3 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. A 2010 Declaration of Broadband Inclusion for All

2. Executive Summary - A 2010 Leadership Imperative: Towards a Future Built on Broadband

3. Creating a Broadband Development Dynamic: A Strategic Framework for Action

3.1 Policy: From Clear Policy Leadership to an Enabling Environment 3.2 Infrastructure: Investing in Infrastructure for the Future 3.3 Technology: Future-proofing Technology 3.4 Innovation: The Changing Face of Innovation 3.5 Content and Applications: The Growing Importance of Content and Applications 3.6 People: Building the Network of Ideas and Information 3.7 Government: Government takes the lead in creating demand

4. Broadband and the Interlinked and Interdependent MDG Agenda

5. Broadband and Beyond the MDGs

6. Recommendations and Proposed Plan of Action

Acknowledgements Disclaimer This Report does not necessarily represent the opinions of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) or their respective Member States, Sector Members, Associates and Secretariat.

The views of the Commissioners reflected in the Report are personal and do not entail any responsibility for their respective Administrations or the Organizations to which they are elected or associated with or of which they are staff members. 5

We believe that the Internet and other information and communication technologies (ICTs) should be used for the benefit of all mankind. Beyond any physical or virtual infrastructure that has preceded it in the industrial revolution or information age, and as a catalyst and critical enabler for recovery in the wake of the recent economic slowdown, broadband will be the basis for digital invention and innovation and the foundation for digital and other investments that lie at the very heart of our shared knowledge economy and society.

We firmly believe that with the strategic and innovative use of broadband ICTs, the international development community can move beyond ‘business as usual’ and that it will be possible to achieve the inherently interlinked MDG agenda by 2015 to address the existing and emerging global challenges of the 21st Century. New York, September 19, 2010 Put plainly, we believe the models of We, the members of the Broadband the mobile and Internet revolutions can Commission for Digital Development, transform global development and have address this Declaration to the world fundamentally thrived because they are leaders attending the 2010 MDG Summit bottom-up, market-led models. By forging at United Nations Headquarters. a common vision and understanding of A 2010 the needs and requirements for ubiquitous We call upon you to embrace a common and higher capacity access to the Internet, leadership vision that has profound governments have today an unprecedented implications for the accelerated opportunity to unleash the creativity Declaration and inventiveness of their citizens and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the internationally-agreed industries to innovate and invest in health and education. Although broadband is a deadline of 2015. That common vision is means to an end, and not an end in itself, of Broadband broadband inclusion for all. It is a vision ICTs and broadband can help generate that embodies effective and sustainable jobs, growth, productivity and, ultimately, solutions to the great global challenges long-term economic competitiveness. Inclusion of the 21st Century in poverty, health, education, gender equality, climate change Timing is everything. In September 2000, and the seismic demographic shifts in when the historic Millennium Declaration 1for All youth and ageing populations. was agreed by 189 UN Member States, 6 7 there were some 740 million mobile environment for broadband inclusion for We affirm that in order to realize its full and the establishment of related laws and cellular subscriptions and nearly 400 all via the convergent and interdependent potential, broadband must be anchored regulations. At the same time, a global million Internet users worldwide. In 2010, forces of policy, infrastructure, technology, around the concept of knowledge cooperative framework is needed as there are more than 5 billion mobile cellular innovation, content and applications, societies, including principles of freedom these issues often extend far beyond the subscriptions and over 1.8 billion Internet people and government. of expression, quality education for all, boundaries of individual nations or sectors. users according to ITU’s most recent data, universal access to information and with the majority located in the developing knowledge of and respect for cultural and Digital creators are entitled to fair While local conditions vary, there are world. It is now high time to take the next linguistic diversity. Equitable and affordable compensation. Digital networks have led some similarities in the issues affecting great digital leap forward toward our universal access to broadband networks to unprecedented levels of content piracy developed and developing countries and broadband future. and broadband-enabled applications that will be further exacerbated in the in the solutions to those issues – including are the key for the delivery of online broadband era. New models are needed The implications are enormous. enlightened political leadership, shared public goods and services, the sharing of for the remuneration of content creators, International estimates suggest that for responsibility for a shared resource and the scientific information, the strengthening distributors and network operators – every 10 per cent increase in broadband need to create a regulatory environment of social cohesion and the promotion of models that are best developed through penetration we can expect an average of conducive to investment and innovation. cultural diversity. partnership and consensus between 1.3 per cent additional growth in national policy-makers and industry. gross domestic product (GDP), and we We urge national governments not to Digital literacy and e-skills should remain concur with OECD findings that justify limit market entry nor tax broadband a key preoccupation of governments We therefore make a clarion call for rapid broadband roll-out in all OECD unnecessarily to enable the market to and business. We encourage all to seize ‘Broadband Inclusion for All’: for global member countries. ITU estimates that by achieve its full growth potential; to radically the opportunity in developing further the leadership from the top and a ground- 2015 at least half the world’s population rethink the availability of adequate radio multilingual Internet by building on the recent swell of support in shaping the broadband should have access to broadband content deployment of the first internationalized future through the deployment of National frequency spectrum in the broadband era; and communication. domain names. Preservation of cultural Broadband Plans, and for full-scale and to adhere to the guiding principles of diversity and promotion of multilingualism recognition in policy-making of technology, We believe that broadband inclusion for fair competition to promote access to all, in cyber-space will have a positive impact innovation and private sector investment all will represent a momentous economic including fair licensing procedures. At the on growth in the number of Internet users as the critical enablers of the international and social change commensurate with international level, coordinated standards around the globe. development agenda and development in the very problems that the MDGs aim to for interoperability must be established that the 21st Century. solve, and that it will be a game-changer can grow markets in devices, networks and Trust and confidence are prerequisites. in addressing rising healthcare costs, software through economies of scale and We believe that recognition is needed by With this Declaration, we submit to you our delivering digital education for all, and significantly increased user satisfaction. all relevant stakeholders that, in a digital final Report of the Broadband Commission mitigating the effects of climate change. economy, the unprecedented opportunities for Digital Development to the United Already, we see the transformational While broadband infrastructure is crucial, afforded by flows of ideas and information Nations Secretary-General. We draw your progress which digital inclusion offers to we urge world leaders to recognize that and almost limitless access to content, attention to the Recommendations and youth, women, the elderly and people with connectivity and content go hand in hand. culture, knowledge and applications, pose Proposed Plan of Action contained therein mental and physical disabilities in rich and immense challenges for existing national Therefore, it is essential that we examine with a full pledge and commitment from us poor countries alike. and international rules and regulations. all to continue the work of the Broadband ways to develop local content and Commission for Digital Development applications in order to serve the MDGs We strongly believe that getting the As broadband usage increases, issues of until 2015 specifically in service of the broadband policy and investment mix right and other key development priorities. online privacy, confidentiality and security accelerated achievement of the MDGs. requires coherent and concerted political Promoting access to education, health are becoming more important and must will and leadership from the top as well services, agricultural and environmental be addressed at the national, regional Broadband inclusion for all rests in as grassroots support. Critically, this will information should thus become an and international levels. This will require the hands of each and every one require a newly proactive and progressive integral part of the strategic deployment of the development of technical solutions of us – and it begins here with your approach to creating an enabling broadband infrastructure. as well as education, awareness-raising vision and leadership. 8 9 co-chairs Commissioners

H.E. Prof. Dr. Ali M. Abbasov Minister of Communications and Information Technologies, Republic of Azerbaijan

Mr. César Alierta CEO, Telefónica

Mr. Orlando Ayala Corporate Vice President, Chairman Emerging Markets Microsoft Corporation

Sir Richard Branson Founder, Virgin Group

H.E. Mr. Paul Kagame Mr. Carlos Slim Helú Ms. Kathy Calvin President of Rwanda Honorary Lifetime Chief Executive Officer, United Nations Foundation Chairman of Grupo Carso

Dr. Vinton G. Cerf VP and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google

Vice-chairs Mr. John T. Chambers Chairman and CEO, Cisco Systems

Dr. Choi Soon-hong Assistant Secretary-General Chief Information Technology Officer, United Nations

Ms. Helen Clark Administrator, United Nations Development Programme Dr. Hamadoun I. Touré Ms. Irina Bokova H.E. Senator Stephen Conroy Secretary-General, ITU Director-General, UNESCO Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Australia 10 11

Mr. Edouard Dayan Mr. Yoshinori Imai Director-General, Universal Postal Union President, Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Executive Vice-President, NHK, Japan

Ms. Milagros Del Corral Former Director General of the National Library of Spain H.E. Mr. Ivo Ivanovski Minister of Information Society, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Ms. Ingrid Deltenre Director General, European Broadcasting Union Dr. Paul Jacobs Chairman and CEO, Qualcomm

Mr. Cheick Sidi Diarra Under Secretary-General, United Nations Dr. A. Reza Jafari Special Adviser on Africa and High Representative for Least Chairman and CEO, Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States E-Development International

Mr. Amir Dossal Dr. Kim Seang-tae Executive Director, United Nations Office for Partnerships President, National Information Society Agency, Republic of Korea

H.E. Mr. Ricardo Ehrlich Ms. Neelie Kroes Vice President of the European Commission Minister of Education and Culture, Uruguay Commissioner for the European Digital Agenda

H.E. Ambassador Walter Fust Mr. Bruno Lanvin Former Director-General, Swiss Development Corporation Executive Director, eLab, INSEAD

Mr. Julius Genachowski Prof. Dr. Klaus M. Leisinger Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, President and Managing Director, Novartis United States Foundation for Sustainable Development

Mr. Angel Gurría Mr. Leong Keng Thai Deputy Chief Executive and Director General Secretary-General, Organisation for Economic (Telecoms and Post), Infocomm Development Authority Cooperation and Development of Singapore

Mr. Francis Gurry H.E. Ms. Suvi Lindén Director General, World Intellectual Property Organization Minister of Communications, Finland

Mr. Mo Ibrahim Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal Founder and Chairman, Mo Ibrahim Foundation Chairman, Bharti Airtel, Bharti Enterprises 12 13 Mr. Luis Alberto Moreno Mr. José Manuel do Rosario Toscano President of the Inter-American Development Bank Director General and CEO, International Telecommunications Satellite Organization

Mr. Jay Naidoo Prof. Jeffrey Sachs Chair, Development Bank of Southern Africa Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary- Chair, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition General for the Millennium Development Goals, Director, The Earth Institute, Columbia University

Dr. Speranza Ndege H.E. Mr. Adama Samassékou Director, Institute of Open, Distance & e-Learning, President, International Council of Philosophy and Kenyatta University Human Sciences

Mr. Youssou N’Dour H.E. Ambassador Sha Zukang Musician, Goodwill Ambassador, UNICEF Under Secretary-General, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs

Mr. Denis O’Brien Sir Martin Sorrell Chairman, Digicel Group Group Chief Executive, WPP

Mr. Paul S. Otellini Dr. Shashi Tharoor President and CEO, Intel Corporation Member of Parliament, India

H.E. Ms. Safuneitu’uga Pa’aga Neri Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Ben Verwaayen Samoa CEO, Alcatel-Lucent

Mr. Esteban Pacha-Vicente Director General, International Mobile Satellite Mr. Hans Vestberg Organization President and CEO, Ericsson

Mr. Supachai Panitchpakdi Secretary-General, United Nations Conference on Trade Dr. Wang Jianzhou and Development Chairman and CEO, China Mobile

Dr. Sam Pitroda Ms. Sun Yafang Adviser to Prime Minister of India on Public Chairperson, Huawei Technologies Information Infrastructure and Innovations

Mr. Christian Roisse Professor Muhammad Yunus Executive Secretary, EUTELSAT IGO Nobel Laureate Managing Director, Grameen Bank 15 countries, we believe we have once again arrived at a crossroads in the evolution of the global digital highway, with broadband as the next great leap forward.

