Africa seen rising from bottom of new tech ranking

TALLINN, June 30 (Reuters) – Many African countries should focus on lowering the cost of broadband access to help boost their economies, a World Bank report said on Tuesday.

Seven sub-Saharan countries scored the lowest possible result in a new technology ranking by the World Bank due to low incomes, weak regulation, limited competition and a lack of private investment.

But development of information technology across the continent is moving in the right direction, the report said, and innovations in the fields of mobile banking and free mobile call roaming are already being copied elsewhere.

'If you look at dynamics and evolution, they are doing really well,' Mohsen Khalil, World Bank Group Director for Global ICT, told Reuters.

The countries in the region have started to invest in IT infrastructure, but the cost of fixed and mobile phone services and Internet services are still two to five times the average income, hampering the takeup.

'There's still a long way to bring down cost,' Khalil said.

He said the typical monthly mobile bill was still $10-$12 in Africa, while in Southeast Asia many operators run profitable operations with average bills of $5 or less.

The World Bank report found a strong link between GDP growth and broadband access, underlying the need for stimulus programmes in which governments have allocated billions of dollars to expand high-speed Internet access to fight recession….