Even as information and communications technologies (ICT) become more widespread even in low-resource countries, a significant gap still exists compared with more developed countries. In Africa, for example, only 22% of the population has access to the Internet compared with 77% in Europe.

Based on a survey of experts from various fields, this study examined the role of and lack of access to ICT in low-resource countries.

The findings showed that the respondents believed the most important areas in which to make ICT investments were education and health, as ICT could be of help there in transmitting knowledge and information as well as facilitating access to services. There was also a perception of the hurdles that will need to be overcome to improve the situation, such as lack of infrastructure, cost and especially insufficient political support and human resources.