Article Bridging the digital divide through ICT: A comparative study of countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, ASEAN and other Arab countries

Bridging the gap of the digital divide can play an important role in education, employment and economic growth of any country. The present study attempts to examine and analyze the digital divide status of the Gulf Coop-eration Council (GCC) countries compared with countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other Arab countries. It uses 19 indicators of four factors adapted from The Global Information Technology Report 2009–2010 to measure the digital divide. Findings of the study indicated that GCC countries have a better ICT infrastructure than the ASEAN and other Arab countries. Similarly, the results of the study revealed that GCC nations have more ICT users than the ASEAN and other Arab countries. However, the study found no significant differences among these groups of countries in regard to government support and usage of ICT. Findings of the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) show that, across the three groups of countries, the influence of ICT infrastructure is consistently significant in narrowing the digital divide. The regression results also prove a significant relationship between government support for ICT and government usage of ICT