1. Measuring Community Access to ICTs
Joint ITU/ECA Regional Workshop on ICT Indicators
Gaborone, Botswana October 2004
Measuring Community Access to ICTs
Vanessa Gray
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.

2. 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.

3. And how to define and measure it: An example from the EU
Public Internet Access Points per 100 inhabitants, selected EU countries
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
Source: EU. List of eEurope Benchmarking indicators:

4. Tunisia’s Publinets
Publinets are government-sponsored Internet centres that provide affordable access
In July 2003, around 30’000 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:

5. 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.

6. 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”

7. Global Indicators Workshop on Community Access to ICTs
Organized jointly
To take place
Additional indicators
What is available

8. 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

9. For more information, please contact:
Vanessa Gray