, such contribution from Nigeria may be not be significant compared to other countries, there is the need to begin to think of alternative sources, focusing on green and clean energy sources. We have abundant sun light and we need to develop the capacity to tap and change to using it for most of our energy needs.
- Nigeria should implement strategies to embrace circular economy in the digital technology sector. Such strategies should include:
a. Building capacity for recover, repair and reuse. This include the setting up of large scale e-waste treatment plant on public- private partnership (PPP/ Nonprofit basis) initiatives across the country
b. Joining the global voice for alternative design methodology and production to increase the life span of products, eliminate the use of non-replaceable components and update of modularity and upgradeability of devic es.
c. Technology experimentation and adaptation to move from extractives to renewable raw materials. For example, shifting from steel towers to towers from biodegradable and agro-base substitutes such as bamboo
d. Incorporate regulation and certification of circularity in the type testing and approval processes of NCC - Taking data serious: Going through the detailed computation of the NRI for Nigeria shows that there are many items for which zero was recorded for Nigeria. Data could not be found to use for the computation of those sub-pillars. Thus illustrates the poor state of data and statistics in the country. It is important to emphasize that Nigeria must take the issue of data capturing and keeping very serious, not just for the ICT sector but across all aspects of society in the country.
- Removing Barriers to Use: thee poor score on individual users under the Governance Pillar indicates more than just lack of access but also the fact people are using digital systems. One of the factors for this as given by a sub-pillar of Governance is trust in which Nigeria scored 5.41. This is indicates a wide spread distrust of digital systems in the country. These many reasons for ranging from disinformation, disorderly behavior, gender violence online, harassment, child pornography, and affordability issues such as high access costs and high acquisition costs, etc. Nigeria needs to do more to remove these barriers to use.
- Finally, the telecommunication policy of the future should work to bring down cost of both access and use. With respect to ownership, the surest way to bring down cost is to support local production of devices and technology. For access, in addition to increasing technology rollout, the country has to address issues that add up the overhead costs of providers this include lack of and high cost of energy in the country, insecurity and high cost of importation due to weakness of the national currency. Review some of our telecommunication policies to take on board issues of digital inclusion, emerging technologies. In particular, we need to have a community networks policy to empower communities to self-address their lack of connectivity
CONCLUSION
The objectives of the current digital transformation agenda of the country as rolled out by the Minster of Digital Economy, Communication and Innovation cannot be realized on the basis of this digital poor situation of the country. The Minister needs to set up a Digital Emergency Working Group to study the NRI 2023 report, identify the strategic weaknesses of the country, suggest solutions and develop a robust implementation plan for those solutions so as to quickly lift the country out of its present digital stagnation. Furthermore, the Minister needs to find a way to convent a consultative meeting of State Governments to underline to them the imperative of their being the drivers of the digitization of their respective states. Along with this, the Federal Government should come up with a realistic plan with clear achievable targets to transform the country from a mere consumer of digital technology to a digital technology producing country, with capacity and capability for export of digital goods and services across the world.
Digital technology is an opportunity and has the potential to create jobs, thus addressing the huge unemployment crisis of the country as well as generate wealth to contribute to ending poverty in the country. Now is the time to turn that potential is turned into a reality, a task that can only be done by rallying all the sectors of the society together behind a clear national agenda.
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