DEVELOPING INFORMATION SOCIETY IN GHANA: HOW FAR?

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primary data from Ghana, the paper discusses the access and usage of ICTs by ... Many countries in sub- Saharan Africa have a low ICT development index (IDI) ..... and increasing business applications of the internet have made access.
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DEVELOPING INFORMATION SOCIETY IN GHANA: HOW FAR? Godfred Frempong CSIR-Science and Technology Policy Institute Ghana [email protected] ABSTRACT Increasingly the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is underpinning every socio-economic activity and developing knowledge-based economy and information society. The opportunities that access to and use of ICTs offer are numerous. The need for creating an information society is not based only on the availability of ICT services, but more importantly, their usage by the citizenry which contributes to building knowledge. Using primary data from Ghana, the paper discusses the access and usage of ICTs by individuals and household in three broad spatial categories namely: metropolitan cities, other urban towns and rural areas. The analysis is based on over 1200 households and individuals surveyed from the three areas. The results from the analysis and discussion show that Ghana has made some achievements in increasing access and usage of ICT services at both the household and individual levels. However, compared to more efficient markets in Africa, much remains to be done due to identified weakness in policy regime, market failures and weak ICT skills capability. Consequently, the paper advocates for a strong regulatory regime, coupled with increased competitiveness in the market and acceleration of the implementation of the ICT Policy to facilitate the advancement of the information society in Ghana. KEYWORDS: Society, ICT, Development, Policy, Ghana 1 INTRODUCTION Increasingly the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is underpinning every socio-economic activity in knowledge-based economy and information society. The opportunities that access to and use of ICTs offer are numerous. The quotation from the World Information Society drums this strongly. The ability to use ICTs is a key skill that increasingly determines the employability and standard of living of many citizens. Access to ICTs now drives access to information and knowledge, which in turn, can decide access to wealth and affluence. A society in which a significant part of the population feels excluded from the benefits that ICT access brings is a society that is fundamentally insecure, at peril of social disintegration. (ITU 2007: 13). The fear of exclusion has resulted in the development of programmes and initiatives that should significantly increase access and use of ICTs by the majority of the people. Unfortunately, many people, especially those in the developing countries are still not part of the digital revolution. They have been constrained by inadequacy of ICT infrastructure and access to the service. Where the service is available, its quality leaves much to be desired. Many countries in sub- Saharan Africa have a low ICT development index (IDI) compared to the OECD or other developed countries. For example, in 2007, the IDI of Ghana was 1.63, Kenya, 1.62, Senegal 1.38 and Nigeria 1.38. In the case of some developed countries, IDI for Sweden is 7.5, United Kingdom 6.78, Germany 6.61 and Portugal 5.47. However, African countries are the areas where access and use of ICTs are critical to reduce The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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poverty and create wealth. Annan (1999) argues that being cut off from basic telecommunications services is a hardship comparable to other deprivations such as jobs, shelter, food, health care and potable water. He argues further that the capacity to receive, download and share information through electronic networks, the freedom to communicate freely within and across countries should become a reality for all people. In spite of the explosion of mobile telephones in Africa, the continent still lags behind in the world‟s total population of mobile telephones. Africa has the lowest mobile teledensity of 28 mobile telephones per 100 subscribers, Asia has 38 and Oceania 72 (ITU, 2009a). Consequently, there may be a significant number of people who have not used telephones before and these people according to Annan (1999) are suffering from one the worst deprivations in the world. The two World Summits on the Information Society strongly emphasized the need for every individual, community and nation to have access, utilize, and to share information and knowledge in order to bolster socio-economic development and improved quality of life. It has become crucial for every country to develop the necessary infrastructure and structures to enable its citizens to participate in the information society. Ghana is among the first African countries to liberalize its ICT sector in the early 1990s and since then it has been integrating ICT into its development agenda through the enunciation of policies, strategies and programs. For example, the government launched an ICT policy in 2003 with the objective of engineering an ICT-led socio-economic development process with the potential of transforming Ghana into information-rich, knowledge-based economy and society. In addition, there is the National Telecommunication Policy, which is to contribute towards the achievement of the objective of the national ICT policy – movement towards information society. The Telecom Policy has universal access objective of a telephone penetration of at least 25% of the country‟s population by 2010 and this will include at least 10% penetration in rural areas. It has licensed six companies licensed to provide mobile telephone services in the country, of which five namely; Tigo Ghana Limited, MTN Ghana, Vodafone Ghana, Kasapa Telecom, Zain are operational. The sixth company (Glo Mobile) is yet to commence business. About 114 companies have licensed to provide internet services. Similarly, 176 Data VSAT operators have been granted licenses to operate and a host of companies providing ancillary services to the sector. The critical questions, are how far has Ghana gone on the super highway to the information society? How effective have the policies been in improving access and usage of ICT services by the people? What can be done to engender the process to facilitate the achievement of the government‟s ICT development vision? This paper using survey data, will assess the level of deployment and utilisation of ICT services by individuals and households in the country. It will also compare Ghana achievement‟s to other countries in Africa and draw experiences to facilitate the movement towards information society. 2 INFORMATION SOCIETY IN CONTEXT The development of ICTs has caused a shift in the global development discourse – a shift from an industrial age to an information society, where the source of wealth and power is found in a different type of capital: intellectual and creative ideas packaged and distributed in different forms over information networks (Venturelli, 2002). This is expected to stimulate economic growth and productivity, create new economic activities, jobs and improve the quality of life (Van Audenhove, Burgelman, Nulens and Cammaerts 1999).

