Poorer countries lag in ICT access - World Bank

Monday, 27 March 2006 12:19  |  Alec Barton

"Information and Communications for Development 2006: Global Trends and Policies" has been taking stock of the progress achieved worldwide in rolling out access to affordable ICT, determining what makes for success in adopting ICT to meet development challenges.

The report, which includes a series of ICT indicators for almost 150 countries, builds on experience drawn from the Bank's own significant involvement in the sector: the World Bank is the largest international donor in the field of ICT for development, with ICT projects in over 80 countries and a portfolio amounting to more than US$3 billion.

The report shows that private sector competition remains the driving force in extending telecommunications access to billions of people around the world according to World Bank Director, Mats Karllson and Vice-President of Infrastructure Kathy Sierra. For Mr Karllson private sector competition remains the driving force in extending telecommunications access to billions of people everywhere. For him, cooperation is also key to ensuring further progress cooperation between government and private sector, as it helps connect the next billion citizens, whether within government as it extends e-services, and across countries to ensure regional access and connectivity.

Touching on the foundation of ICT access in the world Mats Karllson hinted that over the past 25 years developing countries have considerably increased ICT access, especially for services: "Between 1980 and 2005, the number of telephone subscribers in developing countries rose by over 30 times. In 1980,developing countries accounted for only 20% of the world's telephone lines but in 2005 60% of the world's phones were in developing countries.

Such expansion has, for the World Bank, been driven by the technological revolution of mobile telephony as well as private competition. By 2003, 130 countries had at least three competing providers of mobile services. Opening up to private competition has also led to huge inflows of investment from overseas.

Between 1990 and 2003, for example, 122 out of 154 developing countries received foreign investment in telecommunications, while annual FDI in telecommunications in developing countries has increased from US$2 billion in 1990 to a high of approximately US$35 billion. In coming years, the level of annual investment going into the ICT sector in emerging markets could reach US$100 billion.

The World Bank report shows that completing the transition to well- regulated and competitive service provision remains the foundation of exploiting ICT for development. But there is still some way to go, considering, for example, that nearly half of all countries retain monopolies on fixed local and international service provision, making the costs of Internet connectivity exceedingly high and unaffordable. These views are those of Mohsen Khalil, Director of the World Bank Group's Global ICT Department.

Mohsen Khalil also believes that if ICT is to fulfil its potential as a significant catalyst of income growth and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, there is much more to do. There is, for example, a continued need for government support to access initiatives. Going beyond fair and effective private sector competition, the World Bank report also outlines innovative public-private partnerships to extend access to rural and remote areas.

More info:

• www.worldbank.org

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