Business
Kenya Ranked First in Africa for Internet Access
In the Digital Life Abroad Report 2019 by InterNations, Kenya has been ranked as the top country in Africa by expatriate workers on the basis of ease of access to the internet.
The report placed the country as the best in Africa, with South Africa, Morocco, Uganda and Egypt following after on the parameters of high-speed internet access at home and online freedom.
“Ranking as the best African country, Kenya appears to offer a good digital life. Almost nine in ten expats there (89 percent) are happy with their unrestricted access to online services, which is nine percentage points above the global average (80 percent),” says the survey.
Kenya has also exceeded the global average in making cashless payments.
“What is more, Kenya comes in fifth in the world for the ease of getting a local mobile phone number, just beaten by Myanmar, New Zealand, Israel, and Estonia. Close to every expat in the country (95 percent) says it is easy, compared to 86 percent globally.”
The report notes that the Kenyan-based expats are also satisfied with not only the unrestricted access to online services but also the possibility to make cashless payments almost anywhere.
18,135 expatriates participated in the survey where each respondent was asked to rate their satisfaction with stated factors on a one to seven scale including: the availability of government/administrative services, unrestricted access to online services such as social media, the ease of getting access to high speed internet at home, the ease of getting a local mobile phone number and the ease of paying without cash.
Online government services
However, two of every five expats feel unsatisfied with the lack of reliable online government services.
“Dealing with the government for routine matters takes forever,” said an expat from the USA quoted in the survey.
Launched in 2014, the official government digital platform called eCitizen was introduced to assist the public to access and pay for government services online. While the platform has proved successful for some services including visa application and payment and renewal of driving licences; other services such as passport and work permit application still force people to queue at government offices even with prior online applications.
Kenya is ranked 31st in the world, first in Sub-Saharan Africa followed by South Africa (49th) and Morocco (58th). At the 59th and 66th positions are Uganda and Egypt respectively.
Kenya’s positive digital ranking comes as a boost for its ranking as an expatriate destination after dropping 14 positions from 37 in 2017 to 51 in 2018.
Benefits
Internet access is becoming a very important factor in people’s lives. This is because the internet has brought with it numerous benefits which includes source of information and knowledge; communication, connectivity and sharing; access to online government services; mapping and contact information; entertainment; banking, bill payment and shopping; e-commerce, working from home and access to a global workforce; donation and funding; cloud computing and storage, and entertainment.