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The concept of the information society has gained much currency in contemporary development discourse with the initiatives beginning in America and Japan (Servaes, and Burgelman, 2000). Since then, it assumed an international dimension which culminated in the two World Summits on Information Society held in 2003 and 2005 in Geneva and Tunis respectively. The two summits were organized to address the general recognition of the pervasiveness of ICTs and the fear that developing countries may be left behind in the emerging information society (ITU, 2007). The information society emphasizes the increasing importance of information as a crucial ingredient of society. In information society the emphasis is on digital networks that can effectively and efficiently store, retrieve, process and deliver information of crucial socio-economic and cultural importance. Ricci (2000) argues further that the significance of these developments have become a core element of any prospective analysis, well beyond the economic or industrial scope. He also emphasizes a point that society is increasingly dependent on information accessed through technologies (Qureshi, 2006) and it is increasingly important that the necessary structures are put in place to reduce the digital divide. Banuls and Samleran (2007) argue that the changes in the world economy and globalization have accelerated the transmission and use of information and knowledge. In this context, geographical proximity seems to have lost any relevance. An information society connotes that there should be no inequalities or exclusion in the access and usage of ICTs. The existence of inequalities is normally referred as the digital divide - it is usually the gap that exists between individuals, households, business and geographic areas with regard to the opportunities to access ICTs and use of the Internet for different activities (OECD 2001). Inequalities in access (digital divide) are not only caused by digital exclusion, but income, language, technological and socio-cultural issues are also influencing the dynamics of the digital divide (Kaigo, 2005). It restricts people and countries from exploiting the potential benefits of information and knowledge and lead to circumstances where citizens who require greater access to ICTs which can potentially help them out of their deprivation are denied access and usage (Queau, 2002). Greater access and usage of ICTs can provide windows of opportunities to reduce poverty and deprivation which are deeply entrenched in the economies of developing countries. Mariscal (2005) argues that digital divide has become prominent in global discourse, but seemingly, consensus has not been reached in designing the appropriate policy to reduce the divide. However, failure to address the divide has serious implications for developing an information society in any country. 3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR INFORMATION SOCIETY The premise of this paper is to review and discuss how information society is being developed in Ghana. For this purpose we adapt and adopt the ITU framework for evolution to an information society to analyze the situation in Ghana. The original framework is hinged on three key stages namely: ICT readiness, ICT usage and ICT capability. However, it fails to recognize the importance of a strong policy regime which could facilitate the development of each of the evolution stages to enable the process effectively contribute to the attainment of an information society. Consequently, in adopting this framework, the policy environment has been added. The existence and combination of the three stages will lead to ICT impacts. As argued by ITU (2009a), the third stage i.e. ICT capability is very important in achieving the information society as one has to possess the requisite skills to successfully use and apply ICTs. It is further argued that the three stages are interlinked as one cannot use ICT without the existence of the infrastructure and expertise. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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ICT readiness refers to the ICT infrastructure existing in a particular country. A widespread infrastructure provides opportunity for many people to have access to the service. The quality of the infrastructure is equally important, so as to support multi ICT services and provide service alternatives which can be utilized to support socio-economic development. ICT use determines the extent to which the technology has been adopted by the people and integrated into their daily activities. At the ICT adoption stage, there are increases in the use of ICTs in terms of numbers, increased level of intensity and sophistication of use (ITU (2009a). In the case of ICT skills they are necessary for effective utilization of ICT services. Without the skills capability, it will be difficult to exploit and benefit from the potential of the new technologies. Therefore, it is an important component for assessing the evolution to an information society. The impact of ICTs depends extensively on the availability of skills and knowledge and the capability to use ICTs efficiently and effectively (ITU, 2009a). The paper concentrates on the development of the three stages (ICT readiness, ICT usage and ICT capability) of the framework for evolution to information society. Figure 1: Stages in Evolution Towards Information Society

ICT Policy Environment

ICT Readiness (Infrastructure, Access)

ICT Use (Intensity)

ICT Impact (outcomes)

ICT Capability (Skills)

Source: Adapted from ITU, 2009 A crucial external issue that drives the whole evolution to an information society is the existence of a favorable ICT policy which will provide the framework for the holistic development of the industry. The ICT policy can positively or negatively impact on the development of each of the three stages. The importance of the policy framework to drive the achievement of an information society led to many countries to develop initiatives to help them achieve that status. For African countries, the Economic Commission of Africa through its Africa Information Society Initiative assisted many countries to develop national ICT policies to guide them to develop an information society (Economic Commission for Africa, 2008). In view of this, the policy environment needs to be assessed to see its effectiveness in facilitating the achievement of an information society.

