Sweden tops connectivity scorecard among innovation-driven economies

MANILA, Philippines - Sweden gets the top spot in a global study of “useful connectivity” that measured 50 countries in terms of infrastructure, complementary skills, software and informed use of information technology and communications for socio-economic growth.

The annual global study, now on its fourth year, is commissioned by Nokia Siemens Networks and authored by Professor Leonard Waverman, dean of the Haskayne School of Business of University of Calgary in conjunction with the consulting firms Berkeley Research Group and Communicea.

In the latest findings, Sweden, which has a 7.84 connectivity score, bested the United States (7.82) by a small margin and 23 other innovation-driven economies that were part of the study.

The World Economic Forum defines innovation-driven economies as those more highly developed than resource and efficiency-driven economies. These countries have basic connectivity infrastructure available with a good base level of penetration and subscription.

The challenges these economies face often lie in driving implementation of the latest technologies and uptake by the market place in order to increase connectivity.

Other Nordic countries such as Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, also performed well to be among the top five. Southern and eastern European countries, however, got the lower scores among the leading economies.

Resource, efficiency-driven economies

In the ranks of resource and efficiency-driven economies, Malaysia scored the highest (6.61) in terms of useful connectivity for the fourth consecutive year. The Philippines scored 2.15, which is three places higher than its grade last year, to rank 16th in the Connectivity Scorecard 2011 index.

The Philippines’ performance this year also puts it ahead of India (21st), but behind China (14th) and regional neighbor Thailand (11th).

India and China continued to trail behind the smaller, richer economies. However, China climbed three places to 14th whereas India was only ranked 21st out of 25 countries. Apart from a few strong performances, most of the 25 countries in this group scored poorly according to the latest data used in this year’s study.

The study noted that resource and efficiency-driven economies sometimes face barriers to attaining a widespread connectivity infrastructure in geographical or policy form.

The challenges these economies face often include having a marketplace not suited to foreign investors and a shortfall in human capital needed to make use of the available infrastructure and thus increase connectivity.

The Connectivity Scorecard 2011 emphasizes the need for sustained ICT for sustainable socio-economic growth. Countries that continue to invest in ICT infrastructure, applications and services as well as promote ICT workforce skills and use will be better able to cope with the effects of global recession and boost their socio-economic growth, said Waverman.

“Despite global economic shocks, the knowledge economy is growing in power. While many advanced countries are forging ahead in terms of infrastructure and their use of ICT, the real connectivity gaps are in the developing world with the exception of strong growth in mobile telephony... Developing countries must make ICT more affordable, stimulate its adoption and overcome barriers to its use to remain relevant and competitive,” Waverman added.

This year’s Scorecard includes a broader range of indicators to capture new forms of ICT use such as cloud computing, business mobile data services, and ICT investments in health care and education.

The weighting methodology has also been updated extensively, said Kalyan Dasgupta, principal of Berkeley Research Group, LLC.

“While the overall impact of the indicators was modest for most innovation-driven economies, the new data caused an increased dispersion between the best and worst resource and efficiency-driven economies,” said Dasgupta.

Nokia Siemens Networks commissions the Connectivity Scorecard to highlight the pivotal role of ICT and to “reiterate that broadband infrastructure deployments only translate into faster economic growth, when there is complementary investment in skills as well as in relevant services and applications,” said Kim Jones, the Connectivity Scorecard program manager at Nokia Siemens Networks.