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PREFACE
One the many challenges facing the countries in the Asia-Pacific today is pre-
paring their societies and governments for globalization and the information and
communication revolution. Policy-makers, business executives, NGO activists, aca-
demics, and ordinary citizens are increasingly concerned with the need to make
their societies competitive in the emergent information economy.
The e-ASEAN Task Force and the UNDP Asia Pacific Development Information
Programme (UNDP-APDIP) share the belief that with enabling information and com-
munication technologies (ICTs), countries can face the challenge of the information
age. With ICTs they can leap forth to higher levels of social, economic and political
development. We hope that in making this leap, policy and decision-makers, plan-
ners, researchers, development practitioners, opinion-makers, and others will find
this series of e-primers on the information economy, society, and polity useful.
The e-primers aim to provide readers with a clear understanding of the various
terminologies, definitions, trends, and issues associated with the information age.
The primers are written in simple, easy-to-understand language. They provide ex-
amples, case studies, lessons learned, and best practices that will help planners
and decision makers in addressing pertinent issues and crafting policies and strat-
egies appropriate for the information economy.
The present series of e-primers includes the following titles:
● The Information Age
● Nets, Webs and the Information Infrastructure
● e-Commerce and e-Business
● Legal and Regulatory Issues for the Information Economy
● e-Government;
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ICT and Education
● Genes, Technology and Policy: An Introduction to Biotechnology
These e-primers are also available online at www.eprimers.org. and
www.apdip.net.
The primers are brought to you by UNDP- APDIP, which seeks to create an ICT
enabling environment through advocacy and policy reform in the Asia-Pacific re-
gion, and the e-ASEAN Task Force, an ICT for development initiative