ABSTRACT
Digital preparedness is generally defined to include a range of indicators that jointly describe a country’s ability to benefit from ICTs. In its most recent measure, for example, the ITU includes two categories, ‘access’ and ‘skills’, in addition to use of mobile phones and the Internet (previous versions have included ‘opportunity’ and ‘infrastructure’). A largely separate literature, by contrast, concerns itself with measuring the digital divide between rich and poor countries, where the division concerns only the utilization of technology. Recently, these two strands of literature have been brought together by a claim made in an ITU report (2009) that digital preparedness can and should be used to measure the divide. This claim is made with reference to the ICT Development Index (the IDI) and appears in a section of the report headed ‘Applying the IDI to measure the digital divide’ (ITU 2009).
