Measuring Community Access to ICTs

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Measuring Community Access to ICTs
Joint ITU/ECA Regional Workshop on ICT
Indicators Gaborone, Botswana26-29 October 2004

• Vanessa Gray
• (vanessa.gray_at_itu.int)
• Market Economics and Finance Unit
• Telecommunication Development Bureau

The views expressed in this paper are those of
the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of the ITU or its Membership.
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Why community access matters
Internet users frequenting Internet cafés,, 2002
Households with ICT,, 2001/02
Source ITU adapted from national surveys. Note
For Canada, 1.2 refers to Canadian households
reporting that a member uses the Internet from an
Internet Café.
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And how to define and measure it An example from
the EU

• Number of Public Internet Access Points (PIAP)
  per 1000 inhabitants
• Collected by each member state, annually
• Supplementary indicators
• Number of public access points (excluding private
  initiatives)
• Number of free PIAPs
• Percentage of libraries offering Internet access
  to the public

Public Internet Access Points per 100
inhabitants, selected EU countries
Source EU. List of eEurope Benchmarking
indicators http//europa.eu.int/information_socie
ty/eeurope/benchmarking/indicator_list.pdf
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Tunisias Publinets

• Publinets are government-sponsored Internet
  centres that provide affordable access
• In July 2003, around 30000 Tunisians accessed
  the Internet through one of the 281 Publinets
• This represents 10 of all Internet users and
  0.3 of the total population

Source http//www.ati.nat.tn/publinets/index.htm
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Internet user surveys
Preferred location of access in selected EU
countries, 2003, (multiple choice)

• Where have you accessed the Internet in the last
  3 months?
• At home
• At the workplace
• At place of education
• Internet café

Source eEurope Household Survey, June 2003.
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ITU Mandate

• ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (Marrakesh, 2002)
• Recognizes that traditional indicators (such as
  main telephone lines per 100 inhabitants) are not
  sufficient to measure ICT penetration
• Instructs the ITU to define and adopt new
  indicators for the purpose of measuring the
  impact of community connectivity
• WSIS Plan of Action
• Calls for the evaluation and follow-up through
  comparable statistical indicators, including
  community connectivity indicators

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Global Indicators Workshop on Community Access to
ICTs

• Organized jointly
• To take place
• Additional indicators
• What is available

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Community Access Questionnaire

• The number of localities with public Internet
  access centres (PIACs) by number of inhabitants
  (rural/urban)
• Percentage of population with access to PIACs by
  type of PIAC (governmental/private)
• Potential/target population using PIACs

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For more information, please contact

• Vanessa Gray
• Vanessa.gray_at_itu.int