"Libraries, telecenters, and cybercafés play a critical role in extending the benefits of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to a diverse range of people worldwide. However, their ability to contribute to development agendas has come into question in recent times. The Global Impact S ... tudy was designed to address this debate by generating evidence about the scale, character, and impacts of public access ICTs in eight countries: Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Lithuania, the Philippines, and South Africa. This report summarizes the study’s key findings, situating public access in the context of national development, discussing some disputed issues, and providing recommendations for policymakers, public access practitioners and researchers. The results show that a central impact of public access is the promotion of digital inclusion through technology access, information access, and development of ICT skills. Both users and non-users report positive impacts in various social and economic areas of their lives." (Abstract) more

"This research of Orbicom entitled Monitoring the Digital Divide… and beyond is a contribution to the international community in the context of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Geneva, December 2003. It sets high standards in international benchmarking and places particular emph ... asis on developing countries. Its unique features are: a cohesive conceptual Framework, which goes beyond connectivity measures and logically incorporates skills, as well as offers rich analytical linkages; explicit measurements both across countries at a given point in time and within countries over-time in such a way that comparisons are not reduced to changing rankings from year to year; policy relevant results on a component-by-component basis; immediate benchmarking against the average of all countries (Hypothetica) and the planet as a whole (Planetia); use of existing and reliable data sets with a sound and transparent statistical methodology. The empirical application of the model covers a great number of countries. Measurements of networks are offered for 192 countries, covering 99% of the population of the planet; of skills and overall Infodensity for 153 countries representing 98% of the population; of Info-use 143 countries and overall Infostate 139 countries, both accounting for 95% of the global population. The results are based on 21 variables, reliable, tested and available to all and extends over the 1996-2001 period." (Publisher description) more