Tackling Botswana’s Ultra-low Internet Usage

Despite its well-earned reputation for tranquility, good governance and notable wealth, Botswana’s level of access to the Internet lags most other countries, including fellow African ones. According to Internet World Stats, as of December 2007, the country has only 60,000 Internet users. The resulting Internet penetration rate of 3.3% is lower than the African average of 4.7%, and is significantly below the world average of 20%.

 By comparison, the top 5 African countries (in terms of population online) are Nigeria (8m), Morocco (6.1m), Egypt (6m), South Africa (5.1m), and Sudan (3.1m). In terms of % penetration, the order is Seychelles (35.4%), Reunion (27.4%), Mauritius (24%), Morocco (18.1%), Tunisia (15.7%). The population list is notable for emphasizing countries with the bigger populations, while the penetration rate throws the spotlight primarily on island nations.

Returning to Botswana, in contrast to the low Internet usage and penetration rate (using the ITU’s data from 2004), the mobile penetration rate, at 28% is well above the African average of 6.1%. And at 493,000 the total number of mobile phone users dwarfs Internet users. The highest mobile phone penetration rates are led by small island nations — Reunion (74.7%) and Seychelles (68.4%), followed by South Africa (36.4%), Botswana (28%), and Morocco (24.3%). Botswana is unique in displaying low Internet access combined with high cellphone penetration.

The government of Botswana has recognized this gap, and while it is continuing with policy reforms aimed at further liberalizing the telecommunications sector, it has also started efforts to address Internet access. One recent initiative, dubbed iPartnership, is a public-private partnership led by the government’s Ministry of Communictions, Science and Technology in collaboration with Microsoft, and includes other public sector participants and local private sector players. The initiative is modeled loosely after Microsoft’s Partnerships for Technology Access.

The program recognizes that Internet adoption depends on many factors other than level of physical internet access. iPartnership therefore aims at providing more affordable access to computers, acessories, training, and internet access. The main target beneficiaries are civil servants, IT graduates, and unemployed youth. The program’s stated goal is to increase computer penetration at home through offering attractive credit guarantee plans for the target audiences. It is hoped that this will help create employment, particularly for the youth, as well as helping the country become a significant player in the global economy.

The program’s details are available here. Also, many of the key elements and drivers of the government’s ICT strategy are documented here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 12:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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