Abstract:
Many recent studies indicate that different economic development pace across various Romanian regions can induce inter and intra regional discrepancies in general, and regarding the rate of new technology adoption and ICT penetration in particular; leading to the appearance of a new phenomenon called “digital division”. Of great importance for Romania’s integration into the E.U. is the digital compatibility with various advanced EU Institutions in general, at central government level, and the division of its development regions as it greatly influences the economic growth, the standard of living of the Romanian population across its different regions in particular, which may ultimately affect the regional individual ability to adopt and absorb structural and development projects, funds and technical assistance, affecting therefore the sustainable regional and human development in general. The authors of this paper aim to map the „digital division” of the 8 development regions of Romania, considering various data sources ranging from the data supplied by the latest Public Opinion Barometer, carried out by the Open Society Foundation, to various general statistical data in that domain provided by the Ministry of ICT as well as the National Institute of Statistics, not excluding various demographic studies. Whilst most of these data sources can import a great deal of useful information collectively, most of these studies and their resulting data did not consider this particular new phenomenon as an important issue at the inception stage. By mapping these various sources of data, both those conducted locally and by external sources whether from the EU, World Bank or other International concerned bodies and institutions, and correlating the different findings into a comprehensive set of parameters, the conclusions of this paper can be further utilized to define a set of policy indicators that can be considered or implemented by both national and local authorities in order to alleviate and even eliminate the identified regional discrepancies in this regard.
