Latin America grows in ICT development but is far from the world average

(Madrid, May 5th, 2014).- At the headquarters of the Iberian-American General Secretariat (SEGIB, for its acronym in Spanish), CAF, Development Bank of Latin America,  jointly with Isdefe, presented the reportToward the Digital Transformation of Latin Americaregarding the situation of information and communication technologies (ICT). The initial presentation was in charge of Guillermo Fernandez de Soto, CAF's Director for Europe, and Francisco Quereda, Managing Director of Isdefe, a public engineering company.                         

The results of the study are based on the ICT Comprehensive Development Index (IIDT, for its acronym in Spanish), developed by CAF. This enables a quantitative and homogeneous evaluation of the different dimensions (infrastructure, human capital, economic and institutional), which explain the development level of the sector, in addition to comparing the situation of each country analyzed with its surrounding countries, the region as a whole, and some model countries outside the area under study. 

During his presentation, Mauricio Agudelo, CAF Executive and Research Coordinator of the study assured that, "the idea is to understand how the demand for services and public policies evolves in the sector, and see what is being done in the digital agenda in each one of these countries". 

The region has grown in every dimension regarding ICT. With respect to infrastructures, since 2010 there has been an increase of over 30 percent according to the developed index. According to Agudelo, access to broadband is well below the global average due to its insufficient development. 

At an economic and institutional level, the evolution reaches almost 15 percent. The telecommunications industry represents more than 4 percent of the region's GDP. In addition, there is a political awareness to reduce the digital gap, and almost every country analyzed has established service funds or universal access. However, CAF states that ICT prices still make up an important percentage of the average income of citizens in some countries, and recommends promoting policies to facilitate access to services and ensure a higher digital inclusion. The report points out that the region still has an insufficient level of ICT development in order to converge with more developed regions. For example, when compared with Denmark, the Latin American sector in the economic and infrastructure area has an average value of 50 percent with respect to the European country. Regarding Spain, the differences are smaller, although still important: the value of their infrastructures is 45 percent lower, and that of its human capital, 42 percent less. 

Agudelo stated that, "there are great opportunities for Spain in several aspects of ICT development in Latin America, among which the following are included: investment in new infrastructure and services; transfer of knowledge and training both to citizens as well as public or private institutions; exchange and training of ICT professionals, as well as consultancies to the government in the design of digital plans and regulatory aspects".