Connectivity and development
Information, Communication and Space Technology Division
Connectivity and Development
David Hastings
United Nations ESCAP
Information, Communication and Space Technology Division
[email protected]
KMI Research, 2004 Telegeography, 2005
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Table of Contents
Introduction – my background in designing sensing /
observing systems, developing and assessing proxy data to
describe the directly indescribable.
Background challenges in working with current ICT
development indices
− Most data are not global
− Many indices are not clear
− What we want to measure, may not be directly observable
Making a geographically complete A-P connection index
Assessing the Connection Index & HDI for 2004 & 2007
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Paper findings in A-P Journal of ICST - 2006
Roberto Pagan – UN ESCAP Stat. Division
“Unfortunately, extensive and comparable statistics on ICT
are not abundant – collecting them not mature yet.”
Small economies, esp. the Pacific, are often omitted.
DAI (ITU, 2003) covers 41 A-P economies, 8 parameters.
− Infrastructure (fixed & mobile phones), Affordability (Internet access price %
of GNI per capita), Knowledge (literacy, school enrollment), Quality (Int.
bandwidth per capita, broadband subscribers %), Usage (Internet %)
WEF Networked Readiness Index covers 17 A-P countries,
48 parameters - - - ?!
A question: What can we uniquely learn from these?
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Can we do better? I think so . . .
What relevant indicators are collected for many/most
economies?
What indicators describe the potential for a country to use &
benefit from ICT?
− Literacy, available funds, adoption-tendency . . .
− Maybe we don’t need something new – use the established HDI
What indicator(s) describe(s) the actual usage of ICT?
− Phone users (fixed & mobile), Internet users (own or shared)
− What might be better? Talking time? Internet usage time?
Bandwidth use? (But we don’t have these yet.)
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History of working with HDI
Since 1987 – invented the HDI before UNDP published it
Cluster analysis
UNDP HDI => 177 economies - “~no progress since 1994”
My HDI => 230+ economies
Since ICSTD > describing the A-P situation
− An indicator for every member, even if imperfect
Linus Torvalds => “given enough eyeballs, all bugs become shallow”
− First draft ICST indicators made in 2004, pub. 2006
− 2nd draft shown here, for pub. End 2007
Became a foundation of Pacific Connectivity study
Is a contribution to ICSTD's RG and trad. sections 5
Switch from .ppt to .pdf
Let's look at the handout .pdf
HDI for “all” regional economies (2 digits ≠ UNDP)
Lists DAI, DAI costs, Economist e-Readiness, World
Bank preception of control of corruption
Fixed & Wired Phones, Internet (ITU & other sources)
“Connection Index” = Internet% + (fixed% + mobile%)/2
Proposed here: current “committee-generated” indices
combine potential and achievement => confusing
Proposed here: CI and HDI do the basic job
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Connectivity vs. Cost: “2007” A-P
A-P economies only
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Connectivity vs. Cost: 2004 global
All DAI economies - worldwide
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Reverse engineering
The HDI
(Ed-I + H-I + Inc-I)/3 = HDI
Proportionate
HDI Lit L.E. Inc.
1.0 100% 85y $40K
0.9 90% 79y $22K
0.8 80% 73y $12K
0.7 79% 67y $6.6K
0.6 60% 61y $3.6K
0.5 50% 55y $2.0K
0.4 40% 48y $1.1K
0.3 30% 43y $0.6K
0.2 20% 37y $0.3K
For Tuvalu (Lit = 98%)
Actual Inc.= $1100/y
HDI = 0.67
HDI Prop. Inc=$5700
=>
GDP ratio = 1100/5700
= .193
= “bargain
knowledge
workers!”
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Some concluding thoughts
Keep indices “pure” rather than confusing hybrids?
Use data that are “easy” to collect globally.
Use data that are relatively straightforward.
The basic indicators collected by ITU are probably
appropriate – for anyone to build their own models
from?
CI (modified to a group model) and the already
established HDI may be adequate to describe delivery
and socio-economic situations for ICT.
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