ICT Infrastructure Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Analysis of Six West African Countries from 1995 to 2002
The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the UN and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) argue that ICT infrastructure and informatization are prerequisites to adequate development in the present era. The ITU has proposed a framework for measu
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ICT Infrastructure Expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Analysis of Six West African Countries from 1995 to 2002 Felix Bollou
The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the UN and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) argue that ICT infrastructure and informatization are prerequisites to adequate development in the present era. The ITU has proposed a framework for measuring ICT efficiency and its impact on social development. However, it offered no advice on how to develop, model and implement this proposal. In this chapter, we use data envelopment analysis to address one aspect of the ITU proposal, the measurement of the efficiency of investments in ICT infrastructure development. The study makes two important contributions: (1) It provides a methodology for assessing the efficiency of investments in ICT; (2) it provides insights into the structuring development policies to benefit from effective allocation of scarce resources in developing countries.
1 Introduction Since 1995, many African nations have been increasing investment in ICT infrastructure in response to business and social demands and influence from international development organizations. Scholars have suggested that these investments in ICT will make significant contributions to social and economic development by fostering ‘opportunities of the global digital economy’ to their communities (UNDP 2001). Braga et al. (2000) suggest that ICTs will help Africa ‘leap frog’ the stages of economic development. These opinions of the potential of ICT to transform the economic and social development of Africa are not universal. Some scholars argue that less developed countries (LDCs), unlike developed countries have little of the
F. Bollou (*) School of Information Technology and Communications, American University of Nigeria, Yola 640001, Adamawa, Nigeria e-mail: [email protected]
151 K.-M. Osei-Bryson and O. Ngwenyama (eds.), Advances in Research Methods for Information Systems Research, Integrated Series in Information Systems 34, DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-9463-8_12, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
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supporting infrastructure that is necessary to capitalize on the productive capacity of ICT (Landauer 1995). Others argue that it is difficult to provide evidence of the impact of ICT on social and economic development because of the time lag between investment and productivity results (Avgerou 1998). Nonetheless, the UN ICT task force has advised governments of LDCs to prioritize and focus on ICT infrastructure expansion as an integral part of their poverty eradication strategies. But the range of developmental challenges faced by African policy makers necessitates prudence in the allocation of scarce resources. Are ICT infrastructures providing an adequate return to warrant continued heavy investment in the face of health pandemics and increasing needs for other civil infrastructure? Empirical evidence on the impact on ICT investment would be useful to policy analysts in deciding this question and to decide on what
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