THE ECONOMIC IMPACT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN SUDAN 1994-2002

Abstract

In Sudan, information and communication technologies (ICTs), including telephone, computer, and Internet, seem to have been adopted by increasing numbers of individuals, households, and organizations during the last decade. This seems to have been accompanied by the rise of a flourishing market for ICTs-related services and the growth of the ICTs sector as one of the emerging economic sectors. According to the circumstances prevailing worldwide, such trends are expected to continue at least in the foreseeable future. However, the socioeconomic impact of ICTs in Sudan was seldom studied by researchers. Serious and in-depth research work in this area can be described as rare if any. This study comes as an attempt to examine thoroughly the socioeconomic impact of those technologies in Sudan during the period (1994-2002). Highlighting the level of geographical coverage, and tracing the trends of adoption and use of ICTs in the country during the period mentioned, the objective of this study is to quantify the microeconomic impact of the technologies with regard to market performance and the general price level as well as their macroeconomic impact on investment, output, consumption, exports, and public revenues. In addition, the study examines the role of ICTs in curbing economic crimes as well as the impact of those technologies on the role of post and telegraph as a mean of communication and, consequently, on the market of those services. Being of an empirical and quantitative orientation, the study adopted a methodology that is descriptive and analytical. Trends of some socioeconomic indicators were studied in their relation to the adoption and use of ICTs. Econometric models were built, estimated, and assessed using the technique of multiple linear regression. The study used secondary data that were extracted from the records of several institutions in the public and private sectors. The study showed rapid trends of ICTs adoption and use in the country during the period covered that seem to continue at least in the near future. Nevertheless, this was associated with a limited geographical coverage of the ICTs-related services and the heavy concentration of those services in Khartoum State and Khartoum town in particular. A positive impact was shown for ICTs on market performance and the general price level as reflected by the inverse relationship between inflation rate and these technologies. ICTs were also shown to have positive effects on the trends of investment, industrial output, private consumption, exports, and public revenues and their relative importance at the macroeconomic level. A limited role was shown for ICTs in curbing economic crimes. ICTs were also shown to replace post and telegraph as means of communication, as a result, the market of post and telegraph services was registering a continuing contraction. However, ICTs were observed to vary in the volume of impact they have on any of the socioeconomic variables. The study was faced by a number of obstacles related to incomplete time series data on some variables. The time base for data tabulation was found to vary among organizations. Refusal of some organizations to give access to their data was also one of the obstacles. Specification and estimation of the econometric models were also affected by the presence of multicollinearity among the explanatory variables.