The new realities and opportunities for digital development must be fixed without delay in the minds of world leaders as a leadership and development imperative. Indeed, as these very leaders gather this week at the United Nations in New York for the watershed 2010 MDG Summit, and with only five years left to meet the MDGs amid a continuing climate of fiscal and donor uncertainty, progress still needs to be accelerated if the MDGs are to be met, particularly in the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

Meanwhile, in this second decade of the “No problem can be solved 21st Century, the digital divide continues to from the same level of be a development divide that must quickly consciousness that created be bridged. We firmly believe that today, the social and economic development of every Executive Summary it” – Albert Einstein country on earth will depend on accessible and affordable access to broadband Timing is everything. The year 2010 marks networks, based on a multilingual approach, not only a key milestone on the road to as the basis of human opportunity for all A 2010 achieving the Millennium Development citizens – wherever they live and whatever Goals (MDGs) and the outcomes of the their circumstances. Geneva and Tunis phases of the World Summit on the Information Society We recognize the significant progress made Leadership th (WSIS). It also marks the 25 anniversary in recent years by many governments of the landmark ‘Missing Link’ report of to put in place an enabling environment the Maitland Commission, which called for ICT investment, and the resulting Imperative: for the now seemingly humble target of investment and growth in mobile networks bringing virtually the whole of mankind and services in particular, especially in within easy reach of a telephone by the developing countries. If we are to replicate Towards a early part of the 21st Century. this ‘mobile miracle’ for broadband, then all stakeholders must come together to While strong market demand in the form address the significant policy, regulatory, of mobile telephony and the Internet have structural and institutional hurdles that Future Built since driven the explosion of worldwide remain in the way of widespread, global 2on Broadband ICT diffusion even in the world’s poorest broadband roll-out. 16 17 To look at the long-term broadband broadband Internet. Countries as diverse Meeting the Millennium A Shared Responsibility for picture, we must engage our imaginations as Australia, Brazil, China, India, Macedonia Development Goals by a Shared Resource - From to envision broadband connectivity and and South Africa have launched broadband content as the full ripening of the digital initiatives, offering important insights and 2015 Mobile to Broadband revolution, the fruits of which in many experience to other countries. cases have yet to be invented or imagined, For the international development Today, it is widely understood that community, the watchwords among policy- nothing scales to critical mass quite but which will transform our lives, These developments are radically and makers and practitioners for meeting like cell-phones and cyber-space. The livelihoods and lifestyles permanently and irrevocably shifting the policy and the interlinked MDG agenda of poverty, value of the worldwide mobile and wired profoundly. By pulling the levers of policy investment debate away from arguments education, gender, health and environment Internet increases exponentially as and investment together, we believe that in over increasing the supply of connectivity are ‘scalability’ and ‘replicability’. Projects more people, communities and nations 2010, we can take the first steps towards to high-speed broadband links towards delivered through broadband networks become connected to it. Such ‘network this exhilarating future. increasing demand and adoption of digital can deliver these goals. They offer the effects’ have been in evidence almost public and private goods and services for potential to leverage shared knowledge from the birth of the mobile and Internet The question is not ‘why broadband’? the benefit of all society, via access to a vast interactively and instantaneously across market phenomena, but we are rapidly The question is rather who will rise to range of content, information, knowledge the globe and the possibility of unleashing the challenge for social and economic and applications delivered by and across entering a new and dramatic phase of people and community power by moving transformation offered by the mobile and all sectors of the economy. growth and demand. broadband revolutions? Are governments from dependency to a self-help model.

fully aware of the enormous potential It is critically important to build inclusive However, deployment of broadband goes Significantly, of all the MDG targets, the of broadband to deliver services to knowledge societies in which people hand in hand with the development of most advanced is the target for ICTs. As the their citizens, and can industry deliver can gain the capabilities from broadband- applications and content. Broadband technical and policy debate on broadband broadband inclusion for all, even for market enabled applications to transform is a tool for advancing further along the deployment now unfolds in real-time and segments where the business case is less information into knowledge and path of inclusive knowledge societies on a global, regional, national and local certain? Another important question is how understanding which can empower them where access to information, freedom of basis, we believe it is essential that both can broadband connectivity and content to enhance their livelihoods and contribute expression and human creativity are vital. developed and developing countries take be delivered in the most accessible and to the social and economic development a seat at the same table. affordable way, and to all citizens, in their of their societies. Likewise, although broadband has the own languages? inherent capability to cut a swathe through By turning on the broadband tap, we Uniting this human development agenda the silos associated with the health, believe it will be possible to overcome the In this brave new world of ‘digital with the strong business case for education, culture, energy, transport, many early obstacles encountered on the opportunity’, we believe the burning issue broadband to boost progress towards environment and other sectors, it has is what price will be paid by those who fail the MDGs is the key challenge for policy- global digital highway, as well as many all too often fallen between sectors as a to make the global, regional, national and makers. The Broadband Commission of the perennial development challenges. casualty of short-term micro- and macro- local choices for broadband inclusion for for Digital Development unites a panel The Broadband Commission for Digital economic planning. Many would argue all – choices which must be made sooner of pioneering policy leaders with top Development has focused on the seven that these sectors are on the threshold rather than later. business executives to draw tentative convergent and interdependent forces of systemic and fundamental change policy conclusions and best practices from of Policy, Infrastructure, Technology, requiring re-engineering from top to In 2010, from Brussels to Kigali, and from their rich fusion of experience and insights. Innovation, Content and Applications, bottom. Fundamentally, like mobile and New Delhi to Washington, advanced and This Report summarizes the key findings of People and Government, which we the early Internet, broadband could be forward-looking policies and plans are the Commission’s consultations to date. believe need to be harnessed by the the next disruptive technology tool that is being put in place for nothing less than international community to build a about to catalyze that change. the unleashing of ubiquitous invention, Broadband Development Dynamic. These innovation and investment via the forces are expanded on in later sections In today’s global networked economy, accelerated deployment of a ubiquitous of this Report. broadband ICTs are a vital engine 18 19 driving economic growth. Broadband The challenge for policy-makers is to well. Otherwise, success in deploying broadband networks may be only partial at best, technologies enable the fast and efficient promote investments in high-speed excluding rural populations and many of those in greatest need. communications across different networks (backbone and access) to countries critical for success in the new ensure their widespread deployment in an Since broadband technologies are pervasive and cross-cutting, broadband must be world economy. Broadband technologies era of changing business models. More clearly prioritized in a virtuous ‘broadband development dynamic’ across all the different and services are among the high-value, flexible licensing frameworks and more policy domains – investments in broadband are simply too important to be allowed to high-tech products which are growing efficient spectrum management have become a casualty of bureaucratic rivalries or changing policy priorities. fastest in international trade, generating succeeded in helping the industry navigate new skills and sustaining strongest the transition to mobile over the last two growth in incomes. decades; the policy consensus must Forging Consensus for Commitment and Coordination now evolve to promote the transition to ICTs generally, and broadband more broadband networks. For each of the seven forces mentioned above, we believe the tide is already turning in specifically, can drive economic recovery a way that is ushering in a tidal wave of digital opportunity for the MDGs and beyond. after the recent economic slowdown. All stakeholders must come together Each of these forces exists within a complex eco-system of its own, with determinants Broadband is spurring technological to address the policy, structural and for change that are still highly subjective in nature and only partially understood. Yet change across a range of economic institutional hurdles to widespread as next-generation networks based on broadband rapidly become the backbone of sectors – from agriculture to finance, from broadband roll-out around the globe. We the digital economy, certain assumptions can be made in crafting a consensus for construction to healthcare and a range of believe that the greatest hope for success commitment and coordination towards broadband inclusion for all: other modern services. The ICT sector is a for promoting the deployment and use of vital, strategically-important sector which broadband networks lies in a market-led • Fundamentally, this will require government-wide leadership from the very top, countries ignore today only at their peril. approach facilitated by an enabling policy at the level of Prime Minister or Head of State, with a supporting governance Neglecting the deployment of broadband environment. A market-led approach can mechanism; networks and services can severely harness the drive, dynamism and discipline • A broad-based ‘bottom-up’ approach is also required to build commitment to the jeopardize countries’ long-term economic of the private sector. Correspondingly, concept of broadband inclusion for all; growth prospects and competitiveness in governments have a role to play in • Raising awareness of the economic and social benefits of broadband should be the information age. Future service delivery policy leadership creating an enabling publicized among policy- and decision-makers, as well as the general public; in health, education, business, trade and environment for broadband roll-out and • Most of the investments for broadband will come from the private sector, so government will all rely on broadband- creating demand for advanced national policy-makers need to engage with industry and investors to promote policy enabled platforms, so countries must plan broadband networks. objectives more broadly; for a future built on broadband. • Providing policy development skills to public authorities could help abolish some Those countries that have succeeded in of the existing barriers and factors that hinder widespread uptake of broadband Despite the lower entry barriers, faster rolling out extensive broadband networks, use in the population; payback periods, economies of scale and applications and associated content and • For areas where private investments are not feasible, public authorities and convenience of mobile communications, integrating them into their economic and private entities should find innovative ways of cooperating to achieve widespread developing countries cannot just ‘make social fabric have done so not necessarily access to and use of broadband; do’ with mobile broadband as their access on the back of vast wealth or even great • Content and applications development is undergoing profound change. As the network of choice without running the investments, but on the basis of strong creation, funding, sharing and distribution of content in the digital world increases risk of being condemned to a low-speed private sector participation facilitated in complexity, a fundamental concern of business, government and civil society path in the future information economy. by early and consistent prioritization of should be the stimulus of local and diversified development-centric applications, Regardless of the choice of access broadband at every level of policy-making. in local languages; network, the physical transport layer in the • Security, authenticity, and integrity issues will become ever more important, ‘backbone’ networks needs to be wireline In a market-led approach, however, particularly with regard to privacy, protection and confidentiality, and must be and capable of delivering sufficiently fast incentives need to be designed and given addressed, otherwise large-scale investment in broadband infrastructure is data speeds to ensure that developing to rolling out infrastructure to ensure that unlikely to fulfil its potential. countries can participate in the digital telecommunication networks with high revolution and reap the full benefits of fixed costs extend beyond profitable urban technological progress. areas to include rural communities as 20 21

Defining Broadband in 2010 Table 1: Theoretical time to download data online at different connection speeds

In its work, the Broadband Commission for Digital Development did not explicitly define the term ‘broadband’ in terms of specific minimum transmission speeds1 in recognition of the range of market definitions in different countries. Broadband is sometimes also Download: 56 kbps 256 kbps 2 Mbps 40 Mbps 100 Mbps defined in terms of a specific set of technologies,2 but many members of the Commission (dial-up) found it appropriate to refer to broadband inclusively as a network infrastructure capable of reliably delivering diverse convergent services through high-capacity access over a mix of technologies. Simple web page 23 seconds 5 seconds 0.64 seconds 0.03 seconds 0.01 seconds (160 KB) This Report therefore refers to broadband as a cluster of concepts, including: • Always-on: the Internet service is subject to real-time instantaneous updates, without users re-initiating connection to the server (as is the case with some dial-up ITU home page 107 seconds 23 seconds 3 seconds 0.15 seconds 0.06 seconds Internet connections). (750 KB) • High-capacity: the connection should be low latency and high-capacity3 in its ability to respond rapidly and convey a large quantity of bits (information) arriving per second (rather than the speed at which those bits travel). 5 MB music track 12 minutes 3 minutes 20 seconds 1 second 0.4 seconds • As a result, broadband enables the combined provision of voice, data and video at the same time.

Against this background, the Broadband Commission for Digital Development proposes 20 MB video clip 48 minutes 10 minutes 1 minute 4 seconds 1.6 seconds that all relevant stakeholders engage in creating a strategic framework for building a Broadband Development Dynamic, specifically targeted at the accelerated achievement of the MDGs, Knowledge Societies and beyond through the inter-dependent forces of CD / low quality 28 hours 6 hours 47 minutes 2 minutes 56 seconds Policy, Infrastructure, Technology, Innovation, Content and Applications, People movie (700 MB) and Government (see Figure 1).

