The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has released a global index ranking information and communication technology (ICT) access in 178 economies worldwide. The Digital Access Index (DAI) is meant to be a tool for tracking the future advancement of ambitious emerging economies (or to gauge decreased progress) in terms of access to ICTs. As an illustration, the 2002 index includes some trend data in the form of a list of the countries that have gained and dropped the most in ranking as compared to the 1998 index, as follows:

To highlight a few of the rankings on the 2002 index, Slovenia ties France; and the Republic of Korea, usually not among the top 10 in international ICT rankings, comes in fourth. Apart from Canada, ranked 10th, the top 10 economies are exclusively Asian and European.

Countries are classified into 1 of 4 digital access categories: high, upper, medium, and low. Those in the upper category include mainly nations from Central and Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, Gulf States, and emerging Latin American nations. The DAI combines 8 variables, covering 5 areas, to provide an overall country score. The areas are availability of infrastructure, affordability of access, educational level, quality of ICT services, and Internet usage.

ITU claims that the DAI reveals that many of these countries have used ICTs as a development enabler and that government policies have been key players in helping them increase access to ICTs among their citizens. Based on research conducted as part of the production of the DAI, ITU identifies these examples of successful projects: the Dubai Internet City in the United Arab Emirates (the highest ranked Arab nation in the DAI), the Multimedia Super Corridor in Malaysia (the highest ranked developing Asian nation), and the Cyber City in Mauritius (along with Seychelles, the highest ranked African nation).

Click here to view the index on the ITU site.