"Digital divide" narrows worldwide
28 February 2005
The "digital divide" between rich and poor nations is narrowing fast, new research claims.
A report by the World Bank found that half the world's population now has access to a fixed-line telephone, and 77 per cent to a mobile network.
The study questioned a UN campaign to increase net usage and access in developing nations, claiming that, "People in the developing world are getting more access at an incredible rate - far faster than... in the past."
"Africa is part of a worldwide trend of rapid rollout... this applies to countries rich and poor, reformed or not, African, Asian, European and Latin American," the report added.
The UN hopes that widening access to technology such as mobile phones and the net will help eradicate poverty and the organisation's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) set a target of 50 per cent global access to telephones by 2015.
A spokesman for the WSIS, which is meeting this week in Geneva, told the BBC News website: "The digital divide is very much real and needs to be addressed. Some financing has to be found to help narrow the divide."
A meeting of the WSIS in Geneva agreed last week to the creation of a voluntary Digital Solitary Fund, which will help finance local community-based projects.
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