Kenya will be presenting a strategy to bridge the digital divide at the ITU Telecom World 2009 conference starting on Monday in Geneva, Switzerland.

The country's representatives will discuss how to sustain the gains of telecoms development in Africa over the past 10 years and enhance its internet connectivity.

"It has been an extraordinary decade for Africa. Just 10 years ago, virtually nobody in Africa had a mobile phone; today mobile cellular subscription teledensity has reached 32.6 per cent, and more than 30 million people in sub-Saharan Africa access the Internet. What is needed now is a major push forward in broadband access," said Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Although the country's telecommunications sector has recorded one of the fastest growth rates in the world in the last seven years, the country has not yet managed to overcome the digital divide, a term used to describe the chasm between countries with adequate communication and those without.

African countries will jointly address the issue at the Geneva summit.

The main objective of ITU Telecom World is to address the issue of broadband access, and is seen as an important industry event for the developing world, providing an opportunity to benchmark local ICT sectors in terms of policy, regulation, and infrastructure development.

It also enables the showcasing of local ICT, and represents an invaluable opportunity to attract inward investment and seek opportunities to engage with ICT companies from the developed world.

A group of Kenyans are expected to present their ideas and projects that are being worked on by the private sector.

This comes soon after ITU released its ITU ICT Development Index, which ranks countries according to their level of technology use.

The Index combines 11 indicators into a single measure that can be used as a benchmarking tool globally, regionally and at the country level.

These are related to ICT access, use and skills, such as households with a computer, the number of Internet users and literacy levels.

This year, Kenya maintained its low ranking at position 116 out of 154 countries around the world.

The most advanced countries in ICT are from Northern Europe, with the only exception being the Republic of Korea.

Sweden tops the new ITU ICT Development Index, followed by the Republic of Korea, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland and Norway.

They are followed by other, mainly high-income countries from Europe, Asia and North America.

Western and Northern Europe and North America are the regions with the highest ICT development scores, and most countries from these regions are among the top-20 ICT economies.

Poor countries, in particular the least developed ones, remain at the lower end of the index with limited access to ICT infrastructure, including fixed and mobile telephony, Internet and broadband.