Pakistan is left behind by many developing and regional countries in the world as it places on 146th position on the ICT Development Index 2016 by International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The country’s position went down from 145 to 146 in a year despite the fact that Pakistan is witnessing healthy technological development, progress innovation and rise of entrepreneurship using ICT.
Even the country position is lower than South Asian countries such as India with ranking of 115; Bangladesh with 145, Nepal with 142, Bhutan with 117 on the ICT Development Index.
This shows that ICT development in these countries is slightly better than Pakistan though facing similar challenges of abject poverty, socio-economic sustainability and lower per capita income.
The full index can be viewed here.
Measuring The Information Society Report
According to ITU report, Pakistan is among the few countries with the most affordable mobile broadband prices found specifically in the Asia and the Pacific region.
Besides Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Cambodia offer prepaid mobile-broadband plans at prices below USD 2 per month.
This shows that high capacity mobile broadband at very affordable prices (less than USD 5 per month) is possible.
Mobile Phone Ownership
Many people still do not own or use a mobile phone in Pakistan and different countries such as Bangladesh, India and Indonesia.
Household data from developing countries show that a significant part of the population does not use mobile-cellular services at all. In developing economies where recent household data is available, close to 20 per cent of the population, on average, are still not using a mobile phone.
The proportion of mobile-phone ownership is even lower, especially in large developing economies such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Pakistan, where more than 40 per cent of the population do not own a mobile phone.
Gender Issues
The dis-aggregation of data on mobile-phone usage by gender shows that the percentage of male users is higher than that of female users in most countries. Four countries stand out as having large gender gaps include Pakistan (64 per cent of female mobile users as against 81 per cent of male mobile users in 2015), the Islamic Republic of Iran (56 as against 78 per cent, 2013), Bangladesh (71 as against 82 per cent, 2015) and India (79 as against 90 per cent, 2015).
Data shows larger gender gaps in mobile-phone ownership than in mobile-phone usage. Indeed, in all countries with large gender gaps in mobile phone usage, the gap is even larger in mobile phone ownership (e.g. men are twice as likely as women to own a mobile phone in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan).
The ITU ICT Development Index (IDI) is a unique benchmark of the level of ICT development in countries across the world. The IDI combines eleven indicators on ICT access, use and skills, capturing key aspects of ICT development in one measure that allows for comparisons across countries and over time. The IDI 2016, which covers 175 economies worldwide and makes comparisons to IDI 2015, highlights both progress and persistent divides in the global information society.
The Index is designed to be global and to reflect changes taking place in countries at different levels of ICT development.
Measuring The Information Society Report can be read in detail here.
It is said Pakistan ranks the 5th for producing the software in world. After reading this news that shows Pakistan in Information Technology is losing its position two steps back day by day. In this way, a day is not far when Pakistan position would be in bottom. I see everyone taking in his hands the smart phones, there is a big market of latest model of phones and laptops. Everyone particularly in our cities as well as villages has more than two PCs and laptops at homes. As numbers are the family member in that numbers are the phones…. Everyone has his separate phone and surfs the internet on cheap rate. It is madness when this is compared on manipulated studies with other countries to Pakistan’s progress in IT is shown the lowest one. I think big companies using sophisticated marketing tricks or pressurizing over the government and people to buy their products. As Pakistan has the big population it is a big market and opportunity for multinational companies for selling their products. This logic is beyond to understand that this country lacks in IT development. I reject all these studies or surveys in which Pakistan is always placed on bottom. I do not see Pakistan is a backward country in the world. We are purchasing high technologies in IT and telecommunications as well as in computers hardware then how it is possible that Pakistan can be on 146th number. All Such studies are fake and manipulated and keep no fact on the ground.
It is said nowhere Pakistan ranks 5th in making software. It ranks 5th in number of freelancers.
Ministry of it is not properly doing work to report facts and figures to international agencies. These guys loves to travel on the expense of governments but does not want to work for raising the position of their country. That is why their passports have been left with no blank page for visas, On the other hand you will find no reports, no official documents, guides, white papers, studies on these websites. Madam Anusha is doing very good work but she lacks a sincere and competent team.