Digital transformation maturity in Ethiopia’s priority sectors

Ethiopia has developed a strategic digital transformation plan aimed at reducing extreme poverty in society. However, its maturity level has not yet been studied, making it difficult to customize and bring digital solutions, and provide up-to-date information for informed decisions. This study aims to investigate the digital maturity level in Ethiopia’s priority sectors, including agriculture, Tourism, and IT-enabling sectors. Investigating the maturity of digital transformation helps to identify the extent to which digital technologies have transformed organizations’ processes and service models for citizens. Quantitative data was collected from the public organizations. The data was used to evaluate the digital maturity level using six dimensions (efficiency, innovation, balance, technology, organization, and users) preference. Descriptive analysis such as frequency, percentage, and mean with standard deviation or median with interquartile ranges was used to visual data and summarize findings. Extending the descriptive analysis, machine learning algorithm(K-means) was employed to easily cluster the status of the sectors or organizations into different digital maturity levels: “early, “developing,” and “mature,” depending on the range of the average values of the respondents. For this study, the data was collected from 19 organizations/institutions under the priority sectors located in different areas and regions. The result indicates that the maximum maturity level is 85% (Agriculture Transformation Institution and Sidama Region IPDC Hawassa), and the lowest maturity level of the governmental organization is 30% (Harari enterprise and industry). Five of the governmental organizations and sectors have less than 50% maturity, all the remaining that means fourteen of the organizations maturity level is greater than 50%. The maturity of the overall organization is at “developing maturity” stage, which needs continuous monitoring, and capacity building, improving balancing dimension. Balancing digital prioritization, benefit realization, and digital competence planning and control costs and benefits is essential for advance digital transformation. This indicates that the majority of the governmental sectors are on a good track to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Ethiopian government.