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Kenya ranks 78th in the world on digital quality of life

NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 1 – Kenya has ranked 78th in the world and 5th in Africa regarding digital well-being, according to the fourth annual edition of the Digital Quality of Life Index (DQL) report.

The 78th rank is an improvement by one rank from the 79th position that the country was ranked in 2021.

The report which assesses five digital pillars which include internet quality, e-infrastructure, e-security, e-government and internet affordability was conducted in 117 countries in the world which translates to 92 per cent of the global population.

The country was ranked 61st for e-infrastructure which was the best performance of all the five key index pillars. This is however a drop from the 58th position it took in 2021.

Kenya was ranked 74th in e-security as well as in e-government. Both sectors have recorded a decline compared to the 2021 report as it was ranked 54th and 71st respectively.

From the report, fixed broadband internet remained less affordable worldwide for the second year in a row in the face of waging inflation and owing to this, Kenya ranked 93rd in internet affordability, an improvement from 101st position in 2021.

It further noted that to afford mobile internet, Kenyans have to work 92 times more (7 minutes and 34seconds per month) than Israeli citizens, for whom the most affordable 1GB package costs only 5 seconds of work monthly.

Meanwhile, fixed broadband costs Kenyan citizens around 8 hours and 12 minutes of their precious working time each month.

The country’s weakest performance was in internet quality where it ranked 106th globally, making it to be 34 per cent worse than the global average and needs to be improved by 140 per cent to match the best-ranking country’s results, Chile.

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“While countries with a strong digital quality of life tend to be those of advanced economies, our global study found that money doesn’t always buy digital happiness. That is why, for the fourth year in a row, we continue analyzing the Digital Quality of Life to see how different nations keep up with providing the basic digital necessities for their citizens. Most importantly, our research seeks to show the full picture of the global digital divide that millions of people are suffering from,” stated Gabriele Racaityte-Krasauske, Head of PR at Surfshark.

Compared to South Africa, Kenya’s mobile internet is 2 times slower, while broadband is 3 times slower. Since last year, mobile internet speed in Kenya has improved by 14.5 per cent (3.1 Megabits per second [Mbps]) and fixed broadband speed has grown by 8.5 per cent (1.5 Mbps).

Singapore’s residents enjoyed the fastest internet speed in the world with a mobile speed of up to 104 Mbps/s and a fixed of as much as 261 Mbps\s.

Israel ranked 1st in DQL 2022 pushing Denmark to the second position after it had led for two years whereas Germany took the 3rd position and France and Sweden closed the top five list by taking positions 4 and 5 respectively.

DRC Congo, Yemen, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Cameroon dragged at the bottom five positions on the list.

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