Zim among top 10 African ICT hubs

vote of confidence as the country has been named among the top 10 African ICT hubs of the future.
The Government is currently in the process of implementing an ICT strategic plan (2010 to 2014) aimed at increasing national teledensity by 10 percent annually.

According to a survey conducted by African Business Panel and echoing the sentiments of 800 business professionals across Africa, Zimbabwe is expected to be among the continent’s top 10 ICT hubs out of 53 states in the next five years.
The report released in Amsterdam last month shows that South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya (in that order) are at the top of the rankings.

South Africa is traditionally a host to major international ICT firms, however, Kenya has been receiving its fair share due to its open data policy.
Ghana comes in fourth position, followed by Egypt, Rwanda and Botswana. Angola and Uganda come in eighth and ninth position, respectively, and Zimbabwe is in 10th position.
According to ICT analysts, TechZim, Zimbabwe’s key strength and justification for being in the list can be found in its world-renowned human capital that propels a significant number of the continent’s leading ICT players. They, however, noted the surprise exclusion of countries such as Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritius that are quickly becoming business process outsourcing and ICT services bases.

Zimbabwe’s ICT penetration rate as measured by teledensity has been on an upturn since dollarisation, rising from a mere 9 percent in 2008, to almost 60 percent as at present.
However, there is a glaring disparity between ICT penetration as measured by teledensity, and ICT penetration as measured by Internet use in the country. This is probably indicative of the extent to which Zimbabwe has adopted the more significant new technologies, as well as its integration in the global information society.

The country has so far adopted limited critical ICT infrastructure, for instance, in terms of broadband penetration, capacity expansion and improving speed of connectivity.
Zimbabwe Open University Pro-Vice Chancellor Professor Gabriel Kabande contends that there is a high correlation between Gross Domestic Product per capita and the level of a penetration of ICT indicators, hence the need to extend ICT knowledge in the country.

“Revolutionary human capital and technological development and/or productivity requires investments in both capital and labour with ICTs.
“There is need to promote technology development, transfer and diffusion to the country and further develop technology and knowledge that is currently available in local centres of excellence,” he said.
The country is in the process of establishing an e-governance platform, whose framework (Zimconnect) has been already been finalised, and the programme is anticipated to run full throttle by 2014. The completion of the e-government platform is expected to provide further impetus to the establishment of other platforms such as e-commerce and e-learning.