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Revision with unchanged content. Half of the world s population has never made or received a phone call and perhaps the same half lives on less than $2 a day. If this is not just a statistical coincidence, is there causality between the lack of telecommunication and poverty? The digital divide is the discrepancy between Africa and other nations in the usage of ICT s, such as telephony and the internet. The goal of this book, is to highlight which factors influence a nation s capacity to bridge the Digital Divide . It will give an elaborate introduction to the Digital Divide and the concepts Information Society and Information Revolution. And the book will answer the question why some African countries have more ICT s than others, even though they are not necessarily richer. The author, Emlyn Hagen, researches a range of cultural, economic, political and geo gra phical factors by means of an econometrical analysis. The data spans all 54 independent African countries, over a 12-year period, and contains in for ma ti on about a wide array of factors such a GDP per capita, the amount of te le phone lines, language, the level of freedom and foreign investments. The stu dy reflects that foreign ICT investors will venture even into the poorest and difficult accessible nations if the political climate and regulatory climate allows it.

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is a PhD Research Scholar at the NUS Singapore. At The Hague he presently creates a flood hazard map of Afghanistan for NATO. He is specialised in GIS and remote sensing, and has an interest in developing countries and sustainable development. Emlyn was born in Belgium and acquired his MSc in Geography at the University of Munich.

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