ITU Rates Ghana Third

International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has rated the nation as the fourth in the accessibility of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) published recently.

According to the ITU's Digital Access Index (DAI) for some selected eight member countries of the Economic Commission for West African States (ECOWAS), including Nigeria, Togo, Cape Verde, Benin, Gambia, Burkina Faso and Niger, Ghana was placed third.

These countries were singled out from about 178 other countries, where DAI was conducted.

In the index for ECOWAS countries Cape Verde was top on the scale followed by Togo and Ghana before Nigeria with the fourth position. Others followed thus Gambia fifth, Benin sixth, Burkina Faso seventh and Niger eighth.

Vanessa Gray of the Market, Economics, Finance unit of Telecommunication Development Bureau at the International Telecommunication Union, who disclosed this in Lagos at a stakeholders' workshop on Information Sharing within the telecom industry, said that the rating was based on international benchmarking of ITU's Digital Access Index rankings for selected ECOWAS member countries.

Dwelling on Telecommunication Statistics for Effective Regulation Gray said that the index was classified into 178 countries according to their ability to access Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) with minimum score placed at zero while maximum was one.

The ITU official, also, said that DAI's ranking was based on eight indicators that are grouped into five categories, namely infrastructure, affordability, usage, quality and knowledge.

On data collection and methodology, Gray advised the stakeholders to avoid information overload by establishing close coordination between regulatory agency and operators for optimal information supply, and called for clear data definition.

Gray noted that information needs to be consistent and comparable in type, form and in timeliness.

The official further disclosed that ITU and ECOWAS were planning a data collection project to collect telecom market data from telecom operators, present and analyze the data in the form adapted to different user groups, so that it could form a tool to be used for business decisions and growth analysis for operators; monitor market developments for regulators and form an information tool to telecom users and investors.