“The World in 2013: ICT Facts and Figures,” produced by the ITU, also shows that despite a positive general trend where 96 per cent of the world has access to mobile phones, in the developing world, 90 per cent of the 1.1 billion households are still not able to surf the Internet.

“We have made the most extraordinary progress in the first 12 years of the new millennium, and yet we still have far to go,” the ITU Secretary-General, Hamadoun I. Touré, told government ministers gathered at the ongoing Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.

“Mobile broadband is clearly going to be a vital part of the solution, and we must continue to ‘mobilize’ to ensure that all the world’s people have affordable, equitable access to the Internet,” Touré said.

According to the report, household Internet access has grown fastest in Africa over the past four years, at an annual growth rate of 27 per cent.

If trends continue, ITU estimates that 2.7 billion people, or 39 per cent of the world’s population, will be using the Internet by the end of this year. However, the greater figures will be in the industrialized countries.

The falling cost of fixed-broadband services – 82 per cent lower over the past five years – allowed more households to install it at home. Europe has the least expensive broadband as measured by the gross national income (GNI) per capita, but connections remain expensive in developing countries and can rise above 50 per cent of GNI per capita, the report warns.

In addition to prices, the speed of broadband Internet widely ranges from star performers in the Republic of Korea, Japan and Bulgaria, among others, to countries in other parts of the world where fewer than 10 per cent of subscribers offer speeds of at least 2 Mbit/s. That is enough to download a three minute song in about 20 seconds.

In terms of men and women, the report broke down for the first time use by gender. Worldwide, 37 per cent of all women use the Internet, compared with 41 per cent of all men. The gender gap is more pronounced in the developing world – with 16 per cent fewer women than men online.

Earlier this week, the ITU released a report which showed that broadband connectivity has the potential to transform education by giving teachers and students greater access to learning resources and technologies.

FAO said in a news release that the speed of communication and accuracy of the global positioning system (GPS) function integrated on mobile phones is of great advantage for farmers who are increasingly using this technology.

“FAO and partners are piggy-backing on this enormous uptake of mobile phone technology for uses in reporting animal disease outbreaks, tracking vaccination campaigns and the delivery of veterinary treatments, such as de-worming animals,” said FAO’s Assistant Representative for Programme Implementation in the country, Robert Allport.

Three out of four people have a mobile phone in Kenya and while only a third of Kenyans have access to the Internet, 99 per cent of this comes from mobile phones.

Mr. Allport said the widespread adoption of this technology has revolutionized the livestock sector, as up until five years ago veterinarians had to travel to remote locations to record data and then again to process the paperwork.

“Cellular phones eliminate delays in receiving field data, since all the information is relayed via the mobile network,” Mr. Allport said.

FAO recently partnered with the Royal Veterinary College and Vetaid, local non-governmental organization, to support the testing of EpiCollect, a mobile phone application that helps track animal vaccination and treatment campaigns.

The application would allow users to access and monitor vaccination data in real-time, and could potentially be made available not just to veterinarians but to animal health workers and village elders.

FAO has also developed an information system to display data on disease outbreaks that would allow for an early warning system to isolate infected animals and prevent the death of tens of thousands of livestock. The system, known as EMPRES-i will be tested in Uganda this year.

“The FAO EMPRES-i system is truly a global public good, and our reporting and response times are being constantly improved, now thanks to incredible technology,” said Juan Lubroth, FAO’s Chief Veterinary Officer. “Prevention, preparedness and early response are powerful concepts that when translated into tools can be effectively used against infectious diseases, thereby safeguard people’s livelihoods, fend off hunger and, in some cases, human illness,” he added.

In addition, FAO has partnered with Oxfam and Nokia to monitor water points in pastoralist areas as an early warning indicator for drought in Kenya and Ethiopia, and is assessing how mobile technology can be used to better link livestock producers with markets and livestock traders.

“Traders won’t travel to a remote area to purchase animals unless they have a guarantee that they will be able to buy a minimum number of animals. Otherwise, the expense of making the trip isn’t worthwhile,” Mr. Allport said. “But if sellers at market can relay information to a central point about how many animals they have, where and at what price, then the market functions more efficiently and pricing becomes more transparent. They can also collectively bargain for better prices.”

