The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has identified the need to measure the advances made in breaching the digital divide and in promoting the broad development goals included in the United Nations Millennium Declaration through increased access and use of ICTs. To this end, the WSIS Plan of Action prioritizes evaluation and tracking of countries’ progress in adopting ICTs.
TheDigital Opportunity Index (DOI) was endorsed in the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, adopted during the Tunis Phase of WSIS. Accordingly to para 117 of the Agenda, which encourages the further development of indicators in a “collaborative, cost-effective and non-duplicative fashion”, the DOP mobilized and coordinated efforts for further developing the DOI as a tool for better measurement of the digital divide, as a part of the ongoing work on the WSIS implementation. The Index was developed in close collaboration with the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion (KADO) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (link).