DVD / high quality 1 week 1.5 days 4.5 hours 13 minutes 5 minutes movie (4 GB)

Australia (90%), Denmark (75%), 1 ITU has defined broadband telephony as a service provided over an access network “able to contain at least one channel capable of supporting a Stated national Finland (100% UK (100%), rate greater than the primary rate, or supporting an equivalent information transfer rate” – see the ITU-T Database of terms and definitions (SANCHO), available broadband targets HH), Korea (100%), at: http://www.itu.int/sancho/index.asp. France (100%), Germany (75% (% population or New Zealand EU-defined HH, 50Mbps) households [HH] to (75%), Portugal 2 For example, the ITU Trends in Telecommunication Reform Report (2009) notes fixed broadband can be implemented through technologies such target (100%) as cable modem, DSL, FTTx, Metro Ethernet, WLAN. Mobile broadband is implemented through wideband CDMA2000, CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, HSDPA, etc. be covered) (35% HH), Singapore (90% HH with 1 Gbps). 3 For measurement purposes, ITU and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently harmonized their broadband definitions for fixed (wired) and wireless broadband. ITU recognizes fixed (wired) broadband services as subscriptions to high-speed access to the public Internet (over a TCP/IP connection) at downstream speeds equal to, or greater than, 256 kbit/s. Wireless broadband services include satellite, terrestrial fixed wireless and terrestrial mobile wireless subscriptions with advertised download speeds of at least 256 kbit/s. Broadband definitions were revised at the ITU Expert Group on Telecommunication/ICT Indicators meeting, held in Geneva on 29-31 March 2010. For further information, see: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/ Source: ITU events/geneva102/index.html. 23

Figure 1: The Broadband Cloud – A Virtuous Cycle for Digital Development

Creating a

Source: Broadband Commission Broadband Focusing on MDG Development Acceleration and Delivery in 2010 • Firstly, it must be recognized that progress in achieving the interlinked In times of economic and social crisis, MDG agenda of poverty, education, Dynamic: models and mindsets must adapt gender, health and environment is rapidly, and ubiquitous broadband is a not helped if there are inter-agency big idea for which the time has come. disconnects, or if incentives for As identifying replicable lessons and innovation and investment by the A Strategic key gaps for scaling up and fast-track private sector are choked. Identifying implementation of the MDGs becomes replicable lessons and key gaps for the primary focus for the international scaling up and fast-tracking joined- Framework development community in 2010, what up implementation of projects should leaders in business, government remains a key challenge for the and civil society be doing to re-energize development community that must 3for Action and re-focus on delivery? be addressed head-on. 24 25 • Secondly, the at-once immensely energy, transport and content distribution, have not always seized the opportunities deployment and subscribers as a disruptive yet hugely collaborative are now recognized with a view to action for economic savings and improved measure of their national ability to nature of the mobile, Internet by both the public and private sectors. services that can be established in these compete in the global economy. In some and high-speed broadband value areas by developing communication countries, there is a clear understanding chains must be embraced and In its report, Network Developments in services further. (and constant media coverage) of the exploited for the global public Support of Innovation and User Needs, the importance of national rankings in terms good sooner rather than later. Swift OECD offers a new approach to building In the 21st Century, broadband networks of broadband infrastructure and take-up. adjustment of broadband policy the most forward-looking networks must be regarded as vital national Which factors distinguish the countries and plans must be prioritized. possible by evaluating what short-term infrastructure – similar to transport, leading in the national deployment of cost savings would have to be achieved energy and water networks, but with an broadband? Do these countries lead in • Thirdly, advocacy for both in other key economic sectors to justify impact that is even more powerful and far- broadband deployment by fortune, sheer technology and development the investment. The perhaps surprising reaching. As a general purpose platform wealth or design? must be used to reignite the MDG answer is that, on average, cost savings of for innovation and investment, broadband campaign and put it once again at just 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent in each networks can help to: control and use Policy leadership and political willpower the forefront of the global agenda. of these four key sectors over ten years energy more efficiently; manage healthcare at the highest level are fundamental to The Broadband Commission for could justify the cost of building national in poor, ageing or isolated populations; promoting the deployment of broadband Digital Development must focus the point-to-point, fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) deliver the best possible education to networks and development of content attention of all actors on exploiting networks in OECD countries. future generations; take better care of and ICT skills. Those countries that have the use of communication our environment; streamline transport succeeded in rolling out broadband technologies to accelerate joined- In many cases, the social returns of networks; and also help to accelerate networks and integrating them into their up delivery of the MDGs today broadband connectivity are potentially progress towards the MDGs. economic and social fabric have done rather than tomorrow. much larger than the costs of building so not necessarily on the back of vast networks. Savings in the health sector The following sections delineate the wealth or huge investments, but on the alone in OECD countries could justify the convergent and interdependent forces basis of early and consistent prioritization Broadband cost of rolling out a fast broadband network of Policy, Infrastructure, Technology, of broadband at every level of policy- if health costs were to fall between 1.4 per Innovation, Content and Applications, making. The most successful adopters of Spill-Over Effects cent and 3.7 per cent as a direct result of People and Government and how broadband (including Japan, the Republic having the new network in place. In other they can be harnessed, and critically of Korea and Scandinavian countries) were Today, the increasingly general purpose words, the inability of all stakeholders to assessed by multi-stakeholder quick to recognize broadband as a national platforms for innovation and investment take into account the full social costs and development partners, to create a priority needing separate and steady afforded by the mobile, Internet and network externalities may lead to non- Broadband Development Dynamic. investments, in addition to investments in now broadband revolutions are already optimal provision of services and reduced the broader telecommunication domain. leading to connected nations and innovation. national transformation in the delivery Successful countries often advocated the of ‘digital public goods and services’. Opening up telecommunication simultaneous development of National st 3.1. Policy: In the 21 Century, the social and markets to competition, and the ability ICT Policies which provided the enabling economic development of every country for entrepreneurs to internalize some From Clear Policy environment and capacity-building on earth will depend on equitable and externalities, can help lead to increasing Leadership to programs for their citizens to acquire the affordable access to broadband networks access and innovation with demonstrable an Enabling skills and confidence to create, share, for all citizens. benefits for people living in developing Environment preserve, and ethically use information. countries (eg, in online remittances and The ‘spill-over’ benefits of digital network mobile money transfer etc.). On the In many industrialized countries, regular Coordinated policies are needed across investment in terms of innovation and other hand, although public funding attention is given by policy-makers, a variety of different domains. In fact, the cost-savings in other sectors of the often provides the bulk of expenditure regulators and industry to quarterly countries leading the world in broadband economy, including health, education, for health and education, governments figures for broadband investments, have often succeeded in establishing a 26 27 Broadband Development Dynamic where and administrative traditions and market Policy-makers and regulators need to For mobile telephony, overly aggressive policy, infrastructure, technology, realities. Establishing an enabling policy establish appropriate policy goals related taxation has been shown to impact content and applications, innovation, environment within which the provision to broadband and refrain from imposing the diffusion of wireless broadband people and government interact in a of broadband networks and services can regulatory restrictions except where negatively, with an adverse impact on virtuous cycle of supply and demand. flourish can only be done in collaboration strictly necessary to promote competition economic development.5 The removal of Policies should not focus solely on the with industry. Governments are encouraged and consumer protection. Governments taxation and import duties on computers supply of infrastructure, but must take into to work together with industry and other should adopt simplified, flexible and and ICT equipment could help enable account demand for broadband services stakeholders to take onboard their technology-neutral licensing regimes schools and hospitals to benefit fully and content across the range of user concerns in arriving at regulatory solutions to provide for existing players as well from the advantages of ICTs by boosting groups. Since broadband technologies to the challenges affecting their market. as easy market entry by new players, their use of computers. Fiscal policies are pervasive and cross-cutting, whilst making more spectrum available that apply specific, special taxes to the broadband must be prioritized across For most operators, beyond a clear for broadband and commercial use, and telecommunication sector are often inefficient and cause distortions that different policy domains. statement of policy leadership, the allowing providers the choice of the most “crowd out” private spending, ultimately everyday reality of policy-making takes the appropriate technologies. diminishing consumer welfare. Policy- National policy priorities must also be form of regulation, taxation and customs makers and regulators should take translated into practical strategies. and import duties in the set of rules and Governments may also choose to According to ITU’s latest statistics, 161 encourage commercial infrastructure- onboard the concerns of industry and regulations established by government. work with operators to develop efficient countries and territories had a national Governments are encouraged to re- sharing and the greater availability of e-strategy in place by April 2010, with frequency bands to allow operators to tax regimes which aim to develop the ICT examine these regimes with fresh eyes sector through longer-term investment another 14 countries and territories with a view to promoting the faster growth deliver broadband services (wireline or 4 wireless) more effectively, and to promote incentives. Depending on the elasticity currently formulating a national e-strategy. of networks and services. (Note: The number of Broadband the utilization of new and emerging of the local market, taxes and customs Commissions globally is being researched technologies, such as smart grids. duties on the one-off purchase and for the forthcoming background Report). Governments also need to create the import of telecommunication equipment Towards Effective Regulation regulatory incentives to move towards can often be recouped over lower tax rates on greater market revenues from Broadband strategies deserve special next-generation mobile broadband (4G/ A conducive regulatory environment added growth in ongoing demand for consideration in terms of their own national IMT Advanced). which balances the needs of business telecommunication services. framework to ensure that countries are with the needs of consumers is essential. not left behind on a low-speed path to a Governments should recognize the need non-competitive future. For developing Taxation and Customs Duties as an for an appropriate regulatory framework countries, broadband strategies must Incentive, Not a Burden to Business be integrated with national strategies fostering broadband access to enable 3.2. Infrastructure: for education, healthcare, power and the development of infrastructure-based Although the telecommunication sector is Investing in transport infrastructure, as well as their competition in addition to service-based often an important source of tax revenues Infrastructure Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers competition. To fully exploit the benefits and levies in the formal economy in many for the Future (PRSPs). Effective regulatory and policy of wired and wireless technologies and developing countries, there are serious frameworks merit additional consideration convergence (allowing the delivery of consequences to applying taxation regimes In addition to ensuring an adequate supply to ensure that broadband services are services across different technological or rates which prove too great a burden for of national bandwidth, the availability of realized beyond higher-income, more platforms and giving users access to business. Overly aggressive approaches to affordable international Internet bandwidth profitable urban areas. new kinds of communication and media taxation reduce the growth potential of any is vital for providing high-speed Internet services), governments need to create a market by making the purchase price of connectivity to citizens, governments Policy priorities must be developed favourable regulatory environment including handsets and the ongoing cost of services and businesses alike. International in context, and have to reflect the allowance for total service convergence too expensive, often for the very people Internet bandwidth remains unequally telecommunication market structure of (in multi-play offers) and competition in all who can least afford telecommunication distributed, with far less international each country and accommodate legal building blocks of broadband deployment. service, but whose need may be greatest. Internet bandwidth available to developing

