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Rethinking ICT policy: focus on Internet vs. teledensity in Africa Print E-mail
Monday, 11 July 2005

Africa's Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are still behind in terms of ICT. This study proposes a set of strategies for these countries to consider as steps to improve growth of their teledensity.

The digital divide between the West and Africa seems to be drawing closer for African countries in terms of information and communications technology. These countries are experiencing tremendous growth in use of computers, Internet connectivity, wireless communications and many other related technologies. However, the same is not true for Africa's Least Developed Countries (LDCs) that are still greatly behind other regions of the world in terms of the level of basic telecommunications infrastructure such as teledensity (number of main telephone lines for every one hundred inhabitants). While it is true that Africa's LDCs have some Internet presence, it seems to be limited only to the urban elite. These countries may therefore not be in the position to exploit most of the benefits the Internet can offer. This study suggests a sound teledensity infrastructure as the precursor to the diffusion of various information and communications technologies. Furthermore this study proposes a set of strategies that Africa's LDCs should consider as steps to improve growth of their teledensity.

The complete document was published by EJISDC, and is available at: http://new.ejisdc.org/ojs/include/getdoc.php?id=46&article=46&mode=pdf