Establishing a baseline for development: An exploratory analysis comparing indicators of e-readiness and policy performance.

摘要

Synonymous with the upside of the information revolution is the downside of the digital divide. E-readiness, a term only recently coined in 2000, refers to the national level of preparedness of a country to embrace the benefits of the information revolution. Contrary to past foreign assistance practice, a new Bush Administration initiative, which began in 2004, proposes to disperse foreign aid in accordance with the business disciplines of competitiveness, ownership, and accountability. As a proxy for e-readiness assessments in general, this study examined if there was any statistically significant relationship between the year 2001 e-readiness assessment results for 53 developing countries, as computed by a specific private sector consulting company, and the 2004 selection methodology, for 75 developing countries, of the Bush Administration initiative. After the analysis was completed, interviews were conducted with prominent individuals involved at the nexus of this study area to solicit their input about possible reasons why no statistical relationship was in evidence. Given the applied nature of this research the study submits there is much reason to believe that the Administration's measurement of policy performances and a second generation of e-readiness assessments will one day statistically harmonize---as they both address the digital divide issue.