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Digital access and use

Role of government: Shared Shaped jointly by administrations, markets and society.

46.7Access · regional mean

57.3Experience · regional mean

−10.6Access–experience gap

0.86How closely access and experience move together across countries (correlation)

0.91How closely this domain follows the overall index (correlation)

What the survey asks: access

Internet use at home or elsewhere; household access to a computer and a mobile telephone; use of AI tools; use of the internet for essential information and social media; experience of hacking or blocking.

What the survey asks: experience

Satisfaction with internet access, views on opportunities to go online and on the range of opportunities available.

Findings

Digital access is the most dispersed domain (standard deviation 13.9) and closely tied to the index (r = 0.91). Tunisia (58.8 access, 94.3 experience) and Lebanon (62.5, 70.5) lead; Yemen (30.0, 37.9) and Iraq (30.8, 33.8) trail. Qatar (34.5) and Saudi Arabia (38.8) record low access.

It is the one domain in which experience exceeds access in every state, by 3 points in Iraq and by 35.5 in Tunisia.

What the gap may indicate (inference, not measured)Residents appear to judge their digital position against what is available in their country rather than against an external standard. The low access scores in Qatar and Saudi Arabia rest on items about use and exposure, not on coverage or speed, and on samples of 119 and 100; they call for item-level reading before policy use.

Administrative implicationDigital government can be monitored on completed transactions, skills and Arabic-language services rather than on satisfaction, which appears to rise ahead of use.

Citizens voice

“Availability of internet everywhere”
Egypt

What respondents said they would change. Open-ended answers as transcribed in English by the survey team, lightly edited for punctuation; attributed by country only.

Figure 1Digital access and use: experience runs ahead of access in every country, most in Tunisia

AccessExperienceDotted lines: regional averages

Iraq30.8 · 33.8 Saudi Arabia38.8 · 42.2 Kuwait59.0 · 62.7 Jordan56.0 · 63.6 Yemen30.0 · 37.9 Lebanon62.5 · 70.5 Egypt52.3 · 61.9 Morocco44.1 · 55.6 Qatar34.5 · 50.1 Tunisia58.8 · 94.3

Sorted by the gap between access and experience.

A-SCOPE MENA, Arab Access and Experience Dataset 2026, ten states, N = 1,861. Wave 1 · Release 1.0 · September 2026.Image (PNG)

Figure 2Digital access and use: access and experience rise together

Provision–experience mismatchMaterial-access deficitAdministrative interface deficitCapacity under crisisIntermediate alignment

Dashed line: access equals experienceDotted lines: regional averages

A-SCOPE MENA, Arab Access and Experience Dataset 2026, ten states, N = 1,861. Wave 1 · Release 1.0 · September 2026.Image (PNG)