Governments and regulators must innovate, as the global adoption of technology grows and new economies take shape.

This is one of the key findings of the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report 2016.

The report, published earlier this month, surveyed 139 countries amongst which were Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, and UAE.

Their ‘networked readiness index’, as shown in the infographic below, “represents a key tool in assessing countries’ preparedness to reap the benefits of emerging technologies and capitalize on the opportunities presented by the digital transformation and beyond”.

They were looking at the elements of an ICT (information and communication technologies) revolution - politics, business, infrastructure, affordability, individual, business, and government usage; economic and social impacts.

Unsurprisingly UAE and Qatar were leaders in the Arab world in “networked readiness”. Kuwait and Lebanon also showed great strides in improvement as each jumped 11 spots on 2015’s rankings - and all despite their respective governments lagging behind in digital adoption.