WIA Report

Almost every city in the world offers cyber cafés or other commercial Internet
access, but they cost average people in a developing city two times as much of their daily income as people in a developed city.

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In many parts of the world, the most well-developed information infrastructure is
supported by libraries. A country’s national library typically houses information on legislation, historical archives, patents, and sometimes court and tax records. University libraries store information on research and are often a gateway to international information services. But not all library portals are created equal. (more…)

While many governments are working to improve their information infrastructure, a significant number of governments around the world do not have the capacity to host their own websites. A third of all countries maintain websites with commercial hosting services in the United States. One quarter of all countries maintain all of their government websites on servers in other countries. (more…)

For several decades, international lending agencies have encouraged African governments to reform their telecommunications sector by privatizing the public telephone services, separating and depoliticizing the agencies that regulate telecommunications sector, and opening up competition in the consumer market for telecommunications services. Over this period, Africa’s share of the world’s internet hosts and secure servers has actually declined. (more…)

A decade into the information society, computing and communication technologies should be dispersed among a large number of countries in the world. But key computing and communication technologies are actually more concentrated in fewer countries, not more diffused across many countries. (more…)

Book publishing is big business in rich countries, and book production in developing nations is a fraction of that in developed nations. Yet there has been impressive growth in the amount of cultural content online in poor countries. (more…)