Delegates at the Fourth Web for Development conference in Nairobi last week agreed that access to the Internet had to be improved in the developing world. Access to the web, said a statement read out after the meeting, is limited: “Some 450 million people worldwide are connected to computers. By contrast, only 14 percent of the global telephone users have Internet access. This is due to poor computer skills, illiteracy, and diasbilities in a world where access is mainly visual and costly. “For these reasons, the digital divide cannot be easily be bridged using the present computer-based technological ICT set up,” the statement said.
The meeting convened to examine the theme, Driving Economic and Social Development with the Internet, drew more than 300 experts from UN bodies, governments, non-governmental organizations, universities and the business world. |
