A new report by the Inter-Parliamentary Union has highlighted significant progress in the digital landscape of legislatures worldwide.
Based on responses from surveys conducted on 115 parliaments or chambers in 86 countries and supranational parliaments, the World e-Parliament Report 2024 published by the Inter-Parliamentary Union provides a comprehensive assessment of the use of digital technology in parliaments worldwide.
According to the Africa Human Capital Technical Briefs Series for July 2023, internet penetration in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has increased tenfold since 2010, three times the rate of global expansion. This rapid growth is a testament to the region’s embracing of digital technology and its potential to drive economic growth and development.
The report also notes the growth in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, cybersecurity remains a top priority, and social media has become almost universal.
This edition of the IPU report introduces the Digital Maturity Index, a new benchmarking tool that provides a snapshot of how parliaments around the world are using digital tools.
The table below shows a list of African countries’ parliaments with a high digital adoption with rankings based on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 represents the most digitally mature and 1, is the least digitally mature.
| Rank | Global Rank | Countries | Digital Index |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
24 |
South Africa |
8 |
|
2 |
28 |
Zimbabwe |
8 |
|
3 |
29 |
Burundi |
7 |
|
4 |
37 |
Morocco |
7 |
|
5 |
50 |
Tunisia |
6 |
|
6 |
52 |
Burundi |
5 |
|
7 |
58 |
Malawi |
5 |
|
8 |
62 |
Algeria |
4 |
|
9 |
64 |
Kenya |
4 |
|
10 |
66 |
Namibia |
4 |
