Preface

The role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in national competitiveness and development, as well as in generating jobs and revenues for countless citizens, is well documented. Their meaningful and useful access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), particularly the Internet, will significantly enhance this critical role and will drive demand for and innovation in the ICT sector even more.

This set of training modules was therefore developed to serve as a policymaking reference on Internet Use for Business Development, principally for middle- to senior-level Internet policy makers and implementers of public policy issues of Internet governance. More particularly, it is intended as an introductory guide to the various issues and legislative/policy options that developing countries should consider as they put into place the policies and rules that will encourage SMEs to take advantage of the Internet to create business opportunities.

Pilot-tested before senior science and ICT ministers from the Asia-Pacific region at the offices of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok in November 2006, this set of training modules underwent further refinement and was finalized based on lessons learned from further pilot national workshops in four developing countries: Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mongolia and Nepal.

To be sure, this document does not provide all the answers. It does, however, provide many of the critical questions that need to be considered. In this sense this document can provide a useful starting point for policy and decision makers as they grapple with sometimes difficult choices to ensure the continued growth of and access to ICT in their respective countries.

Each country, therefore, can choose to use and adapt the various sections of this training material as they best see fit, given their respective socio-economic and political contexts. It is hoped that they can then share their successes, criticisms, findings and suggestions so that this document can continuously be improved and remain relevant in the fast-changing future.