Dissemination and Use of New Communication and Information Technology in Lima

Despite the lack of a vision, policies, programs, subsidies or support from the government or private firms to promote and facilitate the development of ICTs in Peru, it constitutes a good practice example in terms of access to the new technologies. This is thanks to the widespread availability of cabinas públicas de Internet in the main cities, where most Internet users access the Web. This paper documents the diffusion and use of ICTs in the different socio-economic sectors in Lima, with a special attention to the lower-income groups, using successive (quantitative) surveys on ICT use in households, cabinas users, and Internet users in Metropolitan Lima, and recent observations and interviews to people working in the field. The results of this study show that the cabinas are effectively improving the daily life of a great part of the residents of Lima, and especially the youth, offering different types of urban services, which have been absent in poor neighborhoods (libraries, post offices, recreation facilities, study places, youth centers, training centers, etc.). But access is not all. This auspicious first step should be supported to produce more sophisticated applications and local content, with the purpose to promote local development.