USIA - INDEX MEASURES INFORMATION WEALTH OF NATIONS (96-06-06)

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("There should be no losers," panel says) (760)

By Edmund F. Scherr
USIA Staff Writer

They also emphasized at a press conference that the decisions that governments, organizations, and individuals make over the next decade will determine winners and losers in this new information age.

Wilfond Welch, director of global research of the World Times Publishing Company, said that in this revolution "individual countries have the choice to allocate resources" to be part of the information age.

World Times and the International Data Corporation (IDC), an information technology data and consulting firm, on June 5 released its study of 55 developing and developed nations, which measures their ability to access, adopt and absorb information and information technology.

The Information Imperative Index (III) measures 20 distinct factors to provide a single indicator on a country's progress towards an economy driven by information technology. At the top of the list is the United States with a score of 5,107 on the III index. China is at the bottom with 335. The mean average of countries on the index is 1,819.

Donald Bellomy of IDC said that the report is a "benchmark." He said the index, which they hope to update annually, will show countries what progress they are making in the various information variables.

The 55 countries in the survey, the sponsors noted, account for 77 percent of the world population, 97 percent of the world's gross domestic product and 99 percent of the world's spending for information technology.

The 20 variables in the study are organized into three categories of infrastructure for the index, including:

-- Social. This includes secondary school enrollment, newspaper readership, press freedom and civil liberties.

-- Information. Such measurements as telephone lines/households, cellular phones per capita, and radio and television ownership per capita.

-- Computer. This includes personal computers installed per capita, software/hardware spending and percentage of networked personal computers.

The III is based on computer information gathered by IDC and data obtained from various sources.

Countries in the index are placed in four groups:

Roller-bladers (over 4,000 points on the index). These countries show a shift to a new level of individual information empowerment. The United States and Sweden are the only countries in this category.

Striders (2,000 to 4,000). These nations display successful long-term information technology investments. Countries in this group include South Korea, Israel, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

Sprinters (1,000 to 2,000). Countries in this group show steady high growth. Russia, Chile, Spain and Ireland are among this group.

Joggers (ranking under 1,000). These nations show uneven growth, and include China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Brazil.

The speakers noted that consistency counts in the index. The United States has the highest score in only 8 of the 20 variables, but its scores were consistently high. Also, they noted that the size of population influences the ranking. Per capita calculations pushed India. Indonesia, Pakistan and China to the bottom of the rankings.

Another lesson drawn from the index is that social infrastructure counts. New Zealand out points the United Kingdom largely due to a higher percentage of college-age youth in schooling -- 82 percent compared with 42 percent in the United Kingdom.

In the social infrastructure, the speakers predicted that education will be the key investment for broad participation in the global information revolution.

Welch emphasized that the "variables in the index are highly dynamic. Many elements in the information and computer infrastructures, even in the social infrastructure are evolving rapidly and they will generate dramatic changes over the next few years."

Following is the list of the 55 countries in group order in the information wealth report:

R O L L E R - B L A D E R S --

Sweden

S T R I D E R S --

S P R I N E R S --

J O G G E R S --

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