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4 ANALYSIS OF SURVEY RESULTS Figure 1 provides the key stages to an information society which is ICT Readiness, ICT Use and ICT Capability. This section presents the analysis of a survey on exploitation of ICTs by individuals and households conducted in 2008 in the country1. For the survey, a very rigorous approach was adopted to arrive at the sample frame and the enumeration areas. The selection of the study area was based on the 2000 National Population Census enumeration area (EA). The EA frame was split into three categories, major urban, other urban and rural. Enumerator areas (EAs) were sampled for each stratum using probability proportional to size (PPS) from national census sample frames. Consequently, 40% of the EAs were selected from the major urban areas, while 30% each was selected from the other urban and rural areas respectively. The sampling frames were constructed through listing all households within an EA and households were then sampled using simple random sampling. In all 1,200 households selected across the country were interviewed. For each of the households, its head and a visitor who was over 18 years and had spent the previous night with the household were interviewed. Data was directly captured using PDA on indicators and the use of the PDA was to ensure quicker data analysis. Ethical issues were considered. The respondents were briefed on the survey and were alerted with their rights to answer or refuse any question they were not comfortable with. 4.1 ICT Readiness (Access) One of the key indicators for the evolution towards an information society is ICT readiness, which translates into the existence of a strong ICT infrastructure which will then provide. The discussion will therefore, concentrate on access to ICT services by the households and individuals. 4.1.1 Access on Gender Basis There have been strong arguments that access and use of ICT services and technology in general is not gender-neutral, and that it tends to favor men more than woman (Hafkin, 2002). There is also the concern about the decline of women pursuing computing and information technology courses in the universities (Crump, Logan and McIlroy, 2007) and suggest male domination and non-neutrality in terms of access to ICT services. However, from this survey, there was a near parity among the men and women respondents as 49% were females while the rest were males. 4.1.2 Access to Telephone Service Access to telephone service is an important step towards its utilization and also epitomizes the penetration of the service to enable greater number of the population to have the opportunity to use the service. 4.1.2.1 Fixed Line Telephones In the past, global universal service/access policies were built around fixed line telephones. Also until recently, fixed line telephone was the main infrastructure for internet deployment. However, the development in the wireless technology has reduced the dependence on fixed line telephones for personal and small firm access to ICT services. To find the extent of fixed line telephone penetration, the respondents were asked about the availability of the service in their homes. 1

The data used in the analysis was obtained from an unpublished country survey from Research ICT Africa network on Household and Individual ICT Usage in Ghana. It was funded by the IDRC under the ACACIA Program. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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Figure 2: Penetration Fixed Line Telephone

Rural 3%

Other Urban 41% Major Urban 56%

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

From the survey, over half of the fixed line telephones subscribers in the country were in the major urban (56%) and other urban (41%) areas of the country. Only 3% of the subscribers were available in the rural areas. In effect, as far as access to fixed line telephones is concerned, there is a great internal digital divide between urban and rural areas. It has always been urban-biased and prevalent in towns and cities of economic importance (Frempong, 2005) and excludes the majority of Ghanaians who live in the rural areas. 4.1.2.2 Mobile Telephones The deployment of mobile telephones is also skewed towards the urban areas of the country, but relatively better than the deployment of fixed line telephones. The urban-based nature of mobile telephone deployment is not only peculiar to Ghana, but it is an African issue, where there is a significant uptake of mobile telephones, but highly concentrated in urban areas (Gillwald, 2008). Consequently, there is the need to design programs to deploy the service across the country, especially, the unserved peri-urban and rural areas. However, the universal access policy may have improved rural access to telephone services. For example, Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC) has constructed 39 Common Telecom Facilities in 2008, which enabled telecommunication operators to extend their services to about 273 communities (ITU, 2009b). 4.1.2.3 Public Telephones Public telephone is loosely defined to include privately operated communication centers, mobile telephone kiosks and public payphones run by Vodafone Telecom. The level of patronage of public telephones by the respondents was explored as the service serves as an important access to point for those who do not personally subscribe to the services. High patronage (53%) of public phones was in the rural areas, 31% in the other urban towns, while the least use was in the major urban areas (16%).

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Figure 3: Use of Public Phones

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

From the data, public telephones provide the main access to the participation in the digital revolution for the rural communities. The recognition of the large market for this service has compelled Vodafone Ghana to relocate most of its pay phones to the rural areas. 4.1.2.4 Household Access to Computer and Internet The internet has become an important infrastructure in participating and utilizing the opportunities of the digital revolution. Technological convergence and the development of multi-media services and increasing business applications of the internet have made access and usage a fundamental issue in the participation in the information society. Personal computers/laptops 2 are largely, the main equipment used to exploit the potential of the internet and networked services. Therefore, it is important to determine the level of ownership of computers in the survey. From the survey, only 5.0% of the sample from Ghana had a PC/laptop at home and this formed one-third of the situation in South Africa. Though there has been slight improvement in the ownership of PC from an earlier survey which showed that only 4% of the sample had computer/laptops at home (Frempong, Esselaar, Stork and Anyimadu, 2005)), the fact still remains that ownership of the technology is very poor in the country. In spite of the global fall in prices and a seeming burgeoning trade in used computers in the country, these have not significantly improved ownership of computers in the country. Becoming computer literate is one of the basic prerequisites of participating in the digital revolution as well as achieving the objective of the national ICT4AD Policy. Regretfully, most of the household computers were not connected to the internet. The survey showed that only 0.3% of the households in Ghana had internet connection at home. This is far below countries such as South Africa (4.8%), Namibia (3.3%), Kenya (2.2%) and Cameroon (1.18). This has serious implication in widespread use of the service at the household level. Internet at home will help pupils/students, as well as parents to utilize the vast potential of the service and its lack at residential level is a major limiting factor to exploiting networked services. As will be discussed later, high cost of access has contributed to the low internet connectivity in homes. Given the low internet connection at homes, an attempt was made to identify sources of internet by the respondent. Public access was the important source of internet usage. As high as 77% of the sample patronized cyber/internet cafe to access internet services. It was 2

