A new flagship World Bank publication, this report addresses the critical role being played by information and communication technologies (ICTs) in encouraging social and economic growth in developing countries around the world. This first edition provides a global overview of ICT trends and offers public policy guidelines and imperatives to country leaders, policy makers, academics, and practitioners involved in making ICT an integral part of a country's economy and society. The Report includes an ICT index that benchmarks each country's ICT sector performance (with sub-indices in four areas: access, quality, affordability, and institutional efficiency and sustainability) and ICT applications. The last section of the report contains a one-page ICT at a Glance statistics summary of 40 indicators for each of over 150 countries. The summary illustrates the status of each country in terms of its ICT development relative to other countries in the region and income group, as well as its growth trend over the past five years.