Connections

57 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22293

Connections is a weekly series of knowledge notes from the World Bank Group’s Transport & Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Global Practice. It covers projects, experiences, and front-line developments.

Items in this collection

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

Russia’s Ambitious Broadband Goal: Is the Progress Sustainable?

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03) Gelvanovska, Natalija ; Rossotto, Carlo Maria ; Gunzburger, Michael Lee

In 2012, the Russian Federation announced one of the world’s more ambitious broadband Internet development goals: providing 80 percent of Russian households with ultrafast connection speeds - at least 100 megabits per second (Mbps) by 2018.1 That goal exceeds the current targets in Germany and the European Union, and it is about equivalent to those currently being pursued by countries with ambitious strategic broadband connectivity goals, including Denmark, Sweden, and the United States. As part of the effort to reach its 2018 target, the Russian government recently tasked Rostelecom - a largely state-owned enterprise and the dominant firm in Russia’s broadband market - with the responsibility of connecting 4 million people (about 2.8 percent of all households) in small, widely scattered settlements throughout Russia by installing 200,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cable providing speeds of at least 10 Mbps. The assignment is both a great opportunity and a huge challenge for Rostelecom and for the entire Russian broadband sector. What can Russia do to ensure Rostelecom’s successful completion of its specific task as well as the success of the broader 2018 target?
ICT at COP21: Enormous Potential to Mitigate Emissions

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12) Gallegos, Doyle ; Narimatsu, Junko

The transformational potential of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) was on display in Paris at the Twenty-First Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. ICTs, including the Internet, mobile phones, geographic information systems (GIS), satellite imaging, remote sensing, and data analytics, could reduce yearly global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) 20 percent by 2030, thus holding them at their 2015 level. Moreover, ICT emissions are expected to decrease to 1.97 percent of the global total by 2030, from 2.3 percent in 2020, while emission reductions attributable to ICT will be nearly 10 times greater than those of the ICT sector. ICTs are also critical for climate change adaptation, providing vital tools for all phases of the disaster risk management cycle. Although the opportunities for ICTs to support the climate change agenda are enormous, much work remains in order to realize them. Governments of developing countries must be further encouraged to include ICTs in their national climate change policies. And the international development community will have to make significant efforts, particularly in low-income countries, to develop ICT infrastructure as well as the institutional capacities and skills to implement and sustain these solutions.
Advances and Challenges in 'Intelligent Transportation': The Evolution of ICT to Address Transport Challenges in Developing Countries

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-11) Wang, Winnie ; Krishnan, Raman ; Diehl, Adam

Transport efficiency and safety in the advanced economies have long benefited from information and communication technology (ICT). However, these ICT applications have typically been high-cost, customized infrastructure systems. Now the era of the Internet, digital mobile communication, and ‘big data’ analysis has created a new global potential for less costly and more powerful ‘intelligent transport systems’ (ITS). The World Bank is supporting client transport agencies in deploying these new tools, including cloud-based services, open data standards, and smartphone applications, to more efficiently manage transportation assets and improve road safety. In the process, such projects have also demonstrated improvements in the traveler’s experience and the attractiveness of public transit. Moreover, the greater potential of the new technologies to reduce congestion and travel times means that the new era has also strengthened the potential of ITS to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, realizing the potential of ITS in developing countries depends on improvements in assessment practices to find what works best and in the data capabilities of domestic institutions. Significant improvements in these areas are critical to the success of ITS.
A New Measure of Rural Access to Transport: Using GIS Data to Inform Decisions and Attainment of the SDGs

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-10) Iimi, Atsushi ; Diehl, Adam

In rural areas of the developing world, where the majority of the poor live, good transport connectivity through road infrastructure and transport services is an essential part of the enabling environment for sustainable growth. A lack of detailed nationwide data has limited previous efforts to develop measures of access to roads in rural areas that would guide policy and investment. The World Bank, with support from DFID, has been piloting a methodology that exploits advances in digital technology to assess population distribution and infrastructure location and quality. The resulting Rural Access Index (RAI) may serve as a useful and cost effective tool for governments planning their rural transport programs and as an indicator of progress towards the achievement of several of the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets.
Key Pathways to High-Speed Internet in the Middle East and North Africa: Spurring Competition and Building New Networks

(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2015-03) Gelvanovska, Natalija ; Rogy, Michel ; Rossotto, Carlo Maria

Most countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are falling behind in their quest to develop high-speed Internet for rapid socioeconomic development. Despite young adults’ rising use of social networking tools and solid progress in a few countries, most of the region’s Internet remains hobbled by monopolized, inadequate infrastructure; weak investment incentives; and high costs. High-speed (broadband) Internet can drive economic and social transformations. To realize that potential, a recent World Bank study finds that MENA countries must pursue a three-pronged approach: reduce costs by fully liberalizing access to the existing Internet infrastructure; support the resulting competition with independent national regulators working within a harmonized regional framework of regulation; and promote investments in new fiber-optic networks and other ultrafast broadband infrastructure (including Long-Term Evolution or LTE) alongside existing technologies. With these measures, plus aggressive strategies for sharing public works infrastructure and subsidies for rural access, MENA can leapfrog its current information and communication bottlenecks.