Country case studies

Abstract

South Africa's aspiration for 2020 is to achieve 100% broadband coverage while maximizing both economic and employment growth. However, there are a number of paths that can be followed to achieve this including: 1) enabling digital citizens, 2) supporting industry (both industry and ITES) and 3) building global leadership in ICT products and services.

These dimensions are not sequential. For example, India was not a global leader in creating digital citizenship, it has achieved success in building ITES and ICT service industries. South Africa must choose to align itself to one or multiple dimensions. In which broad direction should South Africa be heading? In order to interrogate this question, we want to look at a number of countries that exemplify the three approaches and are in some way comparable to South Africa.

Country peer groups have been identified in order to set the appropriate targets for 2020 and lessons for driving growth, impact and investment. We have used the following categories to identify a peer group: Comparable a decade ago to South Africa today, in terms of both socio economic and legacy infrastructure Largely comparable, but less pronounced Africa comparisons

Country peers include: Bolivia, Colombia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Philippines, Brazil, Malaysia, India, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria. Comparatively, these countries have largely outperformed South Africa and offer learning in terms of the policies and solutions that have helped drive the growth of ICT.