DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION GAPS IN ALGERIA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE GLOBAL DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY INDICES FOR 2024

Abstract

This study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the maturity of digital transformation in Algeria, focusing on two global indices for 2024: Huawei’s Global Digitalization Index and the United Nations’ Technology Index. The choice of the Global Digitalization Index stems from Algeria’s adoption of a digital transformation strategy under the vision “Digital Algeria 2030”, in which the Chinese partner, Huawei, played a major role by supporting Algeria in implementing one of the key requirements of this strategy through a direct-negotiation deal to establish data storage centers across the country. On the other hand, the Technology Index adopted by the United Nations was selected as a foundation for the analysis to assess the scale of the digital transformation gap in Algeria compared to neighboring North African countries.

The study applied content analysis from the “Huawei Tech” platform in the practical section by examining the enabling factors of the Global Digitalization Index and the value of the Technology Index, in addition to using benchmarking as an analytical tool within the comparative descriptive method applied to several North African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco), which are all classified as beginner-level countries in both indices.

The results showed that Algeria suffers from low levels of investment in infrastructure, uneven distribution of connectivity services—especially in rural areasweak computing and data center infrastructure, low adoption rates of cloud computing, and a Technology Index score below the global average.