Survey on ICT use by households and individuals: Egypt’s Experience

Survey on ICT use by households and individuals: Egypt’s Experience

Dr. Nagwa El-ShenawyInformation Center Director

Ministry of communications and Information Technology

Ministry of Communications and Information Technology

Information Center

First Workshop of the Regional Project "ICT Indicators and Capacity Building for ICT Measurement in Arab

Region", Amman, 25-27 Sept. 2010

Content Measuring the information society in Egypt:

Background and Scope. Partners. Workflow. Dissemination.

ICT use by households and individuals: Background. Questionnaire. Methodology. Achieved Progress. Data Cleaning and validation.

• Background and scope.• Partners.• Workflow.• Dissemination.

Mea

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The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) launched national ICT indicators project in 2006 "Information and Communication Technology Indicators Project" with the aim of “measuring the information society in Egypt".

The project has a wide scope, measuring ICT usage in the following areas:

■ ICT infrastructure and access.■ ICT usage by households and individuals.■ ICT usage by businesses.■ ICT usage in government sector.■ ICT usage in public access points.■ ICT usage in Education sector.■ ICT usage in Health sector (Forthcoming).

Measuring the Information Society in EgyptBackground and scope

Central Agency for Public Mobilization And Statistics (CAPMAS).

National Telecommunication Regularity Authority (NTRA). Information Technology Industry Development Agency

(ITIDA). Microsoft.

Measuring the Information Society in EgyptPartners

Measuring the Information Society in EgyptWorkflow

The Future of the internet Economy in Egypt .. Statistical profile

International organizations’ reports.

Egypt’s ICT Indicators Portal: http://www.new.egyptictindicators.gov.eg/en/Pages/home.aspx

Measuring the Information Society in EgyptDissemination

ICT indicators bulletin.

• Background.• Questionnaire.• Methodology.• Achieved Progress.

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MCIT has carried out the survey of ICT use by households and individuals on a regular basis (annually); in order to measure different patterns of ICT usage among Egyptian households.

The survey aims at: Providing the community and decision makers with the latest

figures, trends and developments of ICT usage by households and individuals.

Identifying major characteristics of ICT users. Identifying the major obstacles that hinder ICT diffusion across

the country.

Measuring the Information Society in EgyptBackground

This questionnaire has been formulated in light of international ICT core indicators recommended by partnership on measuring ICT on development project adopted by many international organizations.

Questions related to E-Government have been formulated according to OECD recommendations.

The questionnaire mainly includes 7 sections: HH basic indicators. ICT usage by individuals (Fixed lines, Mobile, Internet,

Computer). ICT usage by households (Fixed lines, Mobile, Internet,

Computer). ICT expenditure. E-commerce indicators. E-government indicators. Security and Privacy considerations.

ICT use by households and individualsQuestionnaire

The sample is drawn from the sample of Family Income, Expenditure and Consumption survey (FIECS) of 2004/2005.

The sample is a multi-stage cluster and self-weighted representative sample.

The survey included 21,000 households (300 areas × 70 households); covering 24 governorates. represented urban and rural areas.

ICT use by households and individualsMethodology

1. Measuring digital divide by:1. Geographic location.2. Gender.3. Income level.4. Education level.5. Age group.6. Employment status.

2. Measuring Households expenditure on ICTs.3. Measuring Security and privacy aspects.4. Measuring broadband indicators.5. Measuring ICT usage by disabled.6. Measuring E-Content.

ICT use by households and individualsAchieved Progress


30.00%

31.00%

25.00%

0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35

Proportion of HHwith computer

Proportion of HHusing internet

computer

Proportion of HHwith internet access at

home

Main Indicators

1.1 Measuring Digital Divide (Urban and Rural)

By Geographic location


By Gender

1.2 Measuring Digital Divide (Gender Gap)

ICT use by households and individualsAchieved Progress Cont.

By Income level

1.3 Measuring Digital Divide (By Income Level)


By Education Level

1.4 Measuring Digital Divide (Education level)


By Employment Status

1.5 Measuring Digital Divide (by employment status)


By Age groups

1.6 Measuring Digital Divide (by Age Group)


2. Measuring Household expenditure on ICT


14.93

29.50

32.91

22.67

Fixed lineMobileComputer, Computer peripherals, Maintenance, trainingI nternet

The relative importance of expenditure on different

ICT services

3. Measuring Security and privacy aspectsViruses are considered the most common security problems faced by households

%


4. Measuring broadband indicators

Multiple selections were allowed


5. Measuring ICT usage by disabled persons The proliferation of different ICT techniques have raised the hope

among the disabled persons and have enabled them to reap the benefits of ICT.

In Egypt; MCIT started in 2007 to collect data about disabled persons in the surveyed households and their patterns of ICT usage.

Surveyed disabled persons.

Gender Age Education using computer

Main computer activities

Owning Mobile

Average mobile monthly expenditure

(EGP)

Main internet activities

1. Female 13 Pre -university

Yes Education Yes 10 Learning

2. Female 29 University Yes Entertainment Yes 20 Downloading videos

Patterns of ICT usage of disabled persons included in HH survey 2009


6. Measuring E-Content


95.02%

40.70%

0.68%

0.00% 20.00% 40.00% 60.00% 80.00% 100.00%

Arabic

English

Other languages

Languages used in accessing the internet

• Data Cleaning and validation:• Cleaning process.• Treatment of non-response

cases.• Validation.

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ICT use by households and individualsCleaning process

Statistical information collected can contain errors (Inconsistent responses), so it’s important to apply techniques which optimize the effectiveness of the data and decreasing the incidence of the inconsistent data. it’s necessary to apply rules that define the relations between questions .

