Regional Workshop on
“ICT indicators from Strategy to Impact”
Sharm ElSheikh, Egypt, 8-9 June 2012
MEASURING DAC FOR FORMULATING
STRATEGIES AND INCREASING
DEVELOPMENTAL IMPACT
Mansour Farah,
Consultant on ICT4D
Topics
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Introduction
Multilingual digital content measurement
Proposed set of DAC indicators
Levels of DAC development
The way forward
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Introduction
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Digital content
• Digital content: data, information and knowledge
available on digital media, mainly online
• Various forms: text, charts, maps, animations, images,
audio, video, ...
• All sectors: government, education, trade & commerce,
health, media, culture, entertainment, tourism, etc…
• Content generation through a variety of ICT tools &
applications and in all fields, at increasingly rapid rates,
with instant dissemination
• Convergence and integration of news, publications, TV,
radio, music and cinema, in a digital world
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Importance of measuring content
• The digital divide is essentially a content divide
• Need to compare various countries, regions,
economies and cultures with respect to digital
content
• Need to formulate evidence-based development
policies and comprehensive strategies for reducing
the digital divide
• Need to measure progress in implementing policies
and strategies and attaining objectives, including
digital content development goals
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Measuring
multilingual
content
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Difficulties in measuring content
• No digital content indicators included in the
internationally agreed “Core ICT Indicators”
• Data regarding digital content spreads widely on the
Internet and requires special tools to extract
• The multilingual, multimodal, multisectoral and
multifunctional nature of content renders
measurement an elaborate task
• Each form/type of digital content may require
specific indicators and methodologies
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Top Ten Languages Used in the Web
Top 10
Internet Users
Languages
by Language
in the Internet
English
Chinese
Spanish
Japanese
Portuguese
German
Arabic
French
Russian
Korean
Top 10 Lang.
Rest of Lang.
World Total
565,004,126
509,965,013
164,968,742
99,182,000
82,586,600
75,422,674
65,365,400
59,779,525
59,700,000
39,440,000
1,615,957,333
350,557,483
2,099,926,965
Internet
Growth in
Internet
Penetration Internet (2000 Users % of
by Language - 2011)
Total
43.4 %
37.2 %
39.0 %
78.4 %
32.5 %
79.5 %
18.8 %
17.2 %
42.8 %
55.2 %
36.4 %
14.6 %
30.3 %
01.4 %
1,478.7 %
807.4 %
110.7 %
990.1 %
174.1 %
2,501.2 %
398.2 %
1,825.8 %
107.1 %
421.2 %
588.5 %
481.7 %
26.8 %
24.2 %
7.8 %
4.7 %
3.9 %
3.6 %
3.3 %
3.0 %
3.0 %
2.0 %
82.2 %
17.8 %
100.0 %
World
Population for
this Language –
(2011)
1,302,275,670
1,372,226,042
423,085,806
126,475,664
253,947,594
94,842,65
347,002,991
347,932,305
139,390,205
71,393,34
4,442,056,069
2,403,553,891
6,930,055,15
Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm
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Proposed set of
DAC indicators
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Previous work on e-content indicators
• A number of international and regional organisations
worked on digital content and proposed indicators,
including ESCWA, ITU, OECD, UNCTAD and UNESCO
• Measurements of digital content can also be found
in WSIS literature, particularly follow-up documents
• UN-ESCWA and ITU-ARO suggested indicators
specific to digital Arabic content (DAC)
• No core or comprehensive set of indicators for digital
content or DAC was agreed on internationally or
regionally
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Proposed set of DAC indicators
• A compilation of existing suggestions for digital content
indicators was carried out, focusing on DAC
• General digital content indicators were adapted to the
Arabic content and indicators with similarities combined
• Generic indicators that do not relate directly to digital
content were removed
• Additional important indicators were introduced
• Five categories of indicators were identified:
–
–
–
–
–
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DAC volume
Usage and users
Types and forms
Enabling environment
Sectoral development
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Volume indicators
• Number of DAC sites in the top 1000 Internet sites
(ITU)
• Percentage/Proportion of DAC (Web pages) to the
total content on the Internet (ITU, ESCWA, WSIS)
• Proportion of Wikipedia articles in Arabic per 1
million Arabic speakers (ESCWA, ITU, WSIS)
• Proportion of DAC to the total content of the
country under the ccTLD (ESCWA)
