Are Investments in ICT Impacting Economic Freedom in Africa? A Tobit Regression Analysis of Five African Countries from 1995-2002

The World Society of Information Systems (WSIS) has been advocating for world communities to take vantage opportunities which Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides. In addition and for two decades, other international institutions such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund, UN and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) have been supporting African countries to invest in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as a strategic tool for social and economic development. WSIS annual forum regularly checks ICT acquisition and advancement Country by Country to ascertain ICT’s impact of each Country and Region. These institutions believe that ICT is a support boat for less developed countries that missed previous revolutions. Reviewed literature suggests that ICT will bring ‘opportunities for global digital economy’ to remote parts and communities of Africa. Yet, little results have been seen so far. UN agency for development is evaluating the outcome of its decades of investments in ICT to ascertain the derived benefits. Presently, the increasing amount of transactions taking place over the internet is greatly influencing trading laws and practices in the western world. Relatively, the assessment of ICT impact on economic freedom is necessary for African countries. Before moving to new stages in their adoption of the technology, it would be wise for African countries to assess the progress made in decades of adoption. The problem of this assessment lies in the lack of African ICT’s sector empirical research. This paper investigates the impact of ICT investments on economic freedom. The paper uses Tobit regression to analyze six West African Countries data from 1995 to 2002. The empirical findings show that ICT use is not contributing to economic freedom in the countries of our study