The Economist Intelligence Unit 2006 e-readiness rankings have been published: the world in early 2006 may be proclaimed ever more “e-ready”. This year’s e-readiness rankings reflect such progress, as all but two countries have improved their scores from the previous year
.
I absolutely disagree with this following statement: Just as encouraging is the apparent narrowing of the “digital divide” in some facets of e-readiness. This is particularly evident in basic connectivity.
Just out context, the only thing I can say is that "digital" is not only about wires, and that "divide" is a relative indicator, not an absolute one. Actually, basic connectivity is absolutely different than broadband connectivity. Thus, while e-readiness might be actually improving (i.e. there’s more connectivity for more people), the digital divide could be simply widening (i.e. the connectivity for the less developed is, again, less good than the developed ones’): taking part in the race is good; winning a medal, much better.
On the other hand, that developing countries are also enhancing their e-readiness in other ways — for example through the growth of information technology (IT) outsourcing capabilities
is good news. I strongly believe that there’s no possibility of having rich digital content and services (actually, the goal of the information society, ain’t it!?) without a strong IT and/or ICT sector.
- The report:
The 2006 e-readiness rankings (159 Kb) - Some comments about Latin America at Mouse.cl
- e-Readiness bibliography
[read at UN ICT Task Force and Tecnología y Desarrollo]
If you need to cite this article in a formal way (i.e. for bibliographical purposes) I dare suggest:
Peña-López, I. (2006) “The 2006 e-readiness rankings” In ICTlogy,
#31, April 2006. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
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https://ictlogy.net/review/?p=388
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