4 “National e-Strategies for Development: Global Status and Perspectives 2010”, ITU, published in collaboration with the UN, UNECA, UNECE, 5 “The Impact of Taxation on the Development of the Mobile Broadband Sector 2010”, Telecom Advisory Services LLC and the GSMA. UNESCWA and UNESCAP, May 2010. 28 29 countries compared with developed Broadband networks and services can Satellites also provide invaluable solutions, player, digital camera and multimedia countries. By the end of 2009, fixed enable operators to take advantage of particularly for providing capacity in hard- entertainment with Internet access and broadband penetration in the developing market convergence and create new to-reach rural areas and for providing the email on the move. Consumers are world stood at 4 per cent, compared with revenue streams, while expanding access essential backhaul capacity needed by other having to adjust their expectations and close to 23 per cent in the developed to ICT services at lower costs to consumers. operators to reach their customers. Recent behaviour with demand for services world, according to ITU analysis. A high-capacity fibre optic packet catastrophic events have also highlighted taking new forms. transport backbone is the fundamental to governments the important role played backbone infrastructure that countries by satellites for achieving emergency As the ‘Internet of Things’ emerges, driven in Partly as a result of the limited availability need to deploy to support the growth in preparedness and responding to events part by new monitoring, measurement and of Internet bandwidth, broadband broadband services. Developing countries (such as the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti reporting activities – such as those needed access remains prohibitively expensive can leap-frog and take advantage of the and the floods in Pakistan). to run smart grids, for example, or modern in many developing countries. In Africa, latest cost-effective and easy-to-deploy public transport systems – there will be Depending on local conditions such as for example, there is an inverse relation fibre optic technology instead of following increased interaction and interdependence geographic location, economic prosperity, between penetration and prices: while the evolutionary path taken by developed between different devices and networks. countries. Public-private partnerships rural or urban environments and local mobile penetration is high, prices are It is therefore important to recognize that (PPPs) can help drive the deployment terrain, there is a role for a host of different relatively low. Broadband Internet prices, the full benefits of broadband cannot be of broadband, particularly in rural and technological solutions in providing on the other hand, are very high and realized without maximum interoperability underserved areas. Public investments broadband access – from cable to fixed and globally-agreed standards – and to penetration levels are very low. The wireless; from satellite to microwave; and subsidies in broadband services ensure that these standards are used prohibitively high price for broadband from xDSL to mobile technologies; and need to be accompanied by regulations to create and preserve openness and services in Africa clearly remains a many more. Policy-makers should seek to ensure effective competition and transparency, rather than proprietary to adopt a technology-neutral approach major bottleneck to greater uptake of transparency of information. applications, devices or services. broadband services. as regulation needs to accommodate new upgrades of current technologies, as well as As well as standards, enforceable future technologies which do not yet exist. interconnection policies can enable Wireless technologies play an important Future-proofing technology – as well as role in providing greater connectivity to 3.3. Technology: the regulation to cope with the technology providers, suppliers, third parties and end- high-capacity networks, particularly in Future-proofing – may be impossible to achieve fully, but users to gain the maximum benefits of the developing world. By the end of 2009, Technology some technologies are likely to be more ubiquitous, always-on connectivity, and there were around 670 million mobile future-proof than others (eg, those with enable widespread information-sharing and e-business. broadband subscriptions, of which over In planning the roll-out and deployment of greater transmission capacity). Regulatory a quarter were in the developing world. broadband networks, it is unlikely that any frameworks need to be designed with Lastly, from a technology perspective, it is This trend, as well as with the strong single technology will be able to provide all this in mind, so the future development of the answers. Optical fibre is desirable at the essential to recognize that local conditions growth in subscriptions and the advances broadband is not stifled by bureaucracy, core of the Internet, and for the majority of and the availability of supporting in wireless technology, highlight growing inefficiency or lack of regulatory foresight. backhaul traffic, to achieve a high-capacity technologies are often critical factors in opportunities for countries to join the backbone, but at the edges of the network, Alongside convergence in content, determining technology choices for the information society. The demand for and in particular in the hands of end-users, technological convergence means that roll-out of broadband infrastructure. In radio frequency spectrum is likely to grow it is most likely that mobile devices will devices such as radios, televisions, areas where there is no regular or reliable rapidly, a major issue which policy-makers deliver many broadband applications and telephones, cameras or computers are often electricity supply, for example, there is a need to address urgently – noting that, as services. Indeed, this is already the case, no longer unique or even separate from one need for creative power solutions to keep a precious resource, spectrum allocation with nearly 900 million mobile broadband another in the digital era. Smartphones have the network and routers running, as well must be based on costs, efficiency of use subscriptions forecast to be achieved proved to be game-changers, combining a as recharging the mobile devices which and the needs of users. globally by the end of 2010. mobile phone with personal organizer, music connect to them. 30 31 Today, a single piece of software or and manufacturers to collaborate with 3.4. Innovation: innovative device can: application developers and businesses in 3.5 Content and The Changing innovative business models to generate Applications: Nature of • Create a new market (eg, eBay valuable innovations (eg, the Wholesale The Growing Innovation created a global market-place for Applications Community or WAC). Open Importance of online auctions); source code or applications can be Content and The telecommunication industry is • Take an existing market online (eg, developed by online communities of characterized by constant innovation. ebooks); developers to solve the everyday problems Applications Many vital innovations have been made in • Transform an established they encounter in their lives as consumers, As has been witnessed across the ICT network technologies (eg, DSL, DOCSIS market (eg, Voice over Internet parents or individuals. As a result, more world, connectivity without content 3.0, UMTS, LTE, TCP/IP protocols, IMS Protocol has revolutionized voice efficient processes in business and can make even the most sophisticated and encoding algorithms to mention communications); or development and innovation are starting technologies irrelevant or of limited just a few) or in business models (eg, • Combine existing markets into a to emerge, tailored to real need. value. In today’s virtual world, it is vital marketing innovations, such as pre-paid converged market in the digital age that governments do not neglect the tariffs). Without the innovations of pre- (eg, smartphones successfully unite But how can any of these changes importance of content. Policy-makers paid or flat-rate tariffs by operators and a mobile phone with a digital camera in the innovative process help poorer have to emphasize the development content providers, millions of people with a music player and online communities or individuals in developing of rich and diverse online content and would not have been able to afford to Internet access for information and countries? Using broadband networks, applications alongside infrastructure and use ICT services. entertainment). poorer communities or individuals can propose concrete policies and practices be empowered to voice their challenges for inclusion of new languages and tools The emergence of broadband networks Broadband networks and the Internet are online for solution with the help of others. for the measurement of linguistic diversity. is rewriting the rules for innovation. Too transforming the nature of innovation – Innovative solutions to practical problems Some of the main issues with regard often equated with high-cost research and creative individuals with interest can now (eg, for a broken water pump or irrigation to content include making more online development (R&D) carried out in technical acquire the knowledge and skills needed system) can be posted or shared online. material accessible in local languages or research labs, most innovation (the to innovate in the information society The policy emphasis needs to shift from accessible to people with limited functional process) and some of the most valuable online. If ICTs and the Internet are populist the prioritization of formal R&D towards literacy skills. The digital divide is a result innovations (or individual inspirations) in and collaborative platforms, innovation is prioritizing incremental learning, in not only of a lack of access to connectivity fact arise through incremental learning less likely to be characterized by high sunk collaboration with other partners and and infrastructure, but also of a lack of and continual technical improvements costs and long lead-times and will become other people, using the Internet as a relevant and locally-developed content at the grassroots – on the factory floor increasingly dominated by user-generated platform for communication and problem- which can make a big difference to the and elsewhere. ICTs are empowering content, crowd-sourcing or, put simply, the solving. It is only once the changing lives of ordinary people. It is important consumers, workers and employees to strength of a good idea. nature of innovation is recognized, and to recognize that broadcasting also plays improve products and services to the basic functional literacy needs are met, an important role in the developing world benefit of all. Broadband in particular Firms’ relationship with innovation is that poorer communities in developing in the creation and dissemination of rich offers the opportunity to accelerate and also changing. Many companies are countries can really start to benefit from the media content. transform innovation through faster and introducing collaborative platforms and problem-solving capabilities of the world’s more unrestricted access to advanced social networking platforms to mine for largest information exchange network. Linguistic diversity on the Internet is services and applications. innovations and inspirations among their growing. One of the latest examples of workforce, without ideas getting lost in the the evolution of the multilingual Internet Barriers to entry and obstacles to vertical hierarchy. Some companies have is the introduction in the root of the first innovation are being lowered or eliminated; even closed down their R&D departments internationalized country code domain ideas can be published and shared online; and transferred their innovation & names. It is expected that millions of problems can be outsourced or solved improvement function to their customers people around the world who do not know collaboratively. In the information age, (eg, Lego). More recently, initiatives are Latin script-based languages can now join the very nature of innovation is changing. emerging uniting network operators the family of existing Internet users. 32 33 7 So there are grounds for optimism. The The power of collaborative online Box 1: Broadband and linguistic diversity changing nature of innovation in Web 2.0 services to crowd-source, mine for ideas Available data to measure the linguistic diversity on the Internet suggest that the means that consumers are increasingly and produce a coherent product from majority of content on the worldwide web is produced and hosted in a limited number writing and developing their own user- multiple disparate inputs is illustrated of countries, and published in only a limited number of languages. The figure below generated content. Communities of full- by services such as YouTube, Facebook time application developers are springing visually highlights the linguistic diversity of cyberspace by showing that while there is and Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia a total of 7,000 languages still in use in the world, only 41 languages are recognized up, creating applications to suit their written mainly by volunteers. Although own needs. Meanwhile, opportunities in by one of the world’s most popular search engines (although other estimates put the it has faced quality control issues of number of languages supported by Google higher, at 104 languages). This compares to the local development of content offer reliability, bias and accuracy, one study 271 languages with Wikipedia entries and 500 localized languages. fresh business possibilities for small- and by Nature magazine found that Wikipedia medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and for young entrepreneurs in developing had an accuracy rate close to that of the Figure 2: Key figures for languages online and off-line, 2010 6 countries to exploit. At the same time, Encyclopaedia Britannica. Such services multilingual content production is closely illustrate the growing power of crowd- linked to complex issues such as the sourced services to provide diverse, yet availability of funding and various types coherent products. of other resources at local, national or regional levels and the political, cultural and economic environment. It will be important to continue lowering the costs of technology, to make it more accessible to all groups of society, and in particular, future generations of application developers. Free and open source software is now available that is enabling the creation of localized applications.

Source: ITU World Telecommunication Development Report 2010, based on data from Ethnologue, SIL International (Summer Institute of Linguistics), Wikipedia and Google.

There is no agreement among linguists on the size of the language universe, but the figures usually range between 6,000 and 9,000, due to difficulties in distinguishing between dialects and languages. The number of localized languages is an estimate. Many sources also stipulate that there is a huge number of endangered languages. The latest edition of the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger lists about 2,500 languages (including some 230 languages which have become extinct since 1950), approaching the generally-accepted estimate of some 3,000 endangered languages worldwide (source: http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=en&pg=00139). The Internet can be seen also as tool for language conservation and preservation, if digitalization can be undertaken soon enough.

6 “Internet encyclopaedias go head to head”, Nature 438: 900–901, Jim Giles, December 2005 at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/ n7070/full/438900a.html; “Wikipedia survives research test”, BBC, 15 December 2005 at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm. 7 Abridged from “Measuring the Information Society 2010” report published by ITU in May 2010, available at: www.itu.int. 34 35 the global development agenda with 3.6. People: transformational potential, for example, in Box 2: The most popular languages on the Internet Building the e-learning, e-literacy and e-skills. Network of Ideas The distribution of Internet users by language further suggests that a few major and Information From a people perspective, what is languages are dominating the online world. The largest share (about 30 per cent) of needed to build this network of ideas? Internet users speak English, followed by Chinese (20 per cent) and Spanish (8 per Modern ICTs are proving to have a How can people contribute their human cent) and the top ten languages by Internet users make up some 84 per cent of all transformational effect on people’s lives. capital to this phenomenon? Two distinct Internet users. At the same time, the percentage of English-speaking Internet users The Internet has been described by one sets of needs are apparent. The first is the dropped from 80 per cent in 1996 to 30 per cent in 2007, reflecting the fact that an observer as “an explosion of capacity specialized human capacity, knowledge increasing number of non-English speakers are going online. thrust into the hands of people worldwide, and skills to build out broadband networks the instrument not only for the greatest - whether from a policy, regulatory, outburst of creativity and self-expression business or technical perspective. ever seen, but also of the greatest Figure 3: Top ten languages (by Internet users) on the Internet, 2009 autonomy and self-determination, as The second is the human capacity, well as an unparalleled mechanism for knowledge and skills to use and benefit cooperation and cohesion”.8 from these networks – which should be considered part of normal cognitive skills One of the greatest contributions of development, whether through normal broadband to global development will education or lifelong learning. In both be that it provides a platform which scenarios, ICTs are part of a virtuous circle can exponentially increase the ability of – because access to broadband helps people to create and exchange ideas and people to exchange ideas, creativity and knowledge. Just as the wonders of the knowledge about how to build, use and brain cannot be understood by studying leverage ICTs. individual neurons, the benefits accrued from broadband go far beyond individuals Investing in broadband is not necessarily — in particular, ideas and creativity and an investment in infrastructure, but rather self-expression emerge out of linkages an investment in people. For broadband is between people, as well as complexity of really an investment in an interconnected those linkages. world of ideas and knowledge that can be spread in seconds from one corner of the Throughout history, the real engine of earth to another — the “meeting and mating human progress has been the “meeting of ideas to make new ideas”. And investing Source: Internet World Stats, quoted in ITU World Telecommunication Development Report 2010. and mating of ideas to make new in people and their ideas to solve their own ideas”.9 It has been argued that it is even problems contributes more to empowering unimportant how clever individuals are those people and making progress in the — what really matters is their collective global development agenda than virtually intelligence. Therefore, our objective anything else policy-makers can do. should be a highly interconnected world of creativity, ideas and knowledge to help us address the challenges set out in the MDGs. To that end, broadband inclusion for all is a fundamental component of

8 Stephen Downes’ blog, available at: http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2010/06/gathering-of-ideas.html. 9 Author Matt Ridley, at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Global 2010 conference 36 37 The UN Department for Economic and 3.7. Government: Social Affairs (UNDESA) notes that while Government on-demand access to public services Can Take the over the Internet is now a norm in many Lead in Creating developed countries, barriers persist in Broadband Demand many LDCs, due to the cost of technology, lack of infrastructure, limited human Government plays a special role in capital, a weak private sector and a paucity many developing countries in creating of public sector resources.10 demand for next-generation broadband services. Building out fixed broadband However, exceptions exist, such as infrastructure typically involves large-scale e-education in Bangladesh and Ethiopia, investments over long-time horizons and and m-health in Rwanda. UNDESA notes the private sector benefits from more that these experiences demonstrate that certain prospects in its attempts to finance significant gains can be realized in LDCs and roll out such infrastructure. where there are legal and regulatory frameworks in place, including more If governments can aggregate their specifically an e-government strategy connectivity needs over the National with clearly identified sectoral priorities Broadband Networks (NBN), they can aligned with national development goals. make the business case for national For example, Ethiopia has now connected infrastructure more compelling. This is nearly 600 local administrations to regional especially the case in developing countries, and federal offices, linked 450 secondary where government is usually one of the schools to a national education network, major users of broadband infrastructure, and provided some 16,000 villages with access to broadband services.11 but it is increasingly also the case in industrialized countries and transition For many users, however, the potential economies, including Azerbaijan, New of e-government goes far beyond basic Zealand and Singapore. connectivity and relies on developing services which people want, in their local Moving government services online languages. Countries which have made offers the prospect of revitalizing public a determined effort to develop local administration and improving the speed, script and language tables, content and efficiency and effectiveness of service applications have seen a significant surge delivery. More fundamentally, it also in the usage of ICTs. Broadband demand promises to transform the way in which is thus intrinsically linked to the creation citizens relate to their governments and of local content, services and applications policy-makers, by making the work of which citizens then can leverage for their politicians and civil servants more public own progress. Technology will never be and transparent. Governments are any substitute, however, for ethical and increasingly having to respond to growing cooperative public sector service delivery, expectations for communication with which can only be led from the top echelons tech-savvy citizens. of government.

