This study reviews the progress achieved by ESCWA member countries in implementing the recommendations contained in the Monterrey Consensus of the International Conference on Financing for Development (Monterrey, Mexico, March 2002), during the last six years with a focus on 2008.

The rapid pace of advancement in information and communications technology (ICT) and the increasing ICT application possibilities in the economic, social and cultural fields are accompanied, on the one hand, by exacerbating technological risks concocted by hackers abusing the global transnational nature of the digital environment, therefore undermining the confidence of users in ICT and its applications.

The post-colonial socio-political landscape of the ESCWA region has witnessed a seemingly endless chain of conflict, fragile peace and constantly heightened levels of political tension, all of which have had negative ramifications for governance and socio-economic development in the region. Indeed, conflict, political tension, rentier economies and parochial systems of governance have undermined social cohesion, access to natural resources, inclusive growth, economic diversification, justice and peace itself.

This study focuses on diverse standards used in developing e-services. It starts by mentioning the importance of e-services, and the role of standards in increasing its adoption. Then, it lists the main Standard Developing Organizations. Standards for specifying e-services are first described, especially those related to web service development, data encoding and exchange, electronic data interchange, and web service routing and addressing. The study also describes the main e-service security standards, main standard frameworks used for e-Business and e-Commerce applications.