The Digital Economy Navigator Report

This Digital Economy Navigator (DEN) report is a comprehensive guide, providing a detailed analysis into its various dimensions and components. Policymakers, businesses, and other stakeholders can use this report to understand the DEN, its findings, and the implications for digital economy development. 

It offers an important resource for strategic, evidence-based policymaking to tackle the challenges and opportunities for developing digital economy maturity with innovative solutions. This report provides in-depth analysis of the DEN results by pillars, global and regional trends, and gaps, as well as recommendations for improvement.

The findings build on classifications of digital economy maturity of each of the DEN pillar scores to help countries better understand where they are on the digital economy journey, how far off they are from the next level, and how to traverse the challenges and opportunities that impact the digital economy.

The DEN will evolve over time to capture the rapidly changing nature of the digital economy. The core business of ICT is only a partial measure of the digital economy—its impact on the rest of the economy is far more critical. As traditional industries develop, the digital economy will grow to encompass all industries: eventually, the digital economy will be the economy.

The digital economy will in fact grow and continue to change as new technologies are introduced, with society adapting and evolving with them. The concept of technological change is embodied in the Navigator in two ways:

1. The DEN measures not just how a country’s population uses technologies, but also how technology affects people. While the overall objective of the DEN will remain in future editions, technologies and applications will evolve and be measured by how they contribute to the digital economy.
2. The DEN is designed as a multi-year examination with an explicit methodology of change: the introduction of new indicators, survey data, and countries will strike a balance between relevance and comparison over time.

The report is structured into five sections. The first section introduces the DEN, contextualizes it, and outlines its value for countries’ development and prosperity. The second addresses the development of the DEN framework, data collection methods, and country coverage. The third section explores key findings and insights derived from the multidimensional approach, regional analysis, and pillar-level analysis, discussing digital economy maturity classifications. The fourth presents a conclusion and recommendations. The final section includes detailed country profiles and a methodological annex.