Progress made in bridging the digital divide

Geneva, 13 September 2006 "” The International Telecommunication Union launched a report in New York today onICT/Telecommunication development in least developed countries (LDCs)

. The report examines key developments in the information and communication technology (ICT) and telecommunications sector including trends and challenges in the world's poorest countries in the period 2001 to 2005. ITU's findings reveal that considerable progress has been made to bridge the digital divide and that teledensity targets set by the Brussels Programme of Action (BPoA) have been met by 25 of the

50 LDCs

The ITU report was unveiled during a special session on 'Integrating Least Developed Countries (LDCs) into the world economy through telecommunications/ICT' held during the Mid-Term Review on implementation of the Brussels Programme of Action for Least Developed Countries for the decade 2001-2010.

According to ITU, teledensity has more than doubled in the majority of least developed countries since 2000 with some of them boosting connectivity by as much as 20 times, thanks to rapid growth in the deployment of mobile technologies. The race towards universal access in LDCs has been mainly led by Small Island Developing States such as Cape Verde, Maldives and Samoa and small to average sized countries such as Gambia, Lesotho, and Mauritania, some of which have achieved teledensities of up to 44 lines per 100 inhabitants surpassing many developing countries.

Growth driven by ICT: mobile and internet

'The mobile sector in LDCs has grown considerably against fixed lines over the last few years, and the number of mobile subscribers almost doubled in 2005', explained Cosmas Zavazava, Head of ITU's Unit for Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States and Emergency Telecommunications. 'It recorded a significant annual growth of 82 per cent from 2000 to 2005, compared with 12 per cent in the fixed-line sector'. According to ITU statistics, least developed countries with the highest annual growth rate in terms of cellular subscribers over the period 2000-2005 were Djibouti (186%), Democratic Republic of Congo (184%), Niger (171%), Liberia (155%), Mali (142%), Sudan (139%), Yemen (129%) and Lao P.D.R. (119%). Prepaid services, accounting for almost 90 per cent of the entire market, have contributed to the explosive expansion of the mobile sector in LDCs. In Afghanistan, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Haiti, Somalia and Niger all mobile subscriptions were prepaid.

Overall, access to the internet has increased and more interest is on deployment of broadband services in rural areas. By 2005, internet user penetration caught up with fixed line penetration in LDCs, providing access to a host of applications, such as e-education, e-health, e-business, e-agriculture, and e-government. In terms of internet penetration, a number of countries have reached penetration rates of around five percent, including Maldives (5.8%), Cape Verde and Togo (both 4.9%), and Senegal (4.6%). Although the majority of LDCs have not yet launched high-speed internet services, popular demand is encouraging more countries to upgrade from dial-up internet connections to broadband. For instance, by 2005, over 89 per cent of all internet subscribers in Senegal were DSL subscribers, compared with 70 per cent in the Maldives, 17 per cent in Cape Verde and 2 per cent in Lao P.D.R.

Despite recent progress, LDCs continue to face major challenges. Rapid developments in the LDC telecommunications marketplace require new directions to be taken by policymakers and regulators. Many established policies and regulations have become obsolete, leading to inefficient and increasingly untenable restrictions and barriers to the development and dissemination of the benefits of IP convergence.

Progress made in bridging the digital divide

Growth driven by ICT: mobile and internet

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