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Today, more than two billion people, or nearly a third of the population worldwide, subscribe to telecommunication services. However, despite the recent proliferation of mobile services, several billion people, primarily in developing countries, continue to lack access to services that address their basic communication needs.

Although the digital divide between developed and developing countries is shrinking, the digital divide within many developing countries is continuing to expand. This challenge is particularly acute for many Sub-Saharan African countries, which on average have rural populations that exceed 60% and, therefore, require innovative solutions for delivering localized applications and services, increasing infrastructure coverage, and realizing the market opportunities that exist.

infoDev and Alcatel have worked for many years to address this challenge by helping key stakeholders to develop an enabling environment that supports the use of ICT as tools for poverty reduction and broad-based, sustainable development. Our work has focused on both the demand and supply for ICT-enabled services. From the demand side, we have independently and collectively supported innovative pilot projects to demonstrate the potential for scaling up localized, ICT-enabled services, as well as addressing the policy and regulatory impediments to delivering these services. On the supply side, Alcatel has developed new business models that leverage existing and new telecommunication infrastructure in innovative ways to provide value-added services, particularly in rural and underserved areas.

In order to be more effective, it is clear that we need to better understand the gap between demand and supply, and enable local actors to bridge this gap. Our joint work on this study attempts to shed some light on these issues. We believe the potential for bridging this gap is on the horizon, and that it will require harnessing innovative approaches to technologies, applications and services, developing sustainable business models, and implementing policy and regulatory frameworks that enable the delivery of ICT-enabled services to underserved areas. The private sector will play a big role in bridging this gap, but it will also require innovative public and private partnership initiatives.

As a joint contribution to the second phase of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), this study aims to highlight opportunities for achieving core development objectives, by bridging the gap between demand and supply to meet the information and communication needs of rural and underserved communities in Sub-Saharan Africa.