Telecommunications and Information Services for the Poor : Toward a Strategy for Universal Access

Navas-Sabater, Juan ; Dymond, Andrew ; Juntunen, Niina

Washington, DC:World Bank

关键词: ACCESS TO INFORMATION;    ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE;    ALTERNATIVE POLICIES;    BROADCASTING;    COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/0-8213-5121-4
RP-ID  :  WDP432

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Access to information, andcommunications technologies has become crucial to asustainable agenda of economic development, and povertyreduction, and yet access remains concentrated in a fewregions and population groups, with the contours of this new"digital divide" closely following, andsupplementing existing income, and economic divides.However, technological innovations, economic pressures, andregulatory reforms, are making access to information, andcommunications technologies more affordable, and, providingopportunities to close the digital divide. This discussionpaper outlines a number of policy, and regulatory measures,including incentives to attract investors to high cost, orchallenging areas, that can be used under differentscenarios, to close the digital divide. While Bank Groupexperience shows an increasing number of projects withspecific universal access components, this paper proposesalternatives for Bank Group support for universal accesspolicies, through an appropriate mix of technicalassistance, and investments.