Background Note for Mauritius Country Growth and Jobs Report : Digital Transformation

Overview & Synopsis

The digital economy touches nearly every sector and aspect of daily life, transforming how people learn, work, socialize, and access both public and private services. Mauritius has placed its digital agenda at the forefront of national development strategy, with significant advances in connectivity and government digitalization. The rapid emergence of artificial intelligence is raising the bar for digital readiness worldwide. The report identifies areas of relative strength alongside key structural constraints. It is the adoption - not access alone - that translates digital investment into faster and more inclusive growth: jobs, productivity gains, export competitiveness, and lower costs. Because the logic is cumulative, a weakness in any building block cascades upward to constrain adoption and, ultimately, growth - which is why the report examines adoption by firms and individuals (Section 2) alongside the foundations, skills, and enablers that determine it. Section 1 gives introduction. Section 2 examines how firms and individuals are - and are not - leveraging digital technologies productively, including the state of digital entrepreneurship and digitally delivered services exports. Section 3 turns to the country’s digital foundations: broadband quality and affordability, and data and compute infrastructure. Section 4 assesses workforce readiness, including the digital skills gap and the opportunities and risks of the AI transition. Section 5 examines the enabling environment - digital public infrastructure, e-government, and digital safeguards. Section 6 sets out policy priorities to translate Mauritius’s strong foundations into tangible gains in productivity, jobs, and inclusive growth.