At-a-Glance: The Demographic Imperative of Accessibility

Over the course of the last thirty years, the rate at which information and communication technologies (ICTs) have “diffused” or permeated our daily lives and the rate at which we have adopted these technologies have both grown steadily. Considering the continued growth of the global population, as well as the ever-increasing use of information and communication technologies within emerging economies, the trends seem to point toward an ongoing global demand for ICT products and services. However, it is when we consider the growth in the global population and the growth in the global number of ICT users within the context of Article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the recently-published Measuring Disability Prevalence (World Bank, March 2007), that these dramatically increasing rates of diffusion and adoption of technology help to crystallize the social, technical and commercial imperatives for the development of accessible ICT.

By: Anne-Rivers Forcke

Published in: RC24368 in 2007

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