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This study synthesizes the key findings and lessons from infoDev's major program of support several years ago for country e-readiness studies and similar projects aimed at helping country's assess and improve their e-readiness.

"E-Ready for What? E-Readiness in Developing Countries: Current Status and Prospects Towards the Millennium Development Goals" provides a detailed, critical look at the wide and varied group of initiatives in recent years, often donor-driven,  designed to help developing countries assess and improve their "e-readiness", their enabling conditions for increased access, uptake and use of ICT across economy and society.  It reviews the uneven history of these initiatives, the challenge of linking e-readiness exercises more clearly with development priorities and the Millennium Development Goals, and the perils of e-readiness exercises that are externally driven and do not mobilize the support and follow-up of key national stakeholders.

In particular, the study addresses four key questions:

• What did the infoDev supported and other similar e-readiness assessments measure?
• Have the e-readiness assessment processes improved these countries' e-readiness and brought related socio-economic benefits, and were the assessments sufficient to target the use of ICT toward broader development goals? If not, why not?
• How effective were the e-readiness assessment processes themselves in terms of project management, implementation, and support?
• How can infoDev and ICT-for-development initiatives improve or adjust an approach to ICT-based development that aligns e-readiness strategies with the MDGs?