Increasingly modern handheld devices such as PDA and mobile telephones can be used to access internet services. But in Ghana, the use of these devices for internet services is significantly low. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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followed by the work place (19.3%), while access through educational institutions was below 1% (see Figure 4). The data showed low connectivity in educational institutions, including the tertiary institutions in the country. This is contrary to the situation in South Africa where over 29% of the sample had internet access through their educational institutions. However, a new development is that some companies have introduced wireless-based commercial internet services on university campuses on pre-paid basis. This may improve connectivity among students, but the limiting factor is students‟ ownership or access to wireless-enabled laptops. The cost of laptops are still high, for example a reasonable priced laptop with basic services is between US$600 – US$800 and not all students can afford this, and invariably, restrict improving students‟ access to internet services. The development of the wireless technology is providing alternative infrastructure for internet access as many internet service providers have adopted the wireless platforms to provide wireless broadband internet services. However, most of these services are concentrated in the city centers where there is high concentration of businesses and offices and in sprawling plush residential areas of the country. Using mobile telephones to access internet was minimal in spite of the explosion in the deployment of the service in the country. Mainly, cost of the service is one of the militating factors. One pays US$0.002 to download 100 kilobyte of data from MTN Ghana, while Tigo charges US$0.067 for the same data size. However, internet cafés averagely charge US$1.3 for one hour of browsing, and depending on the speed available in the cafés one, can download lots of data within that period. Consequently, it is relatively cheaper to browse at internet cafés rather than using the mobile telephone platform. Figure 4: Sources of Internet Access (%)

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

4.1.2.5 Access to Television and Radio Television and radio still have crucial role to play in developing information society. For example, television stations, especially in the developed countries have facilities for users to check important information such as weather forecast, train and flight schedules among others. Consequently, the survey tried to identify the widespread use of radio and television in the country. The data showed that there were more mobile telephone subscribers than radio and television with internet and fixed line telephones being the least of the ICT services found in the households (see Figure 5). The situation of the dominance of the mobile

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telephones can be explained by fact that most households may own one television and radio set, which can be watched by all. It is only in the rich neighborhoods where the respondents may have more than one television and radio sets at home. However, it is possible that almost of every household member above the age of 18 may posses mobile telephones and this could increase the number of mobile telephone subscription in the country. Further, technological development in the mobile telephony to support multi-media services, such as radio and television is changing the landscape of owning radio. One can conveniently listen to news and music from a mobile telephone handset and this may affect desire to own a radio set. Figure 5: Ownership of Radio and Television

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

4.2 Usage of ICT Services Achieving the level of information society is not only based on the availability of ICT infrastructure and services. Equally important is the utilization of those services to facilitate governance, social and economic activities. This section analyses the extent to which some of the ICT services were utilized by the respondents in the survey. 4.2.1 Internet One of the factors determining the importance of internet in the activities of the user is the frequency of usage. The data from the survey indicated that about 33% of the households used internet service everyday, 34% used it once a week, about 14% used the service at least once a month and those who did not use the service at all was 19%. It can be deduced from the data that only few people had integrated internet access into their daily socio-economic activities. This has implication for developing a knowledge-based economy or society where access to and use of information underlie every activity. Equally important is what the service is used for and Table 1 summarizes the various uses of the service by the respondents. Evidently, the main use of the Internet was for sending and receiving emails (76%). Others of importance included browsing (46%), listening to online news (28%) and to some extent downloading/listening to music (13%) and for educational purposes (12%). Using the internet for other purposes was minimal. Few households and individuals used the service for on-line banking, payment of bills and participating in e-government and e-commerce. The popular use of the internet for emailing is confirmed by an earlier survey conducted by Busy Internet. The findings of the showed that over a quarter of sample of 100 internet patrons used the service for email purposes (Busy Internet, 2002, cited by Foster, Goodman, Osiakwan & Bertstein et.al, 2004).

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Table 1: Types of Uses of the Internet Accessing the news Sending and receiving emails Playing online games Browsing Downloading / listening to music Making Internet phone calls (VoIP) Educational purposes Online banking Chatting & exchanging messages Paying bills online using credit cards Researching Accessing local government services online

27.7 76.1 2.7 46.2 12.6 2.6 11.5 0.2 1.1 0.2 4.7 2.6

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008 Please Note: Multiple responses were solicited

