For more than a decade, key international organizations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the UN and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) have argued that investment in information communication and telecommunication (ICT) infrastructure is a prerequisite for the development of poor countries. However, dissenting voices of the international development community argue that African governments should focus their attention on building schools, delivering basic health care, electricity and clean water rather than on the building of costly ICT infrastructure with their limited financial resources. In this paper, we present an analysis of the relationships among investments in ICT, Health Care and Education and the human development index on five West African nations. We use a Stepwise regression analysis to help unravel the complex relationships among these variables. Our results provide evidence that complementary investments in ICT, health and education can significantly increase development. Given that developing nations are making considerable investments in healthcare, education and ICT and that there are concerns over the type of investments they should make, our findings are a significant contribution to the literature.
In the past two decades, we have seen increasing debate about information and communication technology (ICT) as an engine of growth that could lift developing nations out of poverty. Many African nations have implemented market liberalization and invested huge sums of money into their ICT sectors. But few studies have been conducted to assess the effectiveness of these investments. Demonstrating ICT sector performance is especially important because of challenges of the development of ICT policy and the United Nations agencies inability to state firmly if there are benefits to these investments. In this article, we investigated the total factor productivity (TFP) of the ICT sectors in six West African countries from 1995 to 2002. While the findings demonstrate positive growth in TFP, there is cause for concern. TFP growth in the ICT sector has been declining, and these countries are not yet able to take advantage of scale efficiencies. Careful attention must be given to future ICT investment strategies and performance management of existing ICT infrastructure if continued growth is to be achieved. C 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A decade has passed since many African countries started consistently investing in the new Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Currently, there is need for more research on the impact of these investments on the expansion of productive capacity necessary for economic and social developments in this region on the world. Presently, the African Telecommunication Union (ATU) is advocating higher levels of investment in ICT in African countries, regional integration and new policies for the ICT sector. High-tech parks are being constructed for the development of the technology and to attract and encourage business initiatives in the sector. However, UNDP agencies for information technology and social development have not yet been able to state firmly whether the adoption of ICT has had a significant impact on less developed countries in general and African countries in particular. In this paper, I demonstrate that the investments in the ICT sector have resulted in technical progress. This study uses a DEA approach and some novel analysis to examine the impacts of investments in the ICT sectors of six West African countries during the period of 1995 and 2002.
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