Globally policy makers are facing a completely new and different operating landscape. This new environment is shaped mainly by a new phenomenon, the information and communications technology known as ICT. This new “factor” has become the ultimate game changer in the determination of nations' development. It is no longer surprising when one hears that the economic growth of nations today is linked to one critical and very decisive factor: adoption of information and communications technology. Now that is a great eye opener! This is not said without substance, mind you. More people today have access to a mobile phone than to water and electricity. Furthermore, the volume of data that is generated and distributed globally is expanding by leaps and bounds. All this has given governments a serious challenge. Leaders in government and business have to undertake a mammoth task in revamping their rules, regulations, policies and goals to accommodate ICT, Internet access, communications media and digital applications, basically how to structure and then promote the digitization of their economies. These procedures when implemented properly will generate enormous potential and therefore result in great consequences. Nations that have managed their process would have benefited greatly and achieved enormous economic, social and political gain. The most important examples of such an argument are Korea, Finland, Malaysia, India and Singapore, to name only a few. Numbers however speak louder than words. Iceland boasts of the highest number of Internet users in the world with 95 percent of its population being online in 2011. South Korea has 97.2 percent of its households with access to the Internet. It also has the world's second highest number of active mobile broadband subscriptions after Singapore. Nigeria on the other hand has only one percent of its homes with Internet access. The global average of the 170 countries covered in that survey was 20.5 percent. The Philippines boasts of the world's highest number of social networking users with 75 percent of active Internet users using one or more services. East Timor, a tiny nation, had the world's lowest Internet usage in 2011 with only 0.9 percent of its 1.2 million population going online. The US was beaten by Canada in the number of fixed broadband subscriptions. Canada has 32 percent and the US has 28.7 percent. The Arab world is happy and excited when telecom companies reveal the increased penetration of mobile phones and Internet usage but at a closer look we see a complete failure in e-commerce, e-education, e-medicine, e-government meaning that technology has yet to cause a true transformation in the economic and political fabric and it's merely an entertaining vehicle so far. The ICT road in the Arab world is a long one but some are realizing its potential already.