10 & 11 P. 4, UN E-government survey 2010, available at: http://www2.unpan.org/egovkb/documents/2010/E_Gov_2010_Complete.pdf. 39 with a mix of traditional and new media and achieved through multi-stakeholder partnerships – to achieve greater efficiency and improved service delivery will have far greater poverty impact.

In practice, any blueprint for a national e-development strategy will comprise a number of essential elements: a clear e-strategy vision championed at the highest political level; a multi-stakeholder approach to enhance results; a cross- sectoral holistic strategy; realistic priorities for e-strategy actions and programmes; simplified implementation modalities; national and international cooperation and partnerships for a prioritized and nationally- The remodelling of the ICT 4 owned e-strategy; global inclusion of Development landscape in real- developing countries and ICT in ODA; ICT time presents key challenges and to facilitate regional integration and regional opportunities to all players. Each must integration to facilitate ICT deployment; chart a path toward digital inclusion telecommunication and ICT policy through unknown terrain. cohesion, convergence, and low-cost cutting edge solutions; and an overarching For major donor agencies who have focus on achieving the MDGs themselves. been struggling to incorporate ICT into their official development assistance So what is the critical role of knowledge and (ODA) strategies, the MDGs provide information in economic and human welfare a welcome compass. After years of with respect to the MDGs? How can ICT and experimentation on ICTs in often stand- the MDGs practically contribute to empower alone, often unsustainable pilot projects, stakeholders in the PRSP process, improve BROADBAND attention is now being drawn to the need the efficiency of public and private service to leverage ICTs for poverty reduction delivery, and enhance livelihoods? To what strategies and the MDGs through a focus extent should ICT 4 Development priorities, on integration, scaling and replication. policies and practices differ with respect AND THE And broadband provides a new and to ‘off-track’ versus ‘on-track’ developing innovative entry point. countries? These key questions must now be revisited in the broadband context. INTERLINKED AND From experience, it is clear that ICT and technology ‘push’ projects have Yet resistance by government and generally been ill-suited to fulfilling the business to full acceptance of the critical requirements of the MDGs. Rather, role to be played by ICT in support of the INTERDEPENDENT ‘pulling’ ICTs and now broadband into MDGs must quickly be displaced by hard development projects where appropriate data on development impact and the real 4MDG AGENDA and relevant at an early stage – often potential to scale up and replicate. While 40 41 significant anecdotal evidence has already ‘disintermediation’ cuts out middlemen, interactivity, shared resources and help been amassed in this direction, major Goal 1: Eradicate resulting in higher profits and rewards for level the playing field for everyone. efforts are now underway to produce Extreme Poverty farmers and producers and lower prices systematic measurement criteria. Today, and Hunger for consumers when price information is Online education is easing the resource mainstreaming ICT and broadband for the shared on-demand via mobile phones and bottleneck in training teachers; UNESCO While access to ICTs and broadband may achievement of the MDGs remains very text messaging. estimates suggest that as many as 10 be seen by some as less urgent priorities much a work in progress, and this Section million additional teachers will be needed than meeting the basic needs of food 14 describes the generic development impact Since women are more affected by poverty globally by the 2015 MDG deadline. Many and shelter, it is increasingly the case across all eight MDGs. than men, enabling women to create countries are already actively pursuing an that information poverty – especially in and / or enter employment is an effective intensive programme of teacher training developing countries – can actually lead to online, but more needs to be done: in Progress towards achieving each of the strategy to combat poverty, and ICTs and and contribute to poverty and hunger. particular, access to broadband needs MDGs can be accelerated with ICTs in broadband are key to helping women become functionally literate for greater to rapidly become more affordable, general, and broadband in particular. This Between 1998 and 2008, the global access to skills training. The experience particularly in the developing world. PPPs is not because ICTs and broadband are number of working poor – workers living of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has designed not only for students but also for ends in themselves, but because they act with their families on less than US$ 1.25 a shown that women with experience of the communities in which they live (such as enablers like no other technology in day – fell from 944 to 632 million, or from even basic mobile phones are more likely as ITU’s Connect a School, Connect a the modern world – bringing healthcare, 38 per cent to 21 per cent of total workers. to be willing to use and benefit from other Community initiative) can achieve a great education and government services to However, as a result of the economic and ICTs for information or work opportunities. deal in accelerating progress towards people wherever they live, as well as financial crisis, it is estimated that in 2009, bridging the broadband divide. leveraging training opportunities around this number increased by up to 215 million, the world. reversing much of the progress achieved Using ICTs and broadband to advance during the previous decade. Globally, the Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education does not need Mobile cellular has proved to be the number of hungry people rose from 842 Universal Primary to be limited to boys and girls, but can most widespread and fastest-adopted million in 1990-1992 to 1.02 billion people also include men and women who never 12 technology in history, with five billion in 2009, of which the large majority were Education had the chance to attend school – and mobile subscriptions globally in 2010, and women and girls. studies consistently show that literate, Even as many poor countries make a household penetration rate of over 50 educated women are more likely to ensure tremendous strides, hope is dimming for per cent in many developing countries. Access to knowledge assets such as that their children attend school. ICTs and information, know-how, market price Universal Primary Education (UPE) by Mobile telephony is empowering billions of broadband also enable inclusive education data, and basic healthcare and nutrition 2015. Although 89 per cent of children of persons with disabilities. individuals worldwide by enabling them to guidelines can dramatically improve living in the developing world are now enrolled enter the workforce, earn a living or work standards and bring people out of the in primary education, some regions – in Around the world, m-learning and more efficiently, and benefited millions of poverty trap – and ICTs and broadband are particular, countries in sub-Saharan Africa e-learning over broadband networks is communities worldwide. key to making this happen. – will see a drop-out rate of up to 30 per growing, with mobile network growth cent before the final grade.13 And demand continuing to outpace fixed-line networks, The next step is to bridge the Internet Available data suggest a strong and positive from those who continue in education is and the number of mobile broadband divide, and especially the broadband correlation between communications now putting pressure on the next step in subscriptions approaching 900 million in divide, in the same way that we are so and levels of development. At the micro- the system: secondary education. 2010. Mobile phones offer the advantages successfully bridging the mobile divide. level, studies from Africa and India of already being in billions of hands in the With ICTs and broadband, successful consistently show that, even for very small Broadband offers a potential solution in the developing world and offering relatively efforts to advance the MDG agenda can farming and fishing businesses, market- ability to deliver education in developing well-deployed and stable network then be scaled up and replicated around matching efficiencies will apply when and developed countries alike. Broadband infrastructures. Many schools that have the globe. there are good communication links. Such networks can deliver information, been using TV and radio systems are now

12 Source: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, UN New York, at www.un.org/millenniumgoals. 13 Source: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, UN New York, at www.un.org/millenniumgoals. 14 Source: World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2010, available at http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/wtdr_10. 42 43 switching to online learning opportunities, enable women to better fulfil their work Given that there are rarely enough health due to their inherent interactivity. commitments, and can help overcome practitioners to serve everyone in need Goal 5: Improve Broadband-enabled ICT applications issues of mobility. ICTs and broadband can of healthcare, ICTs and broadband are Maternal Health should be seen both as a pedagogical also be used to influence public attitudes essential for bridging this gap. Advances tool and as a discipline in their own to gender equality, create opportunities for in modern medical technology usually More than half a million women die every year as a result of complications in right for the development of effective women as educators and activists, and require large amounts of money, but pregnancy and childbirth, almost all of them educational services. enhance opportunities for networking and telemedicine can make a huge impact in the developing world.17 The vast majority organizing for gender equality, as well as with relatively simple low-cost technology. of these deaths are preventable. Although female participation in political processes. Just one computer, a scanner and a digital maternal mortality rates are falling, the rate camera, for example, can transform a Goal 3: ICTs and broadband are directly relevant to of reduction is still considerably short of Promote hospital, making a real difference where the 5.5 per cent decline needed annually empowerment and gender equality in both it counts. It is also important to automate Gender Equality cause and effect – increasing women’s to meet the MDG target, however. In Africa and Empower systems properly in hospitals (eg, through and South Asia, fewer than half of all access to ICTs and broadband will help the use of Entreprise Resource Planning or Women achieve these goals, and achieving births are attended by a midwife or skilled ERP) to minimize the manual paperwork gender equality will help increase health worker, and complications during In many emerging economies and rural in offices, clinics, health centres etc. that women’s access to ICTs and broadband. pregnancy and childbirth remain the most areas, women remain economically and can cause delays and queues in providing frequent cause of death for women.18 Lack Key stakeholders must develop gender- socially marginalized and under-educated, health services to patients. of access to health services is particularly focused or gender-neutral technology suffering from relatively poor employment acute for women in remote rural areas. and application programmes to ensure prospects. While many countries have Mobile technology can also be used to that broadband mitigates, and does not achieved or nearly achieved primary While there is obviously no substitute widen, gender gaps. disseminate basic health and sanitary school gender equality – the enrolment information to parents (such as vaccine for increased numbers of healthcare gap narrowed from 91 girls to 96 girls for reminders, and advice on maternal professionals and their attendance every 100 boys in the developing world hygiene and nutrition); to train intermediary before, during and after childbirth, between 1999 and 2008 – progress still Goal 4: healthcare workers and rural doctors; to broadband services have already remains slow in other areas. Women Reduce track disease and epidemic outbreaks; to begun to demonstrate their potential for are disproportionately represented in Child Mortality monitor patients remotely; and to remind improving the health of women and their vulnerable or insecure employment. In patients about the need to take medicines babies. High-speed Internet connections some countries, women represent only In many regions of the world, including enable health workers outside major or come in for a check-up. 20 per cent of the workforce employed Northern Africa, East Asia, South-Eastern centres to receive quality training and outside agriculture, while within agriculture, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, exchange experiences and information To leverage the full power of telemedicine, incomes remain low.15 child mortality rates have more than halved through video-conferencing, interactive broadband is needed to enable doctors since 1990, but globally, the fall has only discussion forums and the use of social ICTs and broadband are key to achieving been 28 per cent, which is still well short to share images and diagnose patients networking sites. empowerment and gender equality. of the target of a two-thirds reduction.16 hundreds of miles away using technologies They provide an excellent means of Tragically, most of the major causes of such as video- conferencing, for example. Broadband services give women easier opening up opportunities in education child mortality – malnutrition, pneumonia, A number of developing countries – for access to information on family planning, and employment, as well as access to malaria, diarrhoea, measles, HIV/AIDS, example, Kenya and Rwanda – are already hygiene and other reproductive health information, and have the potential to tetanus – are treatable, but communities prioritizing broadband as a platform for issues, including visual presentation neutralize much of the discrimination lack both the resources and the knowledge future health service delivery in a bid to materials, information in local languages, traditionally faced by women. The to treat them. Children’s health is closely improve patient care, dissolve distance and culturally-appropriate content. flexibility provided by the use of ICTs and correlated with maternal health and (more and bring telemedicine to tens of millions Expectant and new mothers can get better broadband in education and work can loosely) with maternal education. of people, thereby reducing child mortality. information about childbirth and the early

