UN urges countries to avoid digital divide
By Zhang Yong (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-04-29 10:10

United Nations officials urged developing countries yesterday to formulate proactive and progressive strategies on information and communication technology development to avoid a more serious "digital divide" in coming years.

Economic transformation with more focus on information and communication technology (ICT) is "a global trend and a big challenge not only for developed countries but for developing countries as well," said Brigita Schmognerova, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), at a panel discussion of the 60th Session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) yesterday.

It is essential and urgent for developing countries to "promote and strengthen national programmes for the development of the information society based on proactive national strategies," echoed Daniel Blanchard, secretary of UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

While the world is increasingly becoming globalized, significant gaps have also emerged in the levels of ICT development between countries, according to a UN report released yesterday.

A distressing fact is, of the 55 counties listed as having "low access" under the latest Digital Access Index (DAI) ranking by the International Telecommunication Union, as many as 38 are in Africa and 10 from the Asia-Pacific region, said the report.

Even within some developing counties, the "digital divide" is widespread and rampant, the report said.

While some Asian countries like South Korea and Japan are already in the top 10 in international ICT rankings under DAI, UNESCAP statistics also show that there are an estimated 46 million children in South and East Asia still not enrolled in primary schools 11 years away from the deadline set in the UN Millennium Development Goals.

To meet the challenges ahead, it is essential for developing countries to pay more attention to information technology training, said Kim Hak-Su, executive secretary of UNESCAP.

"The biggest gap (in ICT development in the Asia-Pacific region) is the lack of human resources in some countries left behind," noted Kim.

"The goal is to draw attention to the need to transform people and society, and not merely the provision of networks of cables and computers," echoed Blanchard.

UNESCAP is committed to facilitate flow of expertise from the region's IT rich countries to those less advanced countries so as to reduce the huge disparities in ICT development in the region, said Kim.

Despite significant steps taken to expand telecommunications infrastructure and liberation of the telecommunication sector in most countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the latest International Telecommunication Union data indicated that only 11 economies in the region have teledensity above 25 per cent and a number of Internet users ranging between 10 and 25 per cent while 25 economies in the area have teledensity below 10 per cent and a number of Internet users varying from 0.2 to 8 per cent.

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