ICT Adoption and Usage in Africa: Towards an Efficiency Assessment

Abstract

During the last two decades, most developing countries (including African nations) have demonstrated a significant improvement in information and communication technology (ICT) adoption and usage. A non-parametric slacks-based measure model of data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied in this study to investigate the relative efficiency of ICT adoption and usage in 40 African countries with respect to the utilization of existing socio-economic, infrastructure, and political input factors. Recent data acquired from different sources, such as the World Bank and International Communication Union, are applied to identify the benchmark. Results indicate that Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Nigeria, Mauritius, and Gambia are relatively efficient in terms of ICT adoption and usage. Furthermore, this work adopted the Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes model of DEA to discuss the output projection of inefficient countries.

Keywords:

• information and communication technology
• data analysis envelopment
• efficiency assessment
• decision-making unit

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jiuchang Wei is Associate Professor in the School of Management at the University of Science and Technology of China. He received his PhD in Management Science and Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests include information management and risk crisis management, and sustainable development in China.

David Kayisire is a Master's Degree candidate in Science and Engineering Department of School of Management at the University of Science and Technology of China. His research interest is in the area of Information management.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 71373250, 61004108, and 61311120470.