The potential benefits of increasing access to Information, Communication Technologies (ICTs) like the Internet or telephones has been widely recognised. For example, numerous studies have pointed towards the positive relationship between phone penetration and national incomes.

But there are also simultaneous concerns that ICT benefits are only being availed by a small segment of populations within the developing world. Here we consider on-ground impacts that a specific communication technology like mobile phones can have on the lives of common people.

Lower-income farmers in remote villages are expected to be able to use their mobile phones soon to gain access to rural financial services.

The change in the nature of rural finance will start by making banking services immediately accessible by mobile phone.

Farmers and entrepreneurs will also be able to use mobile communications to get up-to-date market information.

Affordable, innovative mobile solutions for rural residents are being explored by a project jointly initiated by Ericsson and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), launched in Beijing on Saturday.

It is no secret that wireless , mobile, and other new technologies have continually enabled millions worldwide to gain a slice of the global economic pie.

Yet a growing realisation and concern has surfaced—the greater the benefits from ICT, the sharper the disparities between those who reap the gains and those who do not. Government Insights, a leading market research firm specialising in public sector analysis, notes that multiple factors across various stakeholders are driving interests in digital inclusion issues today.

After decades of global antipoverty efforts in which nonprofit organizations operated on a separate track from the business sector, disappointment with the results is leading a diverse group of institutions to test a new approach. In recent years, groups as diverse as the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), nongovernmental organizations, national governments, and corporate giants such as Microsoft and Visa have backed the idea that philanthropy and profitability are not opposing forces.

Panos' Relay: Communicating research through the media programme works with the media to support the crucial role they play in the effective communication of development research in Southern countries. Better communication of development research findings and recommendations through the media means that existing practice and new policy solutions are brought to the public attention, potentially stimulating civil society debate and action and bringing pressure to change to bear on government.

The Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility provides grants to help governments explore public-private partnerships to expand and improve their infrastructure services and bring people out of poverty.

The Information Economy Report 2008 - Science and technology for development: the new paradigm of ICT, analyses the current and potential contribution of information technology to knowledge creation and diffusion. It explores how ICTs help generate innovations that improve the livelihoods of the poor and support enterprise competitiveness. The report examines how ICTs affect productivity and growth and reflects on the need for a development-oriented approach to intellectual property rights in order to enable effective access to technology.

The launch Seminar for the Regional Network of the Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID), held 4-5 February in San Salvador, El Salvador, brought together 100 ICT-for-development experts to present proposals to the eLAC Ministerial Conference on the role of ICTs in poverty eradication, health, education, youth employment, and e-government.

UN convenes regional experts to speed digital progress, in advance of Latin American and Caribbean ministerial meeting on the information society

United Nations, 31 January – The United Nations is to convene a meeting in El Salvador on 4-5 February 2008 to assist Latin American and Caribbean countries in using information and communication technologies (ICT) to eradicate poverty and support education, health and youth employment in the region.