Though one cannot discount the importance of email services, crucial use, especially for educational, financial, research and e-government purposes which can contribute to socioeconomic development, were not aggressively exploited by the respondents. Factors identified by the respondents as militating against effective utilization of the service include:  No interesting content  Lack of local language content  Lack of knowledge about how to use the Internet  Lack of access to a computer with Internet connection  Slowness of Internet  Cost of access  Lack of time  Others The situation on internet usage was quite different in other countries. Though emails remained the dominant usage, other important uses were made of the service. For example, in Senegal almost 22% of the sample used the internet for educational purposes, 35% in South Africa and only 5.4% in Ghana. Ghanaians have not gone beyond the traditional use of internet (emailing) and therefore, the huge potential of the internet is being lost to majority. Foster, et.al (2004) argue that most of these users of internet for email purposes use international services as Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail and others. Though this view by the Foster et al may be old, the situation might not have changed considerably in the country, as these international web services continue to be popular. 4.2.2 Mobile Telephony To a question on the key preference for the use of mobile telephones, the respondents‟ main proclivity was for voice communication (97%) and to some extent sending/receiving SMS (45%). Only a few households used their mobile telephones for taking pictures (8%), video recording (5%) and sending/receiving MMS (1%). Invariably, voice communication dominates the mobile telephone usage, while the use of the service for data, was minimal. It is being speculated that the introduction of 3G services in the country may increase usage of

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mobile telephone for data and multimedia services. However, cost is an important determining factor for the increased use of 3G services. The data from the survey showed that most calls received by the households were basically for social purposes - from family members (58% ), 34% from friends and only 8% were business related ( calls from business clients and suppliers). Similar pattern existed in calls made by households and individuals. Less than 1% either called or received calls from their employers, while none received calls or called their banks. In terms of SMS, social (to family and friends) constituted about 90%, while about 7% had business content (clients and suppliers). Sending and receiving airtime credit was also mainly social-based. About 88% sent airtime credit to family and friends, while 72% received air time from the same source3. However, in other studies (Frempong, Essegbey and Tetteh, 2007 and Frempong, 2009) mobile telephones were used as strategic tools to facilitate business development and economic activities. 4.2.3 ICT Expenditures Expenditure is one of the important factors in determining the level of usage and exploitation of ICT services by an individual or household for social or economic activities. It also provides an indicator on the rate of return on investment by ICT service providers – an incentive for investors to commit more resources to develop the service. The level of expenditure is also determine the extent of intensity of usage and indication of the pervasiveness of ICTs in socio-economic development. On the other hand, it can also epitomize the high cost of the service, since an expensive but important service tends to take a large part of consumers income. As can be seen from Figure 6, internet attracted the highest level of expenditure from the respondents. The average monthly expenditure on internet was US$41, fixed line telephone expenditure was almost US$13, mobile telephones was a little over US$10, while the expenditures on public telephones was the least (almost US$3). Comparing the intensity of usage (where a quarter of the respondents used the service daily) and the level of expenditure point to the high cost of the service which has negative implication for effective exploitation of the service. Comparatively, Ghanaians spend a lot on internet service and was among the highest in the selected African countries (see Figure 6). Again, the high expenditure has no correlation with high frequency of usage, but may be (as will be illustrated later) due to high cost of the service. Figure 6: Average Monthly Household Expenditures (US$)

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008 3

Sending and receiving airtime is a form of barter where airtime transfer can be used to pay for goods and services. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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A subscriber pays an average of Gh¢0.0026 (approximately U$0.0018) per second to terminate traffic into another mobile telephone network, while the termination charges for fixed line to mobile telephone network is about Gh¢0.0023 (approximately US$0.0016). The variation in prices might have compelled the fixed line telephone subscribers to terminate more calls into mobile telephone network and thereby increasing the monthly expenditure. Interestingly, interconnection charges between mobile to mobile networks are higher than fixed line telephones to mobile network. Figure 7: Comparative Monthly Average Household Expenditures on Internet (in US$)

