ABSTRACT:
This paper critically examines the current state of the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) framework as administered and published by the World Economic Forum through its yearly Global Information Technology Report (GITR) series since its inception in 2001. The newly published Adjusted Weighting Function (AWF) is a model specifically designed to overcome the inadequacies reported by a number of authors concerning the existing NRI framework, with the goal of bridging the digital divide of the developed and developing economies. In this paper, the AWF model was implemented using case studies from three world economic regions (sub-Saharan Africa, ASEAN and Nordic countries) comprising a sample size of 18 countries. The initial results are promising in terms of reducing the gap between the developed and developing economies. Consequently, this paper argues that using the AWF model for computing Networked Readiness Index within the existing framework of the World Economic Forum will go a long way in bridging this digital divide. The paper further claims that the AWF model is an unbiased measure of a country’s Networked Readiness Index, and will be more acceptable to developed and developing economies.
Keywords:
ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), NRI (Networked Readiness Index), ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies), ITU (International Communication Union), WEF (World Economic Forum)
