Pakistan suffers further drop on Inclusive Internet Index

Despite making significant progress made into reducing the gender gap in Internet access, Pakistan's ranking at “Inclusive Internet Index 2021” drop to 90th place among 120 countries, becoming the worst performers in South Asia.

As per the Economist Intelligence Unit ‘Inclusive Internet Index for 2021’, which is made up of 120 countries representing 98 percent of global GDP and 96pc of global population, Pakistan was placed at 90th place overall, the country ranks in the bottom quartile of the index and second to last in the Asia region.

Pakistan ranked highest in the Affordability pillar due to improvements in the competitive environment and a decrease in mobile phone costs.

The overall Index score based on the scores of the Availability, Affordability, Relevance and Readiness categories. Pakistan ranked 97th in the Availability pillar, 67th in the Affordability, 91st in Relevance and 79th in Readiness.

However, not all was gloomy for Pakistan as it was among the countries that have made commendable progress in reducing gender gap in Internet access. “Pakistan, which has the highest gender gap in the world, at 65pc, posted a 6-percentage-point improvement in the past year. To ultimately bridge the divide, however, progress in such countries needs to be faster,” stated the report.

However, in countries such as, high gender gaps in mobile access persist despite mobile data becoming more affordable, highlighted the report. “This could be due to entrenched cultural factors that inhibit gender equality more broadly,” said the report.

Whereas, Sweden beat the United States and was able to retake the top position in the 2021 Index. Meanwhile, India was the top performer in South Asia at 49th place compared to its position at 52 in 2020, while Sri Lanka was placed at 77, Bangladesh at 82, and Nepal at 83 ranks in the index report 2021.

As per the report, a majority of countries in this year’s index—77 out of 120—saw improvements in Internet inclusion over the last iteration, including nine of the 15 low-income countries (LICs) included. The countries whose scores improved the most included both developed and developing countries, with improvements spread throughout the four index domains.

Top gainer Latvia rose 13 spots to 32nd place, driven by steady growth across the board. Slovakia, Uzbekistan and Kenya showed particularly striking surges in readiness, while Costa Rica benefited from a large jump in availability, with big improvements in government and private-sector initiatives to make Wi-Fi available. Egypt, meanwhile, saw a significant bounce in relevance, largely driven by advances in online trust and safety.

At a global level, availability saw the biggest increase overall, boosted mostly by improvements in broadband quality; big gainers in this metric include Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and China.