Towards an Information Society: The State of the Arab Countries

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Arab countries are progressing in developing information society and how they differ in their efforts to build an information society. The researchers are interested to know if there is any relationship between ICT Development Index (IDI) and ICT Price Basket (IPB), as well as the relationship between Gross National Index (GNI) and IDI. The study adopted IDI, GNI, and IPB indicators used by the International Telecommunication Unit (ITU) in 2011. The researchers divided the Arab countries into four groups: GCC, Levant, Magreb, and other Arab countries. Findings indicate a significant progress of the Arab countries, particularly the GCC countries, in developing information society. Results of the study show that countries with relatively high ICT price have relatively low levels of ICT access and use. Similarly, the analysis of the study found that a high GNI for a country results in a high ICT Development Index and vice versa.