* WORLD'S FIRST GLOBAL ICT RANKING CONFIRMS DIGITAL DIVIDE:

Europe and Asian Countries Lead. African Countries Lag.

FACTS FROM WORLD'S FIRST GLOBAL ICT RANKING

"The digital divide is well and alive in the global village!"

The Digital Access Index is part of the 2003 edition of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)'s World Telecommunication Development Report.

* It looks at the infrastructure available in countries, affordability of technology, educational levels, quality of ICT services available and Internet usage to provide an overall country score.

* Countries are given an index number based on a scale of 0 to 1, with 1 meaning the highest access.

* The leaders are Sweden (0.85), Denmark (0.83), Iceland (0.82) and the Republic of Korea (0.82).

* UK and US don't make the top 10 - US (0.78) is number 11, UK (0.77) is number 12.

* African countries dominate the bottom. Niger (0.04) is at the bottom of index.

* Top in Africa are Seychelles (0.54), Mauritius (0.50), South Africa (0.45), Botswana (0.43) and Tunisia (0.41)

* Asian Tigers show that English is no longer a decisive factor in quick technology adoption.

Executive Summary of the full report (Adobe PDF file)

Digital Access Index Rank by Indicator (Microsoft Excel spreadsheet)

For more information contact Mr M. Minges, author of the report

Click here, For Telecommunications Resources including Links to ITU and the index:

http://www.jidaw.com/links.html

 

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