• Number of registered national and regional (Arabic,
non-Arabic) domain names per 1000 inhabitants
(ESCWA)
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Usage indicators
• Consumption levels of digital content by Arabic
speaking users and Arab countries (ITU)
• Percentage/Proportion of Arabic language speakers
accessing DAC (ESCWA, ITU, WSIS)
• Percentage of Arabic Web sites visited in a country
to the top 100 Web sites visited (ESCWA)
• Percentage of Arabic language use on social
networking at regional level (ESCWA)
• Number of Arabic domain name registrations for
each Arab ccTLD, weighed up by population
(ESCWA, OECD, WSIS)
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Types and forms indicators
• Number of online Arabic newspapers per 1 million
residents per Arab country and region (OECD)
• Number of streaming online Arabic radio stations per 1
million residents per Arab country and region (OECD)
• Number of Flickr photos Arabic-tagged per 1 000
residents per Arab country and region (OECD)
• Number of YouTube uploads Arabic-tagged per 1 000
residents per Arab country and region (OECD)
• Number of Arabic Blogs per country and region (OECD)
• Number of Arabic tweets per country and region (OECD)
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Enabling environment indicators
• Existence of national initiatives for promoting
DAC in a country (ESCWA)
• Existence of cyber laws related to digital
content in Arab countries (ESCWA)
• Existence of a registered Arabic ccTLD
(ESCWA)
• Cost of access to digital content, 1Mb/s per
Month (ITU)
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Sectoral development indicators
• Number of Arabic search engines (ESCWA)
• Number of digital content enterprises and
institutions per Arab country and region
• Number of DAC incubators/incubatees/startups
per country and region
• Number of DAC workers per Arab country and
region
• Number of Arabic Web pages generated per
application domain (e-government, e-business,
e-learning, e-health, etc), country and region
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Levels of DAC
Development
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Stages of ICT/content development
Level of
ICT &
Content
Dev.
Activity
Impact
- Economic Development Goals
- Social Development Goals
Uptake
- Demand
- Usage
- Use Divide
Readiness
- Awareness
- Infrastructure
- Digital Divide
Availability
- Supply
Time
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Measurements in stages
• Most proposed indicators provide measurement
for readiness, availability and uptake
• Values of these indicators in a country help
determine the stage it has attained regarding
DAC
• Sectoral development indicators contribute to
measuring impact
• Other indicators need to be devised later to
measure economic and social impact
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The way forward
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What next? (1)
• Any strategy for DAC development should be
devised taking into account values for these
indicators
• Very little data is available
• Need for international/regional adoption of econtent/DAC indicators, followed by national
adoption
• Systematic and periodic collection of required
indicators should be carries out nationally,
regionally and globally
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What next? (2)
• Database of DAC indicators needs to be
devised at the regional level and updated
periodically
• Analytical studies for the development of
DAC and based on the indicators database
should be carried out at national and regional
levels
• More impact related indicators could be
devised at a later stage as experience is
gained and the data is accumulated
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References
• Bruegge, C. (2011), Measuring Digital Local Content, OECD Digital
Economy Papers, No. 188, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5kg0s294n9kf-en
• ECOSOC (2012), Report of the Partnership on Measuring Information and
Communication Technology for Development, UN Statistical Commission,
Forty-third session 28 February-2 March 2012
• ESCWA (2009), Impact of ICT on Community Development in ESCWA
Member Countries, E/ESCWA/ICTD/2009/15
• ESCWA (2011), Regional profile of the information society in Western Asia,
2011, E/ESCWA/ICTD/2011/4
• ITU (2012), Digital Arabic Content Background Paper, Connect Arab
Summit, 5-7 March 2012, Doha, Qatar
• ITU(2012), Final Summit Communiqué, Connect Arab Summit, 5-7 March
2012, Doha, Qatar
• UNCTAD (2011), Measuring the Impacts of Information and
Communication Technology for Development, UNCTAD/DTL/STICT/2011/1
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Thank you!
[email protected]
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