Malawi among bottom 10 in ICT—Report
A latest World Economic Forum (WEF) report has ranked Malawi among bottom 10 economies that are lagging in terms of technology. This is despite efforts by Malawi government to increase network uptime user satisfaction and extending Government Wide Area Network (Gwan).
The 2016 WEF Global Information Technology Report has put Malawi on position 132 out of 139 economies, one step up from 133 the year before.
Malawi is in the same category as Swaziland (129), Liberia (130), Nicaragua (131), Myanmar (133), Guinea (134), Madagascar (135), Mauritania (136), Haiti (137), Burundi (138) and Chad (139).
On the other hand, neighbouring Zambia (116), Zimbabwe (122), Mozambique (123) and Tanzania (126) are improving, according to the report.
Information and communication technology (ICT) expert Maxwell Phiri said in an interview on Friday despite Malawi making strides in the sector over the past five years, lack of ICT regulation has been undermining these efforts.
He said despite lobbying for the establishment of the ICT Policy for the past 10 years, nothing has been done on the ground, a development he said has continuously suffocated the growth of the sector.
“The major culprit is lack of regulation. In the absence of regulation, efforts to grow the sector are being shuttered as the environment itself is not that conducive,” said Phiri, who is former president of Information Communication Technology Association of Malawi (Ictam).
According to the report, Malawi scored poorly on laws relating to ICTs (134), mobile phone subscriptions (137), impact of ICT on business (134) and individual usage (137).
On his part, Cisco Systems chief executive officer Chuck Robbins said data growth is fuelling economic growth, sparking innovation and unleashing waves of creativity.
He said: “Broadband Internet has been categorised as one of the world’s most important general-purpose technologies with the capability to dramatically impact social structures and entire economies.”
According to the 2016/17 budget estimates of expenditure on recurrent and capital budget document number 5, obsolete and outdated Gwan infrastructure is constraining the provision of e-services in government.
Lets do these things the right way.
(1) Power Generation: it is a no brainer to know that without power, the digital divide between us and the others will keep growing wide. We need atleast 1,000 MW at all times, growing annually by 15%.
(2) Education: Our education system has not changed in a long while. Today’s children are brighter than us, and do get bored if all you teach them is what was taught in the 1930’s. Put them in front of a computer in first grade. Give them a broken down machine in third grade. Give them tools, screw drivers, spanners etc in grade five. These guys don’t know what to do with pencils.
(3) Open up new towns, say at every trading centre (tarmac roads, piped water, electricity). Let them learn how to grow up in their environment, not the City which only teaches them how to steal and drink.