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Who Should Use the Guide?

The Guide is targeted at communities in developing countries seeking to define a strategy to participate in the Networked World. A "community" may be any size: a country, province, city or village. The Guide will naturally yield unique results for each community. For instance, the issues that are most easily addressed at a municipal level may be more challenging at a national level, and vice versa.

Likewise, the value of each category will vary for each community. Available data are also of different character and quality in each community. This will be reflected in the relative precision of each assessment. In referring to its audience as the "developing world," the Guide groups together a great number of communities with widely different characteristics. There is a great deal of variation, not only among countries, but also within them. This is particularly true with respect to comparative conditions between rural and urban areas.

The Guide attempts to be a one-size-fits-all model that is flexible enough to accommodate any community in the developing world, recognizing that there are certain limitations to this approach. Just as communities are different from each other, leadership styles and goals in the development and implementation of ICT initiatives may arise from different places in each community.

The composition of leadership groups using the Guide will therefore vary case by case. In some communities, businesses may take the lead. In others, academia or government may seize the initiative. In any case, a broad partnership among leaders across these sectors may produce the most thorough assessment and provide the best foundation for cooperation on future actions to improve Readiness.

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