5. Failure to harness technological innovation, particularly ICT, to improve the efficiency of existing factorbased economic sectors like forestry, fishing, agriculture, oil and gas and, in the secondary sector, energy,
leading to sub-optimal production and value output in these sectors;
6. Prohibitively high taxation, which inhibits entrepreneurship and innovation, and encourages the
development of a parallel economy;
7. Most sparse population in Central America (22,800 sq. km., people: 324,060 > ½ living in rural areas, almost
½ under 18 years old) has implications for policy planning, Government revenues and economic growth;
8. Major national unemployment and under-employment and fluid, often undocumented, flows of people
from Central America, with serious implications for policy planning and economic development;
9. Lack of ubiquitous infrastructure (telecommunications, electricity, water, roads) impedes public sector
management, investment and economic growth;
10. Lack of legislation and the existence of weak regulatory frameworks to guide development of ICT-related
sectors, including E-Government and e-commerce, have a dampening effect on public sector efficiency and
productivity, business, entrepreneurship and innovation;
11. Lack of effective competition and regulation in the telecommunications and ICT sectors, resulting in high
access costs and reduced performance, making the Internet inaccessible and unaffordable to many;
12. Deficiencies in education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, resulting in weak skills and human
capacity in the public and private sectors, slowing economic expansion.
Additionally, in its analysis, the CTU has referred to the World Economic Forum (WEF) assessment on the state of
ICT readiness to support an integrative E-Government ecosystem. In its 2012 Networked Readiness Index (NRI), for
the first and only time to date, WEF assessed the extent to which Belize is leveraging ICT to increase its
competiveness and positively impact overall national development. Unfortunately, according to the 2013 Report,
the most recent survey data “could not be collected in Belize”. Thus, along with other factors, the 2012 NRI
findings are used as a basis for the policy prescriptions outlined in this document. In this regard, Belize was ranked
119 out of 142 countries globally in the 2012 NRI.
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