| dc.description.abstract | This study sought to develop a set of indices better able to track a country's readiness for the knowledge economy. The new indices, the Anchored Knowledge Index and the Anchored Knowledge Economy Index are based on the World Bank (WB) knowledge economy framework. The rationale for the introduction, and the procedures to calculate the new indices are presented. The WB indices provide for rank-ordered normalization based on the latest data available for a benchmarking group of countries. The proposed anchored set of indices, however, provides for a relative ordering of the data. Relative-order (weighting) determines by how much each country, along a particular indicator, is better (or worse) than the others. The new indices address the short-coming of rank-order where as long as the relative positions of the benchmarking countries remain the same, the indices do not change even though the gaps between countries could be decreasing (desired) or increasing (cause for alarm). Further, the subject country now appears twice, based on both the latest data available, and a baseline (anchor) from the World Bank Knowledge Assessment Methodology 2009 data. Using Kenya as a case study, a basic scorecard for Kenya is proposed and used for the calculation of the indices for Kenya and five benchmark countries, Singapore, South Africa, Japan, South Korea. The results clearly illustrate the efficacy of the proposed approach in tracking a countries readiness for the knowledge economy. | |
