Overview of Sudanese Economy and the Status of ICT in Sudan

This chapter presents an overview of Sudanese economy and the trend and status of ICT in Sudan. Section 2.2 explains some stylised facts along with other strategic problems confronting economic development in Sudan that, it explains that Sudan’s economy has been characterised by low GDP per capita income, presence of high rates of poverty, unemployment and inequalities in resources sharing. Section 2.3 explains the trend and status of core ICT indicators in Sudan. We show that in the recent years, Sudan has shown growing telecommunication networks and Internet services and the diffusion of ICT in Sudan has increased significantly. We explain that recent indicators from International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 2014 show the trend of core ICT indicators and illustrate that despite recent slowdown in terms of fixed telephone, the recent average growth rate of the total online population, Internet, fixed (wired)-broadband and mobile-cellular subscribers in Sudan during the period 2000–2013 has been significant. ITU 2014 data for 2000–2013 indicates that in Sudan the growth rate of mobile-cellular telephone (1,039.71) is faster than Internet (755.67), fixed (wired)-broadband (59) and fixed telephone (−0.04) respectively. We show that the status of ICT indicators in Sudan in 2013 can be explained by regional and international standards compared to Arab countries and world regions respectively. We find that ITU 2014 data for 2000–2013 indicates that by regional and international standards the rapid increase in ICT indicators in Sudan that appear from the increasing use of Internet and mobile-cellular telephone and the increasing proportion of households with Internet and proportion of households with computer are above that of Africa but below Arab region and World region, whereas the use of fixed-telephone in Sudan is less than Africa, Arab region and World region. This implies that by regional and international standards, ICT indicators in Sudan are below compared to Arab countries and World regions. Our findings indicate that the reported increasing trend of mobile and Internet usage at the aggregate macro level in Sudan seems consistent with the observed increasing trend at the regional and international levels. We find evidences in support of the incidence of the global digital divide between Sudan and the World countries, developed countries and developing countries that appear from ICT Development Index (IDI), access sub-index, use sub-index and skills sub-index over the period (2011–2012). Our results indicate that the reported digital gap in core ICT indicators at the aggregate macro level in Sudan compared to world regions seems consistent with the observed development gap in social, economic, human development and education indicators in Sudan compared to world regions.