Assessment

Abstract

Abstract This chapter critically evaluates the first stage of the Digital Economy Kit, the assessment phase. It opens with an assessment of diagnostics themselves: their past use in development has been chequered. It makes the case that a sensible diagnostic should not just identify some abstract need but instead be clear about what investments and other actions should be taken to unlock the next stage of digital potential. It explains the significance of the Kit’s design: why infrastructure, people, finance, and policy and regulation are the key pillars in which a minimum level of implementation is a prerequisite for economy-wide digital transformation. It goes on to assess three related challenges this phase encountered in actuality in the seven countries: poor quality quantitative data; absence of such data in the first place; and where it does exist, their contested nature.