Investigating the influence of bridging the digital divide on economic growth and corruption control : lessons from developmental economies to developing countries : the case of East African countries : the International Telecommunications Society (ITS Kyoto 2017 Conference) ICT and innovation sector on the new businesses model session presentation

The digital divide is now a subject of priority and a serious concern to East African Countries. This research has been made to have comprehensive understanding of the level of the digital divide in Ethiopia including the neighbouring countries and identify the lessons of best performing countries' in the industry to adopt their best practice in bridging of the digital divide for Ethiopia and East African countries . The main objective of the research was finding the relationship between the informatization level and contributors for its successful performance. The study was made based on the secondary data sources having purposive sampling from East African Countries and best performing countries. The Information Communication Technology Development Index (IDI) which measures the digital divide of the economies combines eleven indicators on ICT access, use and skills, capturing key aspects of ICT development in one measure that allows for comparisons across countries and over time. The Indicator weights were chosen based on the principal component analysis (PCA) results as it has been indicated in ITU country report. The access and use sub-indices were given equal weight (40 %) having minor adjustment from ITU analysis, while the skills sub-index was given lesser weight (20 %) as it is using based on proxy indicators...