the ubiquity of mobile phones and affordable communications contributes to the empowerment of previously marginalized and poor people through an increase in peopletopeople connectivity and facilitated exchange of knowledge however even though more people around the world are now online thanks to the rapid uptake in mobilebroadband technology large disparities in terms of ict access and use continue to exist in the asiapacific region with least developed countries still lagging far behind their developing neighbours in terms of access and use this figure is a little below the global average of fig