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

In the case of public telephones, expenditure was lowest among the ICT services. The respondents indicated that they spent US$2.54 a month on the service, which apparently was the least patronized service in the country. Ironically, the expenditure on public telephones in Ghana is among the highest among the selected African countries. Users of public telephones in Mozambicans spent US$8 per month, and Ivoirians spent almost US$5 with the least of US$0.43 from Ethiopia. A number of factors account for the low expenditures on public telephones and these include: Inconvenient to use, not safe to use at night and poorly maintained booth among others. Further, the fall in mobile telephone call charges and introduction of recharge vouchers in lower denominations have contributed to the low patronage of public telephones. In Ghana, some recharge vouchers cost as low as US$0.7 and can be used for to make 6.48 minutes off-net calls, while the same amount will pay for 5 minutes talk time at a communication or mobile telephone kiosk. Invariably, the lower recharge vouchers make it affordable for many Ghanaians to use their mobile telephones instead of using a public access point with the associated inconveniences. Before the mobile telephone explosion in Africa, public telephone was the „darling boy‟ for most Africa countries. Most universal access strategies were based on public telephones. In Ghana, the policy was one payphone for every community of 500 people (Atubra, Frempong and Henten, 2000). For Burkina Faso, it was a payphone within a distance of 20km, while South Africa‟s goal was a telephone with 30 minutes of travelling distance (ITU, 1998). In the case of mobile telephone expenditures, Ghana was also among the highest in the selected African countries. Ghana was fourth after South Africa, Cote d‟Ivoire and Namibia. Averagely Ghanaians spent a little above US$10 a month on mobile telephones, while subscribers in South Africa spent almost US$16. A question was posed to the respondents to indicate how much they were willing pay for mobile and fixed line telephone services should their disposable income increase. The respondents were willing to pay far more for mobile telephones than fixed line telephones. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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Data from La Cote d‟Ivoire signified that subscribers were willing to pay almost US$20 for mobile telephone usage, while for fixed lines, it was only US$6.25 per month. Similarly, Ghanaians were prepared to spend almost US$13 a month on mobile telephones and a paltry sum of US$0.56 on fixed line telephones. The implication is that there is a huge demand for mobile telephone services and this should provide impetus for the service providers to invest more in the sector to expand cover. On the other hand, it also points to the decreasing importance of fixed line telephones in the lives of the respondents. 4.3 ICT Skills and Capability ICT skills 4 capability is an important component for building a knowledge economy by fostering competitiveness, growth, employment, education and lifelong training (Lanvin and Passman, 2008 ). Lanvin and Passman argue further that ICT skills are required to utilize the potentials of ICTs and explore diverse opportunities for conducting business and organizational processes, and to establish new businesses. Further, Lanvin and Králik (2009) added that e-skills contribute to better jobs and a key contributor to digital and social inclusion. Education is one of the major steps at building ICT capacity due to the fact that the technology, especially computer and internet are knowledge intensive and require appreciable level of literacy to acquire the skills to use and appreciate the technology (Frempong and Imoro, 2006). Consequently, the survey explored the literacy level of the respondents. A relatively large percentage (40%) of the respondents had primary education, while secondary education constituted 28% (see Figure 8). Tertiary education consisting of bachelors degree was 5%, while Master/PhD was 0.5%. A quarter of the respondents had no formal education. The inference from the data is that about 65% of the respondents had basic and no formal education and points to the fact that only few people had the requisite education that would enable them effectively exploit and use ICT services. Figure 8: Educational Background of Respondents

Source: RIA Survey Data, 2008

Generally, the existence of a strong e-skill capability in Africa is very weak. From Table 2, it is only South Africa whose e-skill index is above 1 and Kenya almost 1. The rest 4

The terms ICT skills and e-skills are synonymous and will be used interchangeably. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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of the selected countries, including Ghana (0.5) had e-skill index below 1. This is an indication of the handicap of African countries to effectively exploit ICT opportunities to enhance their socio-economic activities and more importantly participate in the information society. It is therefore, imperative that mechanisms be established to build Ghana‟s ICT skills capability to effectively use the service. 4.4 Policy Implications The model for the evolution to an information society emphasized three important stages namely: ICT readiness, ICT use and ICT skills capability. An effective development of all the three stages will unleash the potentials of ICTs into the economy – knowledge economy. The analysis in this paper has shown that Ghana has made an effort to develop the three stages to achieve information-rich people and a knowledge based economy (Ghana Government, 2003). Ghana compared relatively well with the selected African countries in some of the indicators of the three stages towards the evolution an information society. However, realizing an information society raises the need for addressing a number of issues, which include; acceleration in the implementation ICT policies, development of ICT skills and improvement in internet penetration among others. Table 2: Household Survey Results Compared to Commonly Used E-Skills Indicators Country

UNDP5 Educatio n Index

Adult Literacy Rate6 (% Aged 15 and Older), 1995-2005

Botswana 0.773 Cameroon 0.660 Cote d‟Ivoire 0.457 Ethiopia 0.380 Ghana 0.555 Kenya 0.693 Mozambique 0.435 Namibia 0.783 Rwanda 0.602 Senegal 0.394 South Africa 0.806 Source: Schmidt and Stork (2008)

81.2 67.9 48.7 35.9 57.9 73.6 38.7 85.0 64.9 39.3 82.4

Combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary education (%), 2005 69.5 62.3 39.6 42.1 50.7 60.6 52.9 64.7 50.9 39.6 77.0

E-skills7 index (min=0, max=7) 0.47 0.83 0.38 0.11 0.49 0.99 0.08 0.67 0.09 0.56 1.25

4.4.1 Poor Implementation of ICT4AD and Ghana Telecom Policies In Ghana two policies are driving ICT developments – ICT for Accelerated Development (ICT4AD) Policy and National Telecom Policy (GTP). The ICT4AD Policy has the overall objective of supporting an ICT-led socio-economic development process with the potential to transform Ghana into a middle income, information-rich, and knowledge-based society (Ghana Government, 2003). The orientation of the policy is to provide foundation for the application of ICT to every sector of the economy and equip the citizenry with the capability to increasingly adopt, apply and exploit ICT for their socio-economic activities. It is also geared towards developing the ICT sector as a business by enunciating strategies to support the private sector in development and provision of ICT goods and services. The policy is 5

