World Dialogue on Regulation

LIRNE/WDR network members are involved in a number of book projects that were launched during the WSIS. Among them:

- Digital Poverty: The Latin American Experience
- Community-based Networks and Innovative Technologies: New models to serve and empower the poor
- Virtual Consulate Primer: How to design and implement an e-Visa programme
- Africa E-Index Household and Individual ICT Access

Digital Poverty: The Latin American Experience is the first book of the Latin American and Caribbean research network, DIRSI. The seven chapters seek to support next-generation policy reforms that build on the achievements of market liberalization efforts but at the same time address the realities of what we call digital poverty a concept that seeks to grasp the multiple dimensions of inadequate levels of access to ICT services as well as the barriers to their productive use. The book was also launched for download from DIRSI’s new website.

Community-based Networks and Innovative Technologies: New models to serve and empower the poor, by Séan Ó Siochrú and Bruce Girard. This report and its accompanying case studies consider how the combination of community-driven enterprises and the new wave of wireless and related technologies may have the potential to extend networks and offer new services to poor communities and to empower them to develop solutions that are more focused on their own development needs. It was launched during WSIS and is also available for download from www.propoor-ict.net.

Virtual Consulate Primer: How to design and implement an e-Visa programme, published by UNDP and Hewlett-Packard this book provides detailed descriptions of e-Visa programmes for in Armenia and Saudi Arabia. LIRNE senior researcher Amy Mahan is one of the contributors to this best-practice publication. The report is available online.

The report of the Africa E-Index Household and Individual ICT Access is the culmination of the first phase of research conducted by the Research ICT Africa! Network and is the result of a demand study of individuals and households and how ICT's are used across 10 African countries. A book launch was held at the end of the RIA! policy dialogue on 16 November. The book can obtained from Research ICT Africa!