15 & 16 Source: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, UN New York, at www.un.org/millenniumgoals. 17 Source: United Nations, as reported at www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/dsgsm497.doc.htm. 18 Source: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, UN New York, at: www.un.org/millenniumgoals. 44 45 warning signs of infection or disease for a third of young men and less than a fifth taking their medicines, and to enter and change or impending natural disasters, themselves and their children. Broadband of young women in developing countries access patient information. such as drought or floods. They can applications linked to ‘smart’ mobile phones know how HIV/AIDS is transmitted and provide early warning systems that reduce or portable computers linked to mobile how to prevent infection. Broadband Internet can also provide vulnerability to disasters. Combined broadband networks can enable health powerful research and surveillance tools with Global Positioning System (GPS)- workers to create and access online patient By making customized access to to tackle disease more effectively – by enabled mobile phones, they can support records and to transmit health information information quick and easy, broadband mapping the Mycobacterium tuberculosis emergency communications and medical to policy-makers and researchers. And applications are already helping in the genome, for example, or using satellites assistance when disaster strikes. And by there is an important and growing role for global fight against disease. They include: to map areas where malaria-carrying enhancing environmental surveillance, community centres with Internet access to mosquitoes are likely to be found. they can help policy-makers devise deliver essential connectivity and health • Interactive e-learning courses on suitable response strategies and make information, especially to women in rural HIV/AIDS for educators, such as the Last but not least, ICT community centres more efficient use of resources. and remote areas. ones developed by UNESCO;20 can give girls and women access to • Online training and refresher courses undistorted and objective information on Broadband-powered GPS-based for health workers, including video- how to prevent sexually-transmissible applications can also help monitor conferencing; diseases, including AIDS. Women with environmental abuses (eg, illegal logging Goal 6: • Information-sharing between health HIV can receive information on treatments or pollution levels) and transmit that Combat HIV/ professionals on treatment practices, for preventing the transmission of HIV to information to authorities. They can facilitate AIDS, Malaria and guidelines and so on, through online their unborn babies, and those caring for knowledge exchange and networking other Diseases discussion forums, bulletin boards relatives with HIV can access support and among policy-makers, practitioners and social networking sites; advice. ICT community centres can also and advocacy groups, boosting Although there has been progress in • Continuing professional education provide women with valuable information public awareness and encouraging curbing the rate of new infections – the new online; on how to combat and treat malaria, environmental activism. HIV infection rate fell from an estimated • Personalized risk assessments for tuberculosis and other diseases. peak of 3.5 million in 1996 to 2.7 million HIV/AIDS through interactive online Automatic weather stations at mobile in 2008, for example – diseases such as programs. Some people may find it phone masts can be used to provide malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS still easier to answer questions posed information directly to farmers and kill more than four million people annually, by a computer than to talk face-to- fishermen via mobile phones, enabling and an estimated one billion people suffer face about sensitive subjects; Goal 7: Ensure them to predict and cope with erratic from neglected tropical diseases.19 • Information, education and Environmental weather patterns due to climate change. awareness-raising campaigns about Sustainability Broadband can enhance such systems Success in combating these diseases often the risks of getting infected and further, by supporting more sophisticated depends on the effective dissemination of effective ways of protection (through The MDG on ensuring environmental modelling and faster information-sharing. information about prevention, treatment websites, including interactive visual sustainability spans a wide range of Environmentally-friendly work habits and cure, and persuading people to take features and hotlines providing targets, from the provision of safe drinking are also increasingly prevalent in many simple low-tech preventive measures, advice and additional information water and basic sanitation facilities to countries, promoted through ICT and such as using condems or insecticide- on demand). reducing biodiversity loss and improving broadband in areas such as reducing paper treated bed-nets. The provision of quality the lives of slum-dwellers. consumption and facilitating teleworking. information to those at risk, to patients, Combining broadband with the mobile to care-givers and to health-workers and phones that are most widespread in the In virtually all these areas, broadband Innovative ICT projects have already researchers, is fundamental. developing world also has the potential networks can make an important proved their worth in improving the lives to transform health service delivery – for contribution. They can swiftly transmit of slum-dwellers – for example, in Brazil, For instance, HIV prevention is critical to example, by expanding schemes to check information from ground sensors or India and Kenya – by providing access controlling the AIDS epidemic, yet less than that AIDS and tuberculosis patients are satellites to monitor the effects of climate to employment and training. Broadband

19 Source: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, UN New York, at: www.un.org/millenniumgoals. 20 Source: http://hivaidsclearinghouse.unesco.org/. 46 47 Internet can do far more than this, however, stakeholder partnerships involving by enabling the delivery of government governments, the private sector and civil services online and giving small businesses society. Only then, with full access to the in slum areas the opportunity to participate information society, will people be able to in e-commerce. Perhaps most importantly, find innovative ways out of poverty. broadband can empower slum-dwellers often excluded from the political process Broadband networks can also help with to have a ‘voice’, delivering access to other targets within MDG 8, such as information and providing a means for them addressing the special needs of land- to communicate, share their concerns and locked and Small Island Developing States mobilize for change. Sharing experiences (SIDS). High-speed Internet connections of what works, learning from others and can enable these countries to overcome changing people’s expectations of their geographic disadvantages and link up with living conditions and livelihoods are all part the rest of the world, including through of the complex challenge of empowering e-business and by exporting services that people to improve their own lives. can be delivered through communication networks, such as call centres and business processing. Goal 8: Similarly, distance working enabled by Develop a broadband can help in advancing another Global Partnership MDG 8 target, to develop strategies for for Development ‘decent and productive work for youth’. And by enhancing distance learning through MDG 8 includes a specific target on video-conferencing, interactive discussion extending the benefits of new technologies, and social networking, broadband Internet including ICTs, in cooperation with the can help improve skills of all kinds, not only private sector. While the phenomenal in ICT. Broadband networks hold great growth of mobile telephony in the promise for broadband-enabled scientific developing world has transformed access applications with the need to manipulate to basic connectivity, the ‘digital divide’ and transfer extremely large datasets. persists, especially where the Internet and broadband are concerned. The greatest contribution of broadband towards achieving the MDGs may be its While around a quarter of the world’s catalytic role in empowering people by population now uses the Internet, in the giving them both knowledge and a voice very poorest countries, that proportion in the public arena, as ICTs and broadband is just one or two per cent.21 The gulf in have the power to level the playing field access to broadband networks is even across different countries and different greater. types of economies. Beyond 2015, broadly universal and widespread access Progress will depend on thinking to broadband should be a key concern of creatively about how to speed up access policy-makers in setting the next round of to broadband, including building multi- global targets.

21 Source: ITU – see Internet users 2009, at www.itu.int/ITU-D/ICTEYE/Indicators/Indicators.aspx. 49

natural phenomenon in an artificial way, ultimately contributing to a sudden and rapid warming of the planet, partly through the release of greenhouse gases (GHG) and carbon-based emissions. Human activities may also interfere with the planet’s natural mechanisms for responding and adapting to climate change.

Hundreds of millions of people are now increasingly vulnerable to the knock-on effects of climate change, living in areas at risk from more frequent and more severe natural disasters (such as floods, hurricanes and landslides). A disproportionate number of these people live in developing countries with only limited resources to cope with the impact of climate change. Despite the scientific, statistical and political uncertainties surrounding climate change, what is certain is the need for coordinated international action – to enable countries to monitor, plan for and respond to the inevitable impact of climate change on their peoples, cities and communities. This section reviews some of the key global challenges of the 21st Century ICTs have a critical role to play in combating that broadband connectivity and climate change through the reduction of content are uniquely placed to address, GHG emissions. Defined in its narrowest namely: climate change; the shifting sense (as telecommunications, computing burden and demography of ageing and the Internet), the ICT sector has been populations; and the growing costs estimated to account for between 2-2.5 associated with healthcare. per cent of GHG emissions – mainly in the power demands of devices (such as Broadband phones or computers) and the operation of ICT networks (through the operation of data Broadband and Climate centres or telecommunication equipment). Change and However, since ICTs are cross-cutting Climate change is one of the biggest technologies used in other industrial challenges facing humanity today. sectors, the representative figure for the Beyond Although climate change is a natural broader ICT sector may be higher than this phenomenon and debates continue over baseline estimate. It is clear is that, unless the origins, mechanisms and extent of further decisive action is taken soon, the climate change, it now seems likely that contribution of ICTs to GHG emissions 5the MDGs human activities are accelerating this is likely to rise in parallel with the strong 50 51 market growth and growing use of data developed and developing countries This global demographic trend is split independently for longer. Broadband and ICT services worldwide. However, alike the opportunity to invest in – and sharply, however, between developed connectivity is also essential for medical many promising initiatives are underway innovate for – the future, for the sake and developing countries. In developed “compliance monitoring” to ensure that in the ICT sector which should help curtail of future generations. The initial upfront countries, populations are generally ageing elderly people take their treatments – the this rise. costs of investing now in more energy- earlier and more rapidly – the number of main reason why medical treatments fail, 28 efficient broadband technologies pale into people aged 60+ exceeded the number according to Philips Medical. Sensor ICTs, and broadband in particular, also insignificance compared with the longer- of 12- to 24-year-olds in the late 1990s. networks can be used to monitor the long- offer significant promise for combating term costs of coping with the effects of In developing countries, the number of term situation of elderly persons in poor climate change – ICTs can also be part climate change. Greater adoption of more people in less developed countries aged health, from mundane matters such as the formation of skin lesions and bedsores of the solution. Broadband technologies energy efficient ICT-based solutions is no 60+ is not expected to exceed the number 27 to more serious monitoring of cardiac are more energy-efficient than other, older longer an option, but a necessity. of 12- to 24-year-olds until 2045. and more traditional means of delivering function, diabetics’ sugar levels or blood services, and ICT solutions can result in This ageing in the world population will pressure. Monitoring and alert systems lower overall carbon-based emissions. have a profound impact on all aspects can also be used to notify distant health In addition, the availability of broadband of social and economic growth – on personnel in case of crisis (eg, a stroke, will reduce the emissions of other sectors Broadband and the savings, investment, consumption, labour cardiac arrest or epileptic seizure). through greater adoption of more energy- Shifting Burden and markets, pensions, taxation, the demand efficient ICTs. An excellent example is the Demography of Ageing for housing, epidemiology and the need Broadband infrastructure is also use of smart grids, which could reduce Populations for healthcare services. Broadband essential for long-distance diagnosis, GHGs by 5-9 per cent (for the United infrastructure is important for catering teleconsultation and medical imaging. 22 High-bandwidth computing is needed States) or the power needs of electrical Declining fertility and birth rates, combined to the range of different needs of elderly for recording, storing and transmitting supply systems by as much as 30 per with increased life expectancy, are leading persons. As the current digitally-literate detailed images using advanced software cent (in the case of India, according to to ageing in the global population. In 1990, generation matures, they will continue to the SMART2020 report).23 In addition, participate in online services. A computer- for the analysis of degenerative diseases one in every twelve persons (or 8.95 per virtualization (eg, reading e-books) and the literate generation used to shopping associated with ageing (eg, dementia, cent of the world population) was over use of advanced technologies (eg, video- and spending time online is likely to Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s). The 60.24 In 2009, this had grown to one in conferencing) could substitute for carbon- indulge these habits in retirement or seek ageing of the real-world global population every nine persons and the so-called intensive activities (such as printing paper alternative online careers to supplement is likely to be reflected online in the virtual “older population” of the world amounted books or air travel). ‘Green ICTs’ or ‘smart meagre pension payments (where these world in ways that are as yet only beginning ICTs’ are a recent, but important and fast- to 737 million persons, nearly two-thirds are available). Some of their most basic to be understood. growing sector in their own right. of whom live in developing countries. The ongoing needs may be for information, global population aged 60+ is projected to entertainment, lifelong-learning and Even more importantly, because ICTs are reach 2 billion in 2050 or 22 per cent of the retraining. 25 pervasive cross-cutting technologies, global population. By 2050, older persons Broadband and the prioritizing the use of more energy- will outnumber children (less than 14 Broadband infrastructure is likely to prove Growing Cost of efficient technologies such as broadband years of age). The UN Population Division vital in the delivery of healthcare services Healthcare offers policy-makers an effective means of has concluded that population ageing is to growing numbers of elderly persons. leveraging reductions in GHG emissions “unprecedented, profound, enduring and Always-on real-time connectivity is The World Health Organization (WHO) across different industrial sectors at pervasive”, 26 affecting nearly all countries essential for the monitoring and surveillance has observed that huge inequities exist once. Investments in smart ICTs offer on earth. of elderly persons, enabling them to live in the provision, health outcomes,

