Towards knowledge societies

Digital divide report

Produced by: UNESCO, 2005

A new UNESCO report called Towards Knowledge Societies urges governments to expand quality education for all, increase community access to information and communication technology, and improve cross-border scientific knowledge-sharing, in an effort to narrow the digital and “knowledge” divides between the North and South and move towards a “smart” form of sustainable human development (full text). According to the report, one of the main obstacles is the disparity in access to information and communication technology. The report estimates that only 11 percent of the world’s population has access to the internet and 90 percent of those connected live in industrialized countries.