The UNDP Education Index is published as part of the Human Development Index and calculated by combining level of adult literacy (2/3 weight) and combined enrolment rates (1/3 weight) as reported by UNESCO. 6 Literacy is expressed as percentage of population ages 15 and above who can read and write short statements. Adult literacy rates (2005). Source UNESCO 2007a. Source UNESCO 2007b. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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based on the premise that Ghana‟s development can be accelerated through the development, deployment and exploitation of ICTs within the economy and society (Ghana Government, 2003). To achieve its general objective, the policy identified 14 priority focus areas, which need to be developed and also made provisions for the development of action plans, which are to facilitate the process. However, the development of action plans to implement the strategies of the 14 priority focus areas have been stalled and this has affected the achievement of the various rolling plans/milestones enunciated by the policy. The second rolling plan was to end in 2010, however, the basic structures earmarked for the first rolling plan are yet to be established. Consequently, the policy environment in the framework (Figure 1) for evolution to an information society has not been effective to support the development of information society in the country. This is because the policy has been fraught with poor implementation. The goal of the NTP is to establish market structures that will be most beneficial to Ghana‟s citizens and businesses, and to set in motion the procedures and incentives that will encourage the market to develop (Ministry of Communication, 2004). It is also to support the realization of the vision of the national ICT4AD policy. In the case of the NTP, some visible efforts have been made, for example, the further opening of the ICT market to grant more operators licenses to operate. However, regulation, despite some improvements remains a daunting task for the NCA. Poor quality of service and inability of the regulator to enforce all the tenets of the licensing obligations of the ICT service operators affect the effective development of the sector. These affect the ICT readiness of the country, a critical component of the information society evolution framework. Consequently, the lack of performance to implement of the tenets of the ICT4AD policy and the regulatory defects are affecting the realization of the full impacts of ICT on the national economy. Thus, jeopardizing the realization of the premise on which the policy was built – to accelerate Ghana‟s development through the development, deployment and exploitation of ICTs within the economy and society. The accelerated development will not only help the country to achieve its development target of a middle income status by 2015 but also achieve the targets of the Millennium Development Goals. In effect serious attention should be given to the full operationalization of the ICT4AD policy. 4.4.2 ICT Skills Capability This paper has identified a very poor e-skill base in the country and this is likely to affect the development of information-rich people who could participate in the knowledge economy. From the work of Schmidt and Stork (2008) Ghana‟s e-skills index is 0.49 and this is rather low for the development of an information society. The human development index of Ghana is 0.526 and ranked 152 in the world. The government‟s White Paper on the Ghana Educational Reform emphasized the need for the country‟s education to support the building of a human resource capacity to propel the country to achieve knowledge-based economy. Consequently, it called for an education system that will empower the youth (especially, those between age 12 and 19) through integrating ICT into the educational curriculum. Besides the policy, there have a number of initiatives to equip students with ICT skills. These include: - Microsoft Partners in Learning Program - NEPAD e-Schools Initiative - CISCO Academy - Oracle Academy Initiative - Science Technology and Mathematics Education (STME) Clinic - Science Resource Centers Project The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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GLOBE Program