22 “Connecting Smart Grids & Climate Change”, Silver Spring Networks, November 2009, available at: http://www.silverspringnet.com/pdfs/SSN_ 27 United Nations, World Population Prospects 2004, Prepared by Larry Rosenberg and David Bloom (Harvard University); quoted in “Global WP_ConnectingSmartGrid-1109.pdf. Demographic Trends”, IMF magazine, September 2006, at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2006/09/picture.htm. 23 “SMART2020: Enabling the Low Carbon Economy in the Information Age”, The Climate Group/GeSI, at: http://www.smart2020.org/_assets/ 28 Presentation by Philips Healthcare, to the FTTH Council Europe Conference, February 2010, quoted at: http://www.ftthcouncil.eu/home/latest_ files/02_Smart2020Report.pdf. news/hot_news_from_the_ftth_conference_in_lisbon!/?cid=37&nid=527&catid=8. 24 World Health Report 2001, available at: http://www.who.int/whr/2001/annex/en/. 25 “Ageing and Population”, UN population division, at: http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/ageing/ageing2009chart.pdf. 26 http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WPA2009/WPA2009_WorkingPaper.pdf. 52 53 financing of and access to healthcare offers key advantages in the recording, services, within and between countries.29 preservation and availability of patients’ The WHO records that, globally, annual known medical history and risk factors government expenditure on health varies for maximum information disclosure in from as little as US$ 20 per person to diagnosis and treatment. Electronic health over US$ 6,000. Population growth, the records can help treat patients along ageing of populations, scientific progress complex referral chains, speeding up and medical advances in diagnosis and treatment and potentially improving health treatment mean that the annual costs of outcomes. healthcare are rising in many countries around the world. Healthcare is now the Broadband does not necessarily mean world’s largest service industry, an industry ‘high-tech’, however. Broadband that alone was worth US$ 4,000 billion in backbones connecting major hospitals 2006. can be used effectively to deliver lower-bandwidth services to local Meanwhile, systems for financial protection populations (such as basic monitoring or are in disarray – the WHO estimates that communications with outlying clinics in for 5.6 billion people in low- and middle- more rural areas). Simple services (such income countries, more than half of all as SMS alerts, appointments or patient healthcare expenditure is made from out- reminders) can be used effectively to of-pocket payments, while expenditures improve the delivery of health services on health push over 100 million people and reduce secondary costs (eg, the travel below the poverty line each year. In many costs to remote clinics). countries, the financing of healthcare may be haphazard, with people who are well- In its World Health Report 2008, the WHO off and generally healthier having the best noted that healthcare is often delivered access to the best health care, while the according to a model that concentrates on poor may be left to fend for themselves. diseases and high-tech specialist care, with health viewed as a product of biomedical The roll-out of broadband infrastructures intervention, with the power of prevention for health may require significant upfront largely ignored.30 The WHO has called for a investments. However, broadband return to holistic primary healthcare, with a technologies are likely to prove cost- focus on community support. In countries efficient and reduce ongoing costs for the with high broadband penetrations, there digitization, transmission and storage of is potential for greater doctor-to-patient patients’ medical records and imagery. interaction between hospitals/doctors and E-health can reduce the costs on the end-users at home to improve awareness system via remote consultation and and education about health outcomes intervention - especially as the proportion and steps to prevent illness and disease. of the population over age 60 rises Most types of healthcare, including significantly. primary healthcare, can be enhanced by investments in improved infrastructure. Even beyond positive cost savings, the digitization of vital patient medical records

29 & 30 Press release, World Health Report 2008: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr38/en/index.html. 55 achievement of the MDGs and other internationally-agreed development goals and key knowledge society priorities such as those of the WSIS by 2015, in the context of the new digital realities and opportunities of the networked society and economy.

b) At the national level, governments should adopt national broadband strategies, recognizing that, in the information age, Action broadband – like water, electricity, and roads in the industrial age – is not just a The United Nations General Assembly tool for communication, but a social asset is asked to note the recommendations that provides one of the most cost-effective of the Broadband Commission for and efficient means for delivering services Digital Development and in particular to citizens and comprises a nation’s core the concept of ‘Broadband Inclusion functions, provides a variety of services, and for All’ and its mapping to achieving should be made available to all members of the MDGs in relation to the relevant society, in their own languages. resolutions of its Second Committee and to acknowledge the work of the c) National ICT Policies should be Commission in support of Article 19 encouraged to build inclusive knowledge of the Declaration of Human Rights. societies where all citizens have the skills and confidence to create, share, and preserve information and knowledge to improve their lives. Governments need to Action Point 1 promote policies in universal access and these policies should include broadband CONNECTING access as an essential element of universal BROADBAND access and services. WITH THE MDGS AND KNOWLEDGE d) Special consideration should be given SOCIETIES to the direct application of broadband RECOMMENDATIONS solutions to address the cross-cutting and Building global commitment to cross-sectoral aspects of the MDG agenda. broadband inclusion for all by Specifically, evidence pertaining to impact, connecting broadband with the MDGs new business and social models, and AND and knowledge society priorities. sustainability is essential in demonstrating the benefits of broadband diffusion for a) At the global level, world leaders at scale-up and replication across all eight the 2010 MDG Summit must galvanize MDGs. PROPOSED the international community to act on a common vision of the power e) A mid- and long-term perspective, taking of technology and innovation, built into account the requirements of diverse 6PLAN OF ACTION on broadband, to accelerate the communities and stakeholders, is essential 56 57 in forming a consensus for broadband a) Fundamentally, what matters for much on the demand side in all its forms, h) Special attention must also be paid, investment and uptake. Governments development is how much value will be including education, healthcare, ICT skills, notably by equipment manufacturers, should play a pivotal role in exploring created by broadband inclusion for all. We availability of public e-services, etc. as to ensuring the development of global innovative financing mechanisms and request all Governments at various levels on the supply side. standards and the interoperability incentive strategies. to expedite the delivery where possible of global networks. of all public services for government Governments should consider policies f) Advocacy efforts should be prioritized transformation centrally and locally using e) i) While in many cases, the cross-cutting for building a global market in broadband broadband to substantially improve the aimed at stimulating private sector and cross-sectoral benefits of broadband devices, networks, software and solutions access, transparency, convenience, growth and investment through innovative have in the past resulted in stalled or that will harness the power of network security, flexibility, quality and cost of loan and incentive structures, avoiding unsustainable investments and in many effects, as well as spill-over effects of service delivery. additional taxation on the ICT sector. They ways obscured the catalytic effect that broadband across multiple sectors, may also consider proactive subsidies by broadband inclusion for all will ultimately while improving framework conditions b) Political will and leadership at the government in services in countries where have on the MDGs, these benefits must be for interoperability between broadband level of Prime Minister or Head of State there is little or no possibility of attracting better explained to citizens and consumers. products and services. is required: a future-oriented networked private investments, and in-demand society and economy require future- stimulus through the promotion of digital j) We believe that broadband policies should be expanded to include hardware and g) Ultimately, new national development oriented vision, thinking and prioritization. public goods, which have been shown in models based on universal access to Broadband must be clearly embedded in some cases to contribute to a virtuous software needs, financing requirements, broadband connectivity and multilingual national development policies that build on cycle of investment from both public and and policy priorities. We believe that there content can aspire to the goal of ‘digital broadband as a development accelerator. private sector entities and a proliferation of is a need for complementary investments opportunity’ – that is social and economic public-private partnerships. in supporting technologies (such as development made possible via access c) National success stories have shown electricity) and investments in community- to knowledge that can narrow gaps that a top-down approach matched with based access models. between rich and poor and among classes grassroots involvement and ownership is f) Policy objectives for broadband inclusion and regions. necessary for constructing a national digital must include the provision of broadband- k) Broadband policies should be expanded economy. A clear national policy must enabled service and applications for remembering that one of the main reasons be developed that not only contributes vulnerable, disadvantaged and remote for fostering broadband is the great overall h) We urge all relevant stakeholders to continue to pose the key questions of what to the expansion of basic broadband groups, the youth, and Indigenous Peoples. benefit for society in the new applications incentives can be created by governments infrastructure, but is also an engine for In addition, boosting trust and confidence and services which can be delivered over to encourage and enable the private sector national competitiveness. Promoting in ubiquitous broadband with regard to it. Given changing demographics, it will to invest. broadband roll-out to key public institutions safety, protection, privacy and security is be impossible for both developed and (such as schools, libraries, post offices, a prerequisite to building consensus and developing countries to deliver adequate hospitals and health clinics) is an effective commitment to broadband inclusion for all. education and health services, for example, private-public partnership strategy. to all their citizens, without broadband infrastructure in place. Action Point 2 Special attention must be paid to d) Broadband is an unrivalled tool for g) BENEFITTING FROM social integration and e-inclusion, so increasing the availability and affordability l) While the benefits of constructing TRANSFORMATIONAL applying broadband to address economic of radio frequency spectrum as a critical broadband networks and promoting CHANGE and social challenges such as rising enabler for wireless broadband growth. broadband-embedded devices may healthcare costs, ageing populations and Fair competition and new services, as not always appear obvious in the short- Maximizing social and economic climate change must be a primary focus for well as regulatory reform and fair licensing term, over the intermediate and long- stimulus with broadband inclusion multi-stakeholder partnerships, including procedures, need to be taken into term, they demonstrably accelerate the for all via transformational change in public-private partnerships. Governments consideration in allocating radio frequency provision of high-profile digital public healthcare, education, government and must recognize that the success of spectrum, under a technology- and goods such as digital health (e-health environmental sustainability. broadband initiatives will depend as service- neutral approach. and m-health), e-learning and e-literacy, 58 59 e-government and e-business, leading to b) The maximum benefits of broadband remedies, and mutual support in the event for all relevant stakeholders that requires a economic revitalization, green growth and access and transport will likely be derived of attacks and / or malware propagation, far better understanding of the value chains social integration. if sufficient capacity is available and among other issues, bearing in mind of digital production. Policy-makers must access to this capacity is possible through that there are already several existing recognize the need for balance between m) To benefit from the cross-cutting and adequate and fair mechanisms. In general, international cooperation programmes to the creation and diffusion of content, and cross-sectoral nature of broadband, reasonable network management practices address these issues. that creators in the digital world are entitled governments should consider ways should deliver ‘fair’ access to resources to fair compensation. of aggregating connectivity on among competing providers of access. f) Global standards, designed to act national broadband networks. The as enablers not barriers, deliver clear c) The global spread of broadband connectivity needs of public sectors in c) It should be recognized that intelligently- advantages including interoperability, provides unprecedented opportunities all countries will grow as populations managed state-of-the-art broadband economies of scale, and a level playing- for promoting cultural diversity through come to expect their governments to infrastructure is the prerequisite for future field for all stakeholders. the provision of a multitude of content expedite and deliver public administration new content services and applications. and services in local languages. This in and government services over Without such infrastructure, which needs turn would lead to a burgeoning of local broadband networks. to be financed adequately by the users cultural industries, capacity development and end-users (eg, customers and Action Point 4 and help in the creation of jobs. Such anyone offering services and applications a development also has the potential over the Internet), there will be no ENABLING CONTENT of significantly lowering the costs of Action Point 3 possibility for sustainable growth in data AND APPLICATIONS access, by creating demand for local and Internet usage. CREATION content and services. USING TRANSPARENT, Developing the right conditions for FAIR, COMPETITIVE, d) It is also important to recognize d) Policy-makers should also note that TECHNOLOGY- that no single technology will provide broadband content and applications digitization has enormous potential to NEUTRAL MODELS ubiquitous broadband services. It is likely creation, diffusion and distribution via reduce the cost of content distribution, that, where economically and physically an enabling environment based on trust enabling the online exchange of content Addressing issues of convergent feasible, the core of the Internet will and confidence for economic and social at very low rates, no matter how small or broadband networks toward transparent typically use optical fibre to achieve very stability and prosperity. dispersed a community might be. Today, and fair, competitive, technology-neutral high speeds. The interconnection of fibre- innovative new legal content business models, offering interconnection and based networks in the global Internet a) All relevant stakeholders must models for the Internet (eg, Hulu, Spotify) interoperability at the national, regional is most likely to deliver success where recognize that in the digital economy, the are being created which suggest that and global levels. fibre connections can be implemented. In unprecedented opportunities afforded traditional business models may need to addition, radio infrastructure clearly has by flows of ideas and information and change to tackle the challenges associated a) Higher capacity access to the Internet an ongoing role to play. Whether wide- almost limitless access to content, with piracy. provides a platform for a wider range area terrestrial or satellite, broadband culture, knowledge and applications of applications so it is implicit that radio access can provide favourable pose challenges for existing national and e) As broadband usage increases, issues investments in such capacity can benefit economic characteristics in areas lacking international rules and regulations. of online privacy, confidentiality and and reward innovative and creative fixed infrastructure. security are becoming more important and ideas for applications. Those who invest b) Digital networks have given rise to must be addressed at the national, regional in communications capacity are not e) If the full benefits of the broadband unprecedented levels of content piracy that and international levels. This will require necessarily those who may benefit from Internet are to be realized for all, will be further exacerbated in the broadband the development of technical solutions, applications and services, so innovative international cooperation will be required era. As copyright and intellectual property as well as education, awareness-raising mechanisms need to be found to ensure for enforcing the meaning and utility right infringements multiply, the issue of and the establishment of related laws that broadband deployment is not stalled of digital signatures, law enforcement, remuneration for content creation and and regulations. At the same time, global through lack of investment. agreement on the definition of abuses and distribution will become a central concern international cooperation based on multi- 60 61 stakeholder partnerships is needed as e) We believe the universal deployment of d) Governments should set targets for these issues are often multi-sectoral Action Point 5 broadband networks will be an invaluable the provision of broadband access and in nature. EMPLOYING tool for better monitoring, measuring and services to women and girls and track BROADBAND TO HELP evaluation of climate change data. their progress through the collection f) Implementing local broadband projects COMBAT CLIMATE of reliable sex-disaggregated data, as requires a well-organized administrative CHANGE recommended by the United Nations system that stimulates not only the Division for the Advancement of Women government’s engagement, but also Utilizing broadband technology and Action Point 6 in 2005. Specific targets should be set for participation from the local community. innovation for energy conservation and ACCELERATING broadband-enabled training. Governments Local communities should be encouraged improved efficiency, emergency disaster participating in the MDG assessment may to voluntarily engage in projects by response, and monitoring, reporting and BROADBAND ACCESS consider setting the target of ensuring that identifying and promoting the best verification of climate change data. FOR WOMEN AND at least 50 per cent of women and girls practices in local ICT development, taking GIRLS have broadband access by 2015, including into account local languages. through community ICT centres connected a) We urge public and private partners Accelerating access to broadband to broadband networks. to make full use of technologies and infrastructure and services for women applications such as smart grids, remote Promoting and preserving ethical and girls, to promote gender equality and g) working and intelligent transport systems aspects and principles, while developing social and economic development. Policy-makers should encourage the which use broadband connectivity e) creative multilingual content and universal use of broadband networks to eradicate to ultimately benefit all nations in the access to ICTs is central for achieving a) Active steps should be taken to functional illiteracy and promote career drive towards energy conservation an equitable presence in, and access accelerate access to broadband training, and other essential ICT skills, to, cyberspace. Embracing coherent and efficiency. infrastructure and the use of broadband- including financial and business literacy ethical guidelines is essential in the face enabled services by women and skills for women and girls. Such training, girls, in order to promote gender of increasing globalization. Thus, the b) We encourage investment strategies which can be provided in community definition and adoption of best practices to maximize energy savings via the use of equality, empowerment and the social ICT centres, will enable women to set up and voluntary, self-regulatory, professional ‘virtual’ services enabled by broadband and economic development of both online businesses, or to use broadband men and women. and ethical guidelines should be infrastructure in health, education, public services, such as e-commerce and social encouraged among media professionals, administration, transportation, agriculture, networking sites, to enhance their ongoing Governments should encourage information producers, users and service environment and content distribution b) livelihoods and economic activities. investment in broadband infrastructure to providers with due respect to freedom networks, among others. help women become better educated and of expression. Access to information for support their children’s education, improve all remains a fundamental right which We encourage the widespread utilization f) Governments must recognize the c) their access to healthcare, receive job should be upheld with efficiency and of renewable energy sources such as water, potential dangers posed by broadband training, conduct meaningful commercial imagination in a spirit of equity, justice wind and solar energy in the deployment of services to women and girls, especially activities, enforce their legal rights, and and mutual respect. broadband networks. in luring them into prostitution or play an active role in local and national trafficking, and take active steps to government affairs. minimize these dangers. d) We note that the global increase of devastating earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, c) Policy-makers should also recognize hurricanes, drought and wildfire activity, the importance of broadband for women in g) Governments should be encouraged to which may result from global warming, have the unpaid economy and domestic female create policies to ensure that women and emphasized the critical need for instant and workers in fulfilling their work commitments, girls have access to the same opportunities interactive emergency response, disaster and bring reliable remittance services as men and boys in terms of access to relief and post- reconstruction efforts that and affordable communications to those broadband-based services at school can be enhanced via broadband networks. working away from their home countries. and work. 62 63 support such as training and promotion is broadband-based society and methods for Action Point 7 necessary to facilitate their use, taking into Action Point 8 modelling the social and economic impact SUPPORTING consideration local languages, education BROADBAND of broadband diffusion, in cooperation WIDER BROADBAND needs and literacy issues. MODELLING, with relevant stakeholders. INCLUSION FOR ALL EVALUATION AND d) Special attention should be given to the MONITORING d) A set of specific indicators should be Supporting wider broadband inclusion provision of broadband for education as created that will allow broadband progress for all for least developed countries and well as for disadvantaged and vulnerable Modelling, evaluation and monitoring of to be measured. Such indicators will need countries in special need and extending groups, with particular reference to relative targets and timelines for broadband to combine hard/quantitative data (eg, broadband access to rural and remote areas indigenous peoples, women and girls, inclusion, with the development of infrastructure, equipment, penetration, and vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. persons with disabilities, youth and economic, social and usage indicators cost etc) and soft/qualitative ones (eg, children and ethnic minorities. appropriate to the broadband environment. value and content created from broadband, a) Efforts should be renewed to mobilize cultural/linguistic diversity, etc). public and private support for a significant e) Support should be given to partnerships a) It is likely that new methods for modelling improvement of basic ICT infrastructure to facilitate the setting up of local Internet the social and economic evidence of in countries where such infrastructure is exchange points (IXPs) and national impact of broadband diffusion will need most lacking, as well as in rural and remote Internet Service Provider (ISP) associations to be developed in a multi-stakeholder Action Point 9 areas, and for disadvantaged groups. In this to promote wider broadband inclusion, partnership that can be facilitated by regard, the particular suitability of special especially in the regions and populations a system-wide UN response, such as BUILDING A GLOBAL solutions such as mobile broadband and of the world who need it most. the Partnership on Measuring ICT for PARTNERSHIP the potential offered by satellite systems Development. FOR BROADBAND with strong fibre optic backhaul to serve f) The specific needs of LDCs should DEVELOPMENT LDCs and other countries in special need also be taken into account while planning b) Effective implementation of broadband should be noted. Using the tools that get regional Internet backbones. History policy needs reliable evidence and Building a global partnership for the job done best, a partnership should be proves that communication linkages comparable indicators on ICT access, use broadband development with concrete forged between broadband (point to point) between neighbouring countries have and impact. Hard targets and timelines, commitments, recognizing that the and broadcasting (point to multipoint) been key promoters and levers to promote such as those identified to monitor cross-sector and cross-cutting nature infrastructure, applications and services. socio-economic prosperity and continuous the World Summit on the Information of broadband will take us beyond development. International connectivity Society (WSIS) targets, are required for the MDG agenda. b) An economic analysis relevant to and regional network infrastructure can be evaluating and monitoring Member States’ Least Developed Countries, Landlocked a powerful tool for elaborating sustainable and regions’ progress in broadband a) Urgent and renewed attention is needed Developing Countries and Small Island development in LDCs. deployment, as well as agreement in capitalizing on the consensus agreed Developing States should be undertaken on annual actions to help meet and in MDG 8 to build a global partnership to determine sustainable business models measure such progress. To assess global for development in cooperation with the g) Encouragement should be given to for adequate returns on broadband equipment and service providers to work improvements, relative indicators and private sector and ICT communities to investment at minimum income levels cooperatively with LDCs, for example via global comparisons are needed. reap the full rewards of innovation and with maximum spill-over benefits across PPPs to reduce delivery costs. investment. multiple sectors of the local society and c) A core list of ICT indicators, including economy. The same applies to rural and a number of broadband-related indicators, b) Examples could include identification of remote areas, and disadvantaged groups. h) Broadband should also be considered has been agreed upon by the international UN system and Member State programmes The innovative use of ‘digital dividends’ as a solution wherever disaster relief and statistical community under the framework or initiatives for development that are should be considered. post-conflict reconstruction are priorities - of the global Partnership on Measuring based on technology outreach platforms satellite services are of particular relevance ICT for Development. This work needs and which may benefit from broadband c) Where broadband networks are built and importance in this regard, as well as to be expanded to develop measurable scalability. An initial step should be to in underserved communities, continued other mobile broadband technologies. indicators on all aspects of an inclusive, identify and carry out various broadband 64 65 projects that require global cooperation, Commission for Digital Development. compile this information. Project criteria such as knowledge-sharing through • A Public Private Partnership should be defined so that the information broadband, global disaster prevention, Platform for Sustainable Broadband collected is useful to the Commission. The resolving educational problems and Business Models. Commission should then analyze good disease eradication. • A multi-stakeholder Think Tank for case studies for replicability and scalability. Broadband 4 Development. c) A baseline evaluation of the catalytic f) Broadband Commissioners may support impact of broadband technology as b) It is strongly recommended that the pilot projects which will demonstrate an enabler for the achievement of the principal follow-up actions suggested by the use of broadband technologies in inter-dependent MDG agenda should the Broadband Commission for Digital supporting the MDGs. be developed in order to quantify the Development are firmly and effectively socio-economic impact of these public anchored in the United Nations’ g) Finally, we recommend the creation private partnerships. forthcoming ‘MDG Accelerator and of National Broadband Plans in all the Sustainability Framework’. 192 Member States of the UN, with a d) The successful deployment of twin focus on advocacy and investment broadband would be assisted by a c) We request the UN Secretary-General in broadband. practical support system at the United to consider embedding broadband in the Nations level which will enable the best UN Development Assistance Framework practices of broadband use to be shared (UNDAF). In practice, this would be a two- and spread globally. part actionable item: a. Agreement of a universal policy for broadband in the UN System; and b. Inclusion of a discrete line item in all Action Point 10 technical assistance projects.

