Abstract
Information and communications technologies (ICTs) offer unique opportunities for developing countries to narrow the development gap with industrialized countries. They have the potential to assist developing countries ‘leapfrog’ entire stages of developments. This is the theme of a UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report entitled The Digital Divide: ICT Development Indices 2004. UNCTAD notes that despite the potential benefits offered by ICTs, significant barriers to their effective use exist in both developed and developing countries. These barriers must be addressed to allow the realization of the full potential of ICTs. Developing countries have to deal with problems of telecom infrastructure, poor computer and general literacy, lack of awareness of the Internet and regulatory inadequacy.
Benchmarking the extent of ICT development is an important tool for policy-makers. It allows comparisons between countries and indicates how well countries are doing compared to others in terms of adaptation, mastery and development. Compared with better-performing countries helps identify policies for further improvement and progression. The WSIS Plan of Action calls for “realistic international performance evaluation and benchmarking through comparable statistical indicators and research results.” This report updates UNCTAD's ICT Development Indices to benchmark and review trends in the digital divide. It presents a summary of options that countries can adopt as well as country case studies, benchmarking examples and analyzes policy that drives the quality of its implementation.
The following are the overview and benchmarking ICT developments sections of the report. A complete text of the report is available from http://www.unctad.org.
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