Global effort on bridging the digital divide and the role of ICT standardization

In the year 2000, at the dawn of the 21
^st
century, World Leaders from 189 States gathered at the United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit to discuss the Millennium Development Goals. In order to achieve the goal of eradicating poverty by the year 2015, one of the resolves of the UN Millennium Declaration was to ensure that the benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are available to all. A digital divide between developed and developing countries was identified, a global effort to bridge this divide was set forth, but what has the world effectively accomplished upon this goal? How do new concepts such as the Internet economy and digital convergence relate to the task of bridging the digital divide? What is the role of ICT standardization in bridging the digital divide? This paper will shed some light on these issues.