..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date: 14 October 2011
Media Advisory: N/26/2011

Launch of the UNCTAD Information Economy Report 2011 in Bangkok
Embargoed until 19 October 2011
5 p.m. GMT

BANGKOK (Strategic Communications and Advocacy Section) -- How to leverage information and communication technologies (ICTs) to create real economic impact in developing countries? By bridging the digital gap between small enterprises and larger ones, says UNCTAD. That is why the Information Economy Report 2011 recommends that governments and donors help Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) to access to ICTs.

In order to accelerate private sector development, governments must make the inclusion of ICTs a priority through investing in mobile telephony and broadband infrastructure, reducing costs to access, building trust in doing transactions online, as well as developing smart e-government solutions. The study contains case studies that demonstrate how ICTs stimulate economic activity and create jobs through better access to information on market prices of commodities in Zambia, the automatization of customs in Madagascar, mobile microfinance in Sierra Leone, and the registration and formalization of MSEs in the Philippines.

UNCTAD experts looked at the specific group of women entrepreneurs in developing economies. They also analysed the economic impact of increased use of financial services through mobile phones. In this regard, governments should strive to create a safer regulatory framework to win trust on the reliability of banking through mobile phones among users. The Information Economy Report is published annually and focuses on analyzing the latest tendencies worldwide on the use and production of ICTs. In its statistical annexes it provides data gathered from various international organizations on the state of the infrastructure by country and region, and the levels of ICTs adoption by enterprises according to their size and sector.

What: Launch of UNCTAD’s Information Economy Report 2011

When: Wednesday, 19 October 2011 at 11 am

Where: Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, Penthouse, Maneeya Centre Building, 518/5 Pleonchit Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330

Who: Mr. Kobsak Chutikul, Special Adviser to the UNCTAD Secretary-General and Ms. Tiziana Bonapace, Chief , ICT and Dvelopment Section of ESCAP’s ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division

For further information about the event, please contact:

Ms. Thawadi Pachariyangkun
Public Information Officer, ESCAP
T: (66) 2 288 1861, M: (66) 81 634 3876
E: pachariyangkun.unescap@un.org