On March 2007, the UN statistical Commission endorsed the core list of indicators on information and communication technologies (ICT), which was developed by the UNCTAD XI Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development.

UNCTAD presented a report on ICT Statistics on behalf of the Partnership during the Commission's 38th session in New York. The report informed of the significant progress made by the Partnership to improve the availability of internationally comparable statistics on ICT and to define a core list of ICT indicators.

Chief statisticians from around the world congratulated the Partnership for its work and for being an example of successful cooperation between international organizations.

The endorsement of the core list of ICT indicators by the UN Statistical Commission is also the result of effective collaboration between UNCTAD's Central Statistics Branch and ICT and E-Business Branch. The latter is the focal point for the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development within UNCTAD.

The Commission encouraged countries to use this core list of ICT indicators in their data collection programmes, and encouraged the Partnership to assist countries in their capacity building efforts for the collection of ICT data. Several developing countries have already integrated the core list into existing household and business surveys (for example, 9 out of 19 Latin American nations). But national statistical offices need further technical assistance on ICT statistics so that they are better able to collect and process official data and indicators on their information societies. The Partnership has already started to help them. 

The Commission acknowledged that ICT is a rapidly evolving area, and encouraged the Partnership to continue work to improve and update the list of indicators, especially in view of measuring the use of ICT in education, in government, the contribution of ICT to economic growth and social development, and barriers to use of ICT. The core list of ICT indicators should become a basic reference for the formulation and evaluation of policies on ICT for development.

Click here for the report of the Partnership to the Commission [English], [French], [Spanish], [Arabic], [Chinese], [Russian].