Page 65 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 5

CPS904 Saeed Fayyaz et al.

How ICT Statistics facilitate countries for
achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) with focusing on Iran’s ICT Statistics
2
Saeed Fayyaz , Arash Fazeli
1
1 Statistical Center of Iran
2 Australian Bureau of Statistics

Abstract
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) now form the backbone
of today's economies – providing individuals with access to such vitally
important resources as employment opportunities, online banking and
healthcare. As such, countries should have turned to ICTs to fast-forward
efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
2030 agenda and share their perspectives and experiences on how and why
ICTs for SDGs is critical. In the other word, ICT sector play a significant role in
achieving the SDGs and that the digital revolution can help communities
become more sustainable and environmentally friendly and solve their
concrete challenges. In this way, ICT statistics can be utilized as functional tools
for more effective and efficient monitoring the ICT sector as well as SDGs’
progress which it causes to accelerate the developing processes. As a result,
countries will need to consider ICT indicators beyond the SDG monitoring
framework in order to adequately assess the impact of ICTs in their own
sustainable development. In this study, however; with focusing more on Iran’s
ICT statistics, a comprehensive review on a thematic list of ICT indicators that
could be used to measure ICT availability and use in both direct and indirect
sectors relevant to the SDGs will be prepared and an investigation on the
current challenges will be addressed. In the other side, ICT as a dynamic sector
has been changing continuously and new topics such as digital trade, e-
commerce, electronic waste, e-government etc. has been added to ICT sector
which will be briefly reviewed. Noticeably, the more developed ICT
infrastructure in country, the easier it is to reach the SDGs. All in all,
highlighting the role of ICT statistics as a significant part of economic statistics
on SDGs, this study attempts to provide a new insight for better NSOs’
orientations toward ICT statistics more relevant to SDGs.

Keywords
Economic statistics; ICT statistics; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
Iran’s ICT statistics; the internet penetration rate; ICT Development Index

1. Introduction
The new Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, set out a shared global
agenda for human development based on prosperity, social inclusion and
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