Measuring the Information Society 2012, produced by the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU), says that developing countries now account for the “lion’s share” of market growth in the mobile sector, according to an ITU press release detailing the report.

The report also shows that the ICT sector has not only become a major contributor to economic growth, but is especially so in developing countries, where global exports of ICT goods accounted for 20 per cent of their merchandise trade in 2010, compared to 12 per cent world wide.

“While prices in developed economies have stabilized, those in developing countries continue to fall at double-digit rates,” ITU stated in a news release on the report.

But, ITU said, the digital divide – generally defined as the difference in levels of ICT access between developed and developing countries – remains significant.

Developed countries register average “connectivity” values that are twice that of their developing counterparts on the Geneva-based agency’s ICT Development Index (IDI), according to the ITU report, which adds that policy makers should pay “keen attention” to the plight of a group of so-called ‘Least Connected Countries’ that the index identifies as having the lowest connectivity rates.

“The past year has seen continued and almost universal growth in ICT uptake,” said Brahima Sanou, the Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, which authors the annual report. “The surge in numbers of mobile-broadband subscriptions in developing countries has brought the Internet to a multitude of new users.”

She added, “Despite the downward trend, prices remain relatively high in many low-income countries. For mobile broadband to replicate the mobile-cellular miracle and bring more people from developing countries online, 3G network coverage has to be extended and prices have to go down even further.”

Commenting on the report, ITU’s Secretary-General, Hamadoun I. Touré, called it the “annual industry benchmark for technology development.” He said the agency’s reputation as a “wholly impartial and reliable source” renders it the “most comprehensive statistical and analytical report on the shape of ICT markets worldwide.”

The report shows that the Republic of Korea remained the world’s most advanced ICT economy as determined by the IDI, which ranks 155 countries according to their levels of ICT access, use and skills, and takes account of 2011 and 2010 scores.

The next four countries – Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Finland – were also unchanged from the year before, while the United Kingdom, which moved from 14th place in 2011 to ninth in 2012, was the only new arrival in the top ten.

European countries also filled eight of the top ten spots, with Japan, ranking eighth, as the only non-European country at that level besides top-placed Republic of Korea. All the top 30 were high-income countries, which, ITU said, underlined the “strong link between income and ICT progress.”

ITU noted the report’s findings also include that countries marking the most progress in terms of ICT development were mostly in the developing world. It cites “strong performers” as including Bahrain, Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia.

“Mobile-cellular subscriptions registered continuous double-digit growth in developing country markets, for a global total of six billion mobile subscriptions by end 2011,” ITU said, noting that China and India each account for around one billion subscriptions.

“Mobile broadband continues to be the ICT service displaying the sharpest growth rates,” ITU added. “Over the past year, growth in mobile-broadband services continued at 40 per cent globally and 78 per cent in developing countries. There are now twice as many mobile-broadband subscriptions as fixed-broadband subscriptions worldwide.”

The increase in developing world connectivity rates has taken place alongside a rise in the affordability of telecommunication and Internet services.

“The price of ICT services dropped by 30 per cent globally between 2008 and 2011, with the biggest decrease in fixed-broadband Internet services, where average prices have come down by 75 per cent,” ITU said.

Still, ITU highlighted that fixed-broadband services remained “too expensive” in most developing countries, explaining that the price of a basic, monthly fixed-broadband package represented more than 40 per cent of monthly gross national income per capita at the end of 2011, compared to 1.7 per cent in developed economies.

Saudi Arabia, with a population of 29 million people and 9 million cars, is the largest and most demanding market in the Middle East. The new highly aesthetic ultra slim navigation devices MLS Talk & Drive with their operating system developed in Arabic language and Arabic speech recognition come to fill an important gap in a market where the navigation penetration rate is below 5%.

For its entry into the Saudi market, MLS cooperated with the domestic consortium Zaki Farsi Group in a mutually exclusive partnership. Farsi GeoTech, is characterized by the accuracy and reliability of its maps. For the development of MLS Talk & Drive in arabic language, it offered its maps for the fist time to MLS. At the same time the company took over the exclusive representation and distribution rights of MLS Talk & Drive navigations systems, which will be branded FarsiNav Talk & Drive. The first order is $200,000 and Farsi GeoTech has already made a down payment of $60,000. The launch of MLS products to consumers in Saudi Arabia is expected in November.

