Towards an Information Society: The State of the Arab Countries
Date
2012Item Type
ArticleAbstract
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Arab countries are progressing in developing information
society and how they differ in their efforts to build an information society. The researchers are interested to know if there is
any relationship between ICT Development Index (IDI) and ICT Price Basket (IPB), as well as the relationship between
Gross National Index (GNI) and IDI. The study adopted IDI, GNI, and IPB indicators used by the International
Telecommunication Unit (ITU) in 2011. The researchers divided the Arab countries into four groups: GCC, Levant, Magreb,
and other Arab countries. Findings indicate a significant progress of the Arab countries, particularly the GCC countries, in
developing information society. Results of the study show that countries with relatively high ICT price have relatively low
levels of ICT access and use. Similarly, the analysis of the study found that a high GNI for a country results in a high ICT
Development Index and vice versa.
Author
Kaba, Abdoulaye
Said, Raed