The example of this inconsistency may include: Households using E-commerce or E-government and don’t use the internet.

Households using internet but don’t use the computer. Individuals have no access to the internet and have responses in

internet activities.

The treatment of these cases depends mainly on the value of other reference indicators. (ex. HH using E-commerce, E-government and have internet activities must use the internet, so if their responses related to “internet use” are (No), the statistician should replace it with (Yes).

ICT use by households and individualsTreatment of missing data

Missing data has the potential to introduce bias so data collection agencies should strive to reduce the extent of non – response , by means of advertising the survey through the best available media , improved questionnaire and high quality field work .

There two main types of missing data: Unit non-response. Item non-response.

Most of the surveys contain unit non-response error. there are 2 statistical methods to treat Unit non response cases:- Sample – based : sample – based corrective weighting consists of

modifying the original sample weights by multiplying them by the inverse of the non – response rate.

Population – based : population – based corrective weighting is equivalent to classical post – stratification in which survey data are benchmark against known population totals .

ICT use by households and individualsTreatment of missing data .. 1. Unit non response

MCIT in cooperation with CAPMAS used “ITU manual for

Measuring ICT Access and Use by Households and

Individuals” as a guideline for imputation the missing values in HH survey”.

It should be noted that the selection of one or other rule will produce biases in the final estimates. In general, methods based on the replacement of a missing value by a modal, median or average value of the same variable in a set of ‘similar’ records reduces the bias, but also artificially reduces the variance of the population.

Source: “ITU manual for Measuring ICT Access and Use by Households and Individuals”

ICT use by households and individualsTreatment of missing data .. 2. Item non response

As an example, the statistician can select different rules for imputation the indicator for “internet access” as follow: Rule 1: A deterministic rule that imputes ‘Yes’ to all missing values for

the item ‘Use of Internet’ if the household has access to Internet and ‘No’ otherwise.

Rule 2: A deterministic rule that imputes ‘Yes’ to all missing values for the item ‘Use of Internet’ if the household has access to Internet and the level of education of the individual is ‘Tertiary’, and ‘No’ otherwise.

Rule 3: A rule that imputes the most frequent value of the item ‘Use of Internet’ in the set of records with the same value for ‘Access to Internet’.

Rule 4: A rule that imputes the most frequent value of the item ‘Use of Internet’ in the set of records with the same value for ‘Level of education’.


ICT use by households and individualsValidation methods

1. Using Hard indicators as checkpoints for judging the accuracy of some soft indicators:

Some ICT usage indicators included in HH survey have a relevant hard indicators, these indicators consider as a good checkpoint for judging the accuracy of soft indicators.

HH3 Proportion of households with a fixed line telephone.

Soft Indicators Hard Indicators

Fixed lines penetration.

HH11 Proportion of individuals with use of a mobile telephone

Mobile penetration.


2. Using some derived indicators to test the accuracy of some other indicators included in HH survey:The accuracy of some other ICT usage indicators included in HH survey can be tested by comparing its value with the value of some derived indicators using official figures.

HH7 Proportion of households with Internet access at home.

Soft Indicators Derived Indicator

Proportion of households with internet access at home .. Calculated based on official figures of:

Unique number .. (HH accessing internet through dialup).ADSL household subscription .. (HH accessing internet through ADSL).% of HH accessing the internet through both dialup and ADSL.

Cont.

Calculation Method of the proportion of HH using internet from home using hard data (official sources)

Using the official figures released by Telecom Egypt of unique numbers (that represent the total number of fixed lines that access the internet through dial up), and the figures of ADSL subscribers, we calculated the total number of households using the internet from home through dial or ADSL, which reached 5.6 million in 2010.

To avoid any double counting, we used the percentage of households that access the internet through both dial up and ADSL (which extracted from HH survey and reached 15% in 2009), to alleviate the double counting in the number of HH using internet from home.

Based on the above calculations, the number of HH using internet from home reached 5.19 million in 2010. this number represents 29% of the total Egyptian households (which is 18.3 million) in 2010.

ICT use by households and individualsValidation methods Cont.


1.21No. of fixed lines using dial -up (unique numbers) (million)90.90% of HH of total fixed line using dial -up (%)*1.10No. of HH using dial up (million)1.22No. of ADSL subscribers (Million)88%% of Households ADSL subscription (%)**

1.07No. of HH using ADSL (Thousands)

4.20Average no. of Households using the ADSL line

4.51No. of HH using ADSL (million)

5.61Total no. of HH using dial up and ADSL (million)

15.00% of HH using both dial-up and ADSL (%)

0.84No. of households using both dial up and ADSL (million)

0.42No. of HH that should be excluded to avoid double counting (million)

5.19No. of households using dial up and ADSL without duplication (million)

18.02Total households in Egypt (million)

28.79% of HH using internet from home

Calculation of HH using internet from home using hard data (official figures 2010)

* Source: Telecom Egypt.

** Source: ISPs survey 2009.

Cont.

MCIT has exerted continuous efforts during the past years to measure ICT usage and impact in Egypt, in addition to its role in socio-economic development; through conducting a number of projects in cooperation with international organizations.

The journey is still long; but we are sure that we are on the right track, believing that sincere cooperation with international organizations and hard work will lead us to achieve our goals.

Many challenges still exist with regard to reviewing the current methodologies, developing a new set of indicators measuring various dimensions of ICT, as well as reviewing the existing indicators to ensure their credibility and reliability.

ICT use by households and individualsChallenges

Thanks

Survey on ICT use by households and individuals: Egypt’s Experience

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