The number of mobile subscriptions in use worldwide, both pre-paid and post-paid, has grown from fewer than 1 billion in 2000 to over 6 billion now, of which nearly 5 billion are in developing countries. Ownership of multiple subscriptions is becoming increasingly common, suggesting that their number will soon exceed that of the human population.

The report, Information and Communications for Development 2012: Maximizing Mobile, says more than 30 billion mobile applications, or “apps,” were downloaded in 2011 – software that extends the capabilities of phones, for instance to become mobile wallets, navigational aids or price comparison tools.

This trend is also benefiting developing countries where people are increasingly using mobile phones to create new livelihoods and enhance their lifestyles, while governments are using them to improve service delivery and citizen feedback mechanisms.

“Mobile communications offer major opportunities to advance human and economic development – from providing basic access to health information to making cash payments, spurring job creation, and stimulating citizen involvement in democratic processes,” says World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development Rachel Kyte.

She adds that the challenge now is “to enable people, businesses, and governments in developing countries to develop their own locally-relevant mobile applications so they can take full advantage of these opportunities.”

This new report, the third in the World Bank’s series on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development, analyzes the growth and evolution of mobile telephony, and the rise of data-based services, including apps, delivered to handheld devices.

The report explores the consequences for development of the emerging “app economy,” especially in agriculture, health, financial services and government, and how it is changing approaches to entrepreneurship and employment.

For Tim Kelly, lead ICT policy specialist at the World Bank and one of the authors of the report, “The mobile revolution is right at the start of its growth curve: mobile devices are becoming cheaper and more powerful while networks are doubling in bandwidth roughly every 18 months and expanding into rural areas.”

“We have included the latest available data and indicators for the mobile sector for more than 150 economies in the report,” explains Shaida Badiee, director of the World Bank’s Development Data Group, adding that, “the spread of mobile phones means we now have data that can be used for cross-country comparisons.”

The report emphasizes the role of governments in enabling mobile application development. In the agriculture sector, for instance, many of the mobile services that are being developed – such as information services for Senegalese farmers or a traceability scheme for coffee-growers in Colombia – are reliant on public funding and are still in pilot stages.

“Government support is needed to develop sound business models, foster ICT skills, and ensure that the infrastructure is in place and affordable,” explains Kelly.

The study also highlights how mobile innovation labs – shared spaces for training developers and incubating start-ups – can help bring new apps to market. For instance, infoDev, in collaboration with the Government of Finland and Nokia, has established five regional mobile innovation labs (mLabs) in Armenia, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa, and Vietnam.

The President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner; the Chairperson of the Chinese company Huawei, Sun Yafang, and United States Oscar-winning actress and rights advocate Geena Davis, will be awarded the World Telecommunication and Information Society Award for their significant contribution to the ongoing digital revolution in ICTs, according to an announcement by International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The theme of this year’s World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, which falls on May 17, is “Women and Girls in ICT.”

In a news release, ITU’s Secretary-General, Hamadoun Touré, lauded the work of the three award-winners in promoting both the involvement of women in the ICT field, and in demonstrating the role ICTs can play in creating opportunities for them. “The ability of technology to empower women and girls in communities around the world is still largely untapped,” Touré said. “We are determined to work with partners across all sectors of society to promote the full potential of ICTs for the benefit of women and girls.”

Throughout her presidency, Ms. Fernández has sought to advance telecommunication development in her country and has also been a strong defender of human rights and gender equity, the ITU said, adding that by supporting a national telecommunication plan, Ms. Fernández “has taken far-reaching steps to connect the people of Argentina to ICTs.”

Since becoming Huawei’s Chairperson, Ms. Sun has turned the Chinese telecommunications company into a global enterprise that provides innovative technologies, ITU said. She is also actively involved in several corporate responsibility programmes and as a member of the Broadband Commission for Digital Development.

Ms. Davis is the founder of the non-governmental organization Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, which works within the media and entertainment industry to engage, educate and influence the need for gender balance, reduce stereotypes and create a wide variety of female characters for entertainment targeting children less than 11 years of age. Ms. Davis is also ITU’s special envoy for women and girls in the field of ICT.

The awards ceremony takes place in Geneva on May 16, followed by a high-level panel discussion with the award-winners and other distinguished speakers.