The Leaders of APEC member economies have pledged to achieve universal Internet access in their countries by 2010, at least at the community level. The Beijing Initiative provides a roadmap for moving towards universal community Internet access, and for building the necessary human capacities to underpin that access in the Asia-Pacific region. FDC joined with officials of the governments of China and Brunei to plan for the Beijing high level meeting, and FDC convened a meeting of its APEC policy dialogue group in Beijing in April for that purpose. This short paper by Andrew Elek provides an assessment of the Beijing Initiative which was adopted at a high level meeting of APEC Heads of State, Ministers and Information Technology leaders in Beijing on 15-16 May 2001.