Source: The daily Star

Bangladesh has been ranked 55th in the web index prepared by world-wide-web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee that measures the web’s political, social and economic impact on people and nations of 61 countries.

Bangladesh’s position in the bottom-ten of the index released on September 5 indicates that the course to a Digital Bangladesh is yet to be sketched out and worked on.

Sweden topped the chart, followed by the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Finland, Switzerland and New Zealand while Yemen ranked bottom, preceded by Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, Benin, Ethiopia, Namibia and Bangladesh, also the last in Asia-Pacific.

Ranks for other Asian countries are: Singapore at 11, China, 29, India, 33, Indonesia, 34, Thailand, 37, Pakistan, 44, and Nepal, 52.

The index adds much credibility to itself by incorporating 51 indicators from experts from all 61 countries.

Among the seven components used to weigh the web’s impact, communications and institutional infrastructure indicate web connectivity and the laws, regulation and censorship enabling web access.

Low-ranking countries like Bangladesh suffer from a vicious cycle of poor infrastructure and high costs of access, the index suggests.

Three other critical components – political, social and economic impact indicate the web’s impact on politics and government, health, education and social activities, and business and economy respectively.

For Bangladesh, economic and political impacts were low with scores 16.44 and 8.38, each measured out of 100.

However, social impact measured at 35.65 and communications at 26.1 indicate the recent rise of social networks (e.g. facebook usage) and internet-based communication in Bangladesh.

Poor utilisation of the internet and web content in the country is indicated by the scores in three areas – 3.7 in web, 1.62 in use and 6.6 in content, each measured out of 100.

Across the 61countries surveyed, broadband connections still cost almost half of monthly income per capita while almost 30% of countries face moderate to severe government restrictions on access to websites, the index interprets.

Globally, positive findings include the spread of e-governance: government data and services being made available to citizens online, as well as initiatives to encourage online participation in decision-making, notes the index.