ABSTRACT: The study adopted the NRI as an indicator of digitalization. It measures the “degree to which socio-economies across the world leverage ICT to increase their competitiveness” and captures the ICT regulatory environment, access, usage and diffusion of technology in society. Argued that the NRI was created to address critical gaps in our understanding of ICT development, particularly in countries. The NRI is an accepted indicator for assessing a country's development toward becoming a knowledge society. The NRI to illustrate that early adopter of technology fare far better than laggard users of technology, illustrating the synergistic effects of individual usage of technology. This argument is in alignment with the diffusion of technology theory. Since 2002, the World Economic Forum has produced the NRI as part of its Global Information Technology Report (GITR) series. Since its inception, it increased coverage in some countries from three to 40 countries.

Keywords: Digital Technologies; Public Policies; Economic Analysis.