World Dialogue on Regulation

WDR will be well-represented at the upcoming Digital Opportunity Forum (DOF) in Korea where five LIRNEasia researchers will present papers relevant to the next WDR theme on indicators. Along with exploring international cooperation in ICT development, the Forum will focus on further developing the Digital Opportunities Index recently unveiled in the World Information Society Report 2006.

The event organized by KADO (Korean Agency for Digital Opportunity & Promotion) and the ITU will take place from August 30-September 1 in Seoul, Korea.

LIRNEasia executive director Rohan Samarajiva will give a keynote speech on Bridging the Divide: Building Asia-Pacific Capacity for Effective Reforms and will act as the Chairman of the Forum. As part of LIRNEasia's ongoing research on the Six Country Indicators Project, lead researchers working on assessing ICT sector performance and analysing the reform process in India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Philippines wil make their presentation on the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI) applied to their respective countries. Payal Malik will make a presentation on the Policy Implications from the DOI analysis of India; Divakar Goswami will present on DOI Applied to Indonesia: Assessing ICT Policy & Regulatory Environment; Joseph Wilson will present on Digital Opportunities in Pakistan: An Overview and Lorraine Salazar will present on The Case of the Philippines. Papers, powerpoint presentations and conference report will be made available shortly.

There have been a number of initiatives to develop indices that allow cross-country comparison of ICT development. With the Digital Opportunity Index, however, we have a composite index that has the widest coverage of any of the other indices (180 countries); a modular design that allows specific aspects of ICT development to be measured; and most importantly, it has a relatively small number of indicators that makes collection of data more feasible. Furthermore, the DOI basket of ICT indicators provides not only traditional measures of infrastructure but also offers insights on ICT affordability and utilization, which are crucial components for measuring progress in bridging the digital divide. Despite its robustness, the DOI has scope for improvement, as some of the above papers explore in greater detail.

Consult the Digital Opportunity Forum programme.