M EASURING DAC FOR FORMULATING STRATEGIES AND INCREASING DEVELOPMENTAL IMPACT Mansour Farah, Consultant on ICT4D Regional Workshop on “ICT indicators from Strategy to Impact” Sharm ElSheikh, Egypt, 8-9 June 2012

Topics 1.Introduction 2.Multilingual digital content measurement 3.Proposed set of DAC indicators 4.Levels of DAC development 5.The way forward 8 June 2012M. Farah - Measuring DAC2

Introduction 8 June 20123M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Digital content Digital content: data, information and knowledge available on digital media, mainly online Various forms: text, charts, maps, animations, images, audio, video,... All sectors: government, education, trade & commerce, health, media, culture, entertainment, tourism, etc… Content generation through a variety of ICT tools & applications and in all fields, at increasingly rapid rates, with instant dissemination Convergence and integration of news, publications, TV, radio, music and cinema, in a digital world 8 June 20124M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Importance of measuring content The digital divide is essentially a content divide Need to compare various countries, regions, economies and cultures with respect to digital content Need to formulate evidence-based development policies and comprehensive strategies for reducing the digital divide Need to measure progress in implementing policies and strategies and attaining objectives, including digital content development goals 8 June 20125M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Measuring multilingual content 8 June 20126M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Difficulties in measuring content No digital content indicators included in the internationally agreed “Core ICT Indicators” Data regarding digital content spreads widely on the Internet and requires special tools to extract The multilingual, multimodal, multisectoral and multifunctional nature of content renders measurement an elaborate task Each form/type of digital content may require specific indicators and methodologies 8 June 20127M. Farah - Measuring DAC

8 June 20128M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Top Ten Languages Used in the Web 8 June Top 10 Languages in the Internet Internet Users by Language Internet Penetration by Language Growth in Internet ( ) Internet Users % of Total World Population for this Language – ( 2011) English565,004, %01.4 %26.8 %1,302,275,670 Chinese509,965, %1,478.7 %24.2 %1,372,226,042 Spanish164,968, %807.4 %7.8 %423,085,806 Japanese99,182, %110.7 %4.7 %126,475,664 Portuguese82,586, %990.1 %3.9 %253,947,594 German75,422, %174.1 %3.6 %94,842,65 Arabic65,365, %2,501.2 %3.3 %347,002,991 French59,779, %398.2 %3.0 %347,932,305 Russian59,700, %1,825.8 %3.0 %139,390,205 Korean39,440, %107.1 %2.0 %71,393,34 T op 10 Lang. 1,615,957, %421.2 %82.2 %4,442,056,069 Rest of Lang. 350,557, %588.5 %17.8 %2,403,553,891 World Total2,099,926, %481.7 %100.0 %6,930,055,15 Source: M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Proposed set of DAC indicators 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Previous work on e-content indicators A number of international and regional organisations worked on digital content and proposed indicators, including ESCWA, ITU, OECD, UNCTAD and UNESCO Measurements of digital content can also be found in WSIS literature, particularly follow-up documents UN-ESCWA and ITU-ARO suggested indicators specific to digital Arabic content (DAC) No core or comprehensive set of indicators for digital content or DAC was agreed on internationally or regionally 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Proposed set of DAC indicators A compilation of existing suggestions for digital content indicators was carried out, focusing on DAC General digital content indicators were adapted to the Arabic content and indicators with similarities combined Generic indicators that do not relate directly to digital content were removed Additional important indicators were introduced Five categories of indicators were identified: – DAC volume – Usage and users – Types and forms – Enabling environment – Sectoral development 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Volume indicators Number of DAC sites in the top 1000 Internet sites (ITU) Percentage/Proportion of DAC (Web pages) to the total content on the Internet (ITU, ESCWA, WSIS) Proportion of Wikipedia articles in Arabic per 1 million Arabic speakers (ESCWA, ITU, WSIS) Proportion of DAC to the total content of the country under the ccTLD (ESCWA) Number of registered national and regional (Arabic, non-Arabic) domain names per 1000 inhabitants (ESCWA) 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Usage indicators Consumption levels of digital content by Arabic speaking users and Arab countries (ITU) Percentage/Proportion of Arabic language speakers accessing DAC (ESCWA, ITU, WSIS) Percentage of Arabic Web sites visited in a country to the top 100 Web sites visited (ESCWA) Percentage of Arabic language use on social networking at regional level (ESCWA) Number of Arabic domain name registrations for each Arab ccTLD, weighed up by population (ESCWA, OECD, WSIS) 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Types and forms indicators Number of online Arabic newspapers per 1 million residents per Arab country and region (OECD) Number of streaming online Arabic radio stations per 1 million residents per Arab country and region (OECD) Number of Flickr photos Arabic-tagged per residents per Arab country and region (OECD) Number of YouTube uploads Arabic-tagged per residents per Arab country and region (OECD) Number of Arabic Blogs per country and region (OECD) Number of Arabic tweets per country and region (OECD) 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Enabling environment indicators Existence of national initiatives for promoting DAC in a country (ESCWA) Existence of cyber laws related to digital content in Arab countries (ESCWA) Existence of a registered Arabic ccTLD (ESCWA) Cost of access to digital content, 1Mb/s per Month (ITU) 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Sectoral development indicators Number of Arabic search engines (ESCWA) Number of digital content enterprises and institutions per Arab country and region Number of DAC incubators/incubatees/startups per country and region Number of DAC workers per Arab country and region Number of Arabic Web pages generated per application domain (e-government, e-business, e-learning, e-health, etc), country and region 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Levels of DAC Development 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Stages of ICT/content development 8 June Level of ICT & Content Dev. Activity Time Readiness - Awareness - Infrastructure - Digital Divide Uptake - Demand - Usage - Use Divide Impact - Economic Development Goals - Social Development Goals Availability - Supply M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Measurements in stages Most proposed indicators provide measurement for readiness, availability and uptake Values of these indicators in a country help determine the stage it has attained regarding DAC Sectoral development indicators contribute to measuring impact Other indicators need to be devised later to measure economic and social impact 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

The way forward 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

What next? (1) Any strategy for DAC development should be devised taking into account values for these indicators Very little data is available Need for international/regional adoption of e- content/DAC indicators, followed by national adoption Systematic and periodic collection of required indicators should be carries out nationally, regionally and globally 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

What next? (2) Database of DAC indicators needs to be devised at the regional level and updated periodically Analytical studies for the development of DAC and based on the indicators database should be carried out at national and regional levels More impact related indicators could be devised at a later stage as experience is gained and the data is accumulated 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

References Bruegge, C. (2011), Measuring Digital Local Content, OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 188, ECOSOC (2012), Report of the Partnership on Measuring Information and Communication Technology for Development, UN Statistical Commission, Forty-third session 28 February-2 March 2012 ESCWA (2009), Impact of ICT on Community Development in ESCWA Member Countries, E/ESCWA/ICTD/2009/15 ESCWA (2011), Regional profile of the information society in Western Asia, 2011, E/ESCWA/ICTD/2011/4 ITU (2012), Digital Arabic Content Background Paper, Connect Arab Summit, 5-7 March 2012, Doha, Qatar ITU(2012), Final Summit Communiqué, Connect Arab Summit, 5-7 March 2012, Doha, Qatar UNCTAD (2011), Measuring the Impacts of Information and Communication Technology for Development, UNCTAD/DTL/STICT/2011/1 8 June M. Farah - Measuring DAC

Thank you! 8 June 2012M. Farah - Measuring DAC25