NEXT STEPS FOR d) This task should be pursued under the BROADBAND umbrella of building a global partnership PARTNERSHIPS AND for development between the private PROJECTS sector, the civil society and ICT community, including making available the benefits Next steps for partnerships, with of new technologies, especially ICTs concrete coordination including (MDG8). A baseline measurement of the innovative and multi-stakeholder follow- catalytic impact of broadband technology up mechanisms at the national, regional as an enabler for the achievement of the and global levels, including national inter-dependent MDG agenda should be broadband committees. developed in order to quantify the socio- economic impact of these PPPs. a) A number of follow-up mechanisms to the Broadband Commission for Digital e) Best practices and case studies Development are recommended that of investment projects in developing would comprise innovative, dynamic and countries should be collected and flexible working methods: summarized, ideally using an online repository. The Broadband Commission • A High-Level Advocacy Group for Digital Development should consider modelled on the Broadband forming a project or a working group to 66 67

Acknowledgements

The Co-Chairs and Vice-Chairs would like to thank the Secretaries of the Commission – namely, Indrajit Banerjee, Doreen Bogdan-Martin and Denis Gilhooly – and the core team of Patricia Benoit-Guyot, Phillippa Biggs, Janet Burgess, Jose Maria Diaz Batanero, Vanessa Gray, Toby Johnson, Piers Letcher, Youlia Lozanova, Sarah Parkes, Béatrice Pluchon, Jaroslaw Ponder, Ana-Dory Rodriguez, Susan Schorr, Robert Shaw and Susan Teltscher, as well as Paul Budde, for their unfailing efforts in the preparation of this Report. The InDesign version of this Report was prepared by Nkumbe Njume-Ebong, under the supervision of Daniel Lutz. We also thank all Commissioners and Focal Points for their dedicated and extraordinarily substantive input throughout this process. 68 69 4G Fourth-Generation Mobile Telephony AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome CDMA Code Division Multiple Access DOCSIS Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification DSL Digital Subscriber Line ERP Entreprise Resource Planning EV-DO Evolution-Data Optimized FTTH Fibre-To-The-Home GDP Gross Domestic Product GHG Greenhouse Gas GPS Global Positioning System GSM Global System for Mobile Communications HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus HSDPA High-Speed Downlink Packet Access ICT Information and Communication Technology IMS IP Multimedia Subsystem IMT International Mobile Telecommunications IP Internet Protocol IPRs Intellectual Property Rights ISP Internet Service Provider ITU International Telecommunication Union IXP Internet exchange point LDCs Least Developed Countries LTE Long-Term Evolution MDGs Millennium Development Goals NBN National Broadband Network ODA Official Development Assistance OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PPP Public-Private Partnership PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper R&D Research & Development SIDS Small Island Developing States LIST OF SMEs Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises TCP Transmission Control Protocol UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System UNDESA UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs UNECA UN Economic Commission for Africa ACRONYMS UNECE UN Economic Commission for Europe UNESCAP UN Economic & Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCWA UN Economic & Social Commission for Western Asia AND UPE Universal Primary Education WAC Wholesale Applications Community WHO World Health Organization WLAN Wireless Local Area Network ABBREVIATIONS WSIS World Summit on the Information Society 70