One of the problems identified with these programs is lack of effective co-ordination and therefore, their impacts have been minimal. None of the projects had been replicated when the funding ceased. Initiatives outside the formal educational sector include the Community Information Centers (CIC) and 'MTN ICT Learning Centers‟ among others. These initiatives are targeted at communities to help them acquire basic skills in the use of computers and the internet. The CICs were established as part of the strategies by the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronics Communication (GIFEC) to achieve universal access to ICT services in the country. No assessment has been made of the CICs to identify their impact on building ICT literacy and access in the rural areas. In the case of the MTN program, it is still in the formative stage. To ensure the achievement of the full benefits from these programs and initiatives, there is the need to harmonize these programs and provide a better focus so as to impact skills and capabilities that are widely valued in IT sector. The ultimate goal is to provide the citizenry with the possibility and the ability to increase skills, and strengthen their ability to utilize ICTs. The work by La Cava, Lytle, Kolev, and Clert (2005) emphasized the importance of ICT skills as a key to employability. In their work on the youth in Eastern European countries, it came out strongly that lack of e-skills was a hindrance to employment. Further, Garrido, Badshah and Coward (2009) argue that training programs on ICTs should expressly provide people with the skills they need to be employable, obtain a betterpaying job, or start a microenterprise. It is paramount that the youth of Ghana which constitutes 51% of the country‟s population are supported to acquire e-skills to facilitate their employability. A critical aspect of building ICT skills is the availability of avenues for employment. Consequently, there should be synergy between e-skills development and the ICT market. The ICT market conditions should determine the type of e-skills it requires for both its present and future uses. However, this is not the situation in the country as there is a weak linkage between the academia and the industry. This problem needs to be addressed adequately to achieve synergy between these institutions so that the e-skills developed in the country are beneficial to the industry. 4.4.3 Internet Penetration Building an information society should not be limited to providing internet access for commercial to activities, but should be extended to individual citizens to be part of the knowledge economy, and support social development and cohesion. The survey showed that only 0.3% of the households in Ghana had internet connection at home. However, Ghana is among the premiere countries in Africa to introduce internet services into its ICT sector. In spite of the early experimentation, the country failed to take advantage of the early lead to rapidly deploy the service across the country, and this has resulted in the low uptake. Looking at the data and analysis, the low penetration of internet into homes is largely due to the issue of cost. For example, one has to pay US$80 for a set –up fee and monthly charge of US$75 to subscribe Internet Ghana Limited facility dedicated for homes. In the case of Busy Internet, the set-up fee is US$200 and a monthly shared facility fee of US$95. Owing to the low salary levels in the country, only a few households and individuals can subscribe to residential broadband services. Though there are over 35 operating internet service providers (ISPs) in the country, less price competition is seen in the market and this has affected the development and uptake of the service. A study by GISPA (2008) provides some answers to the abysmal performance The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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of the industry. The key ones are limited coverage of fixed communications infrastructure, which has hampered large scale deployment of the DSL broadband service, improper pricing of bandwidth (copper, fiber and submarine) and high regulatory charges on the use of satellite technology. For example, before 2004, 2mb duplex per month connectivity to the SAT-3 submarine cable (which the then Ghana Telecom had monopoly right) was US$12,500. In the case of VSAT, there are different fees for the different areas and purposes. For public VSAT in an urban area, one pays application fee of US$1,000, authorization fee of US$2,000 and annual fee of US$2,000 per site. Invariably, the high cost of internet access is linked to corresponding high cost in facility leasing and regulatory fees. This point is argued by Esselaar, Gillwald and Stork (2006) who identified high cost of leased lines as contributing to the high internet pricing in South Africa. Therefore, to improve the penetration of internet service require efforts to lower leased facility prices which may correspondingly lower internet pricing and make the service affordable to many people. Hopefully, various new submarine cables (Glo1, Main-one, West Africa Cable System [WACS] and others may affect the prices of leased facilities which in turn reduce the high pricing of internet services in the country. Though there have successive fall in the price of SAT-3 since 2004 to its current price of US$4500 per month, the penetration of the service is still not impressive. Lack of market dynamism has led to this situation. Most of the marketing strategies of the companies were targeted at the corporate subscribers that located in the business enclaves of the major cities of Ghana, notably, Accra, Kumasi and Takoradi. It is recently, especially when wireless technology was increasingly applied in the country that some of these companies have devised strategies targeted at small and residential users. There is the need for a critical look at the internet market in Ghana so as to engender it. This becomes important since the industry is unregulated and market dynamism is to bolster its growth. Though, market forces are to shape the development of the industry, it is necessary for a national policy to provide a conducive environment for the industry to strive. Consequently, work on the national broadband policy should be expedited to provide such a framework and guidance to the industry. 4.4.4 Reviving the Fixed Line Telephones The analysis showed that the deployment of fixed line telephones has been slow and between 2003 – 2008 subsector experienced compound average growth rate (CAGR) of negative 13.1, while that of mobile telephones was 70.8 percent (ITU, 2009c)7. It is argued that fixed line telephones still have useful roles to play in the development of the information society, and therefore, requires a strong and innovative policy intervention to revamp the sub-sector. The intervention should explore ways of increasing investment in the sub-sector to expand the coverage, as well as improve the quality of the infrastructure. The fixed line telephone should be included in the list of the priority sectors to benefit from incentives under the Ghana Investment Promotion Act8. Further, the NCA should revive and expedite action on the plans to award zonal fixed wireless license to companies to provide fixed wireless services in the country. It is a basic infrastructure which should be revived to take advantage of any technological breakthroughs that might occur. Though wireless technology largely WiMax is increasingly replacing fixed lines as the infrastructure for internet, the wireless technology has its own problems –

7

The negative compound growth indicates that over the years, the fixed line telephones lines have declined instead of increasing as has been the case with mobile telephones. 8 The Ghana Investment Promotion Act identifies a number of critical sectors of the economy where incentives can be given to support the growth of those sectors. The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries http://www.ejisdc.org

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instability of signals, obstructions and the issue of point of presence make fixed line telephone necessary. Development in the market indicates that Airtel Ghana (originally Westel) is only concentrating on mobile telephone service instead fixed line telephone. The company was licensed as the second national network operator and therefore, it should be required to fulfill its original license obligations. This may introduce competition and dynamism into the market which is currently a monopoly for Vodafone Ghana. It has been suggested that mobile technology has the potential to realize the information society aspirations of states (Grantham and Tsekouras, 2004), but the point is no single communication technology can underlined the information society. It requires the combination of others and this lays point for more attention to be given to develop the fixed line network. The explosion of submarine fiber cables terminating in Ghana, as well as the national terrestrial fiber backbone network may require a very good fixed line telephone infrastructure to support them. ASDL broadband internet will still be available and useful for internet connectivity and expansion. Consequently, the development of these networks, especially the high speed fiber networks should be in tandem with an efficient fixed line telephone infrastructure. 5 CONCLUSION The analysis has shown that Ghana compares relatively favorably with selected African countries in terms of access and usage. However, the critical resource, which will enable the country to effectively exploit the opportunities of ICTs is woefully inadequate. It is important that the country facilitates the building of e-skills in the country through a more structured and rigorous programs whose impact on the national landscape will be strong. Further, the development of programs and action plans to implement the strategies of the ICT4AD need to be revamped to ensure that the milestones spelt out earlier are achieved to support the country‟s evolution towards information society. It is also concluded that there is the need for the industry players and the regulator to address the ever expensive market to engender dynamism to promote growth in the industry. The current level of 0.3% households with internet connection at home is woefully inadequate and a more rigorous approach should be adopted including affordable pricing and increased e-skills capability to increase residential internet access and usage. Again, the fixed line telephone market should not be allowed to die, but adequately supported to complement other technologies which can be employed to reach the information society status. Finally, it is concluded that Ghana has made some progress in improving access and use of ICT facilities in the country as a way of achieving the objective of the national ICT4AD policy and GTP. However, much remains to be done to achieve the information society status. 6.

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