Africa: High Speed Internet is Key to Economic Development

1 July, 2009 in Africa

source: allAfrica
World Bank (Washington, DC)
30 June 2009
press release

Washington, DC — A new report from the World Bank Group finds that access to affordable, high quality internet and mobile phone services enables development across all levels of the economy and society.

Information and Communications for Development 2009: Extending Reach and Increasing Impact takes an in-depth look at how ICT impacts economic growth in developing countries. The report finds that for every 10 percentage-point increase in high speed Internet connections there is an increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points. It also identifies the mobile platform as the single most powerful way to reach and deliver public and private services to hundreds of millions of people in remote and rural areas across the developing world.

“Internet users in developing countries increased tenfold from 2000 to 2007, and there are now over four billion mobile phone subscribers in [continue reading]