Copyright 2000 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 20-Jun-0* ***
Title: DEVELOPMENT: Expert Panel Addresses Growing Digital
Divide
By Mithre J. Sandrasagra
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 20 (IPS) - A group of international experts
has put together a global plan of action to narrow the growing
digital divide between rich and poor nations.
In a just released report, the high-level panel of experts warned
that one of the most formidable challenges facing national
governments and the development community is to bridge this gap
and connect the remainder of the world's population whose
livelihoods can be enhanced through information and
communications
technologies (ICT).
According to the report, an estimated 276 million persons
worldwide were users of the Internet as of March this year, with a
growth rate of approximately 150,000 persons per day.
Additionally, 220 million devices, including telephones and
computers, were accessing the World Wide Web (WWW), with
almost 200,000 devices being added each day.
Commerce and business conducted over the Internet totalled 45
billion dollars as recently as 1998 and is expected to reach over
seven trillion dollars by 2004.
But these astonishing figures represent activity by less than five
percent of the world's population of seven billion people,
according to the experts.
Furthermore, The International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
shows in its 1999 report, "Internet for Development", that fewer
than six percent of Internet users are to be found in developing
regions of the world, which account for 84 percent of the world's
population."
A major indicator of Internet commerce capability is the worldwide
distribution of "secure" Internet servers capable of handling
encrypted payments over the Internet - only 4.3 percent of these
were found to be outside the 29 top technologically advanced
countries.
New York, for example, is home to more of the 1.5 billion sites on
WWW and the almost two million new sites being added each day,
than all of Africa.
Additionally, there are more hosts of WWW pages - or sites - in
Finland than in Latin America and the Caribbean combined; and not
withstanding the remarkable progress in the application of ICT in
India, many of its villages still lack a working telephone, let
alone a computer.
The experts also unanimously agreed that as each day passes it
becomes increasingly difficult to ensure that the information and
communications technology (ICT) revolution has truly global
benefits.
The report and action plan was drawn up by a panel of independent
experts from government, business and civil society including
William Sheppard, Vice President of Intel; Taholo Kami, Manager of
the Small Island Developing States Network; Wang Quiming, of
China's Ministry of Science and Technology; Thomas-Hendrik Ilves,
Estonia's Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Paolo Morawski, of
Radiotelevisione Italiana.
Convened by the UN General Assembly, the panel is sending their
report to the UN Millennium Assembly, opening in September and
which is expected to be attended by over 150 heads of state.
The report will also be considered at the July high-level meeting
of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and
representatives of the panel are taking part in preparations for
the summit of the world's rich industrial nations focusing on ICT
issues, which will be held in mid-July in Okinawa, Japan.
The Expert Panel Organiser, Chuck Lankester told reporters
Monday that this "great alignment of events will enable us to push
our initiative forward."
Highlighted in the report is the fact that exploding Internet
commerce ties individuals and firms closer and closer together,
"while those who do not try to catch the 'Internet Express' run
the risk of being further and further marginalised."
Developing countries have great potential to compete successfully
in the new global market, but unless they actively embrace the ICT
revolution promptly they will face new barriers and the risk of
not just being marginalised but completely bypassed, the report
stresses.
The report proposes measures to heighten dramatically the priority
given to ICT by countries and international agencies, and suggests
means to attract and leverage funding.
Drawing from their own experiences, the panelists document
campaigns that have worked even in countries contending with
extreme poverty or complex political situations.
Cuba, for example, was in the midst of a blockade and an epidemic
when it launched Infomed, a national network of the public health
system on the Internet. Created when there was no information
infrastructure in the country, it began as a simple approach to
sharing knowledge and facilitating access to information via e-
mail. It has now become a nationally accessible database of
medical information on the Internet.
Ghana is a leading ICT country in the West African sub-region and
is in a position to provide technical support services to
neighbouring countries, experts said.
Ghana was also the first West African country to attain full
connectivity to the Internet in 1994 through a private-sector
initiative. Today the country is home to five Internet Service
Providers (ISPs), two national telecommunications operators, four
cellular operators, and dozens of FM and community radio stations.
"The UN could potentially become a major force in promoting and
fostering the application of ICT for development and in serving as
a possible arbitrator with respect to certain key legal and policy
issues, such as security and intellectual property rights," the
report said.
"Countries with certain religious and political beliefs have
legitimate concerns over Western content information upsetting
their citizens moral values," Lankester said Monday, "however
these issues must be addressed without limiting basic access for
economic and social development."
Given the option, "communities with a similar need will
spontaneously come together," Anuradha Vittachi, Director of One
World International Foundation said at a preparatory meeting for
ECOSOC's high-level meeting for 2000.
Given the Internet and other emerging IT, solutions to problems
can increasingly transcend borders, cultures and communities.
A community in an Ecuadorian Andes village had a problem with
army ants that would devastate crops, Stephen Denning,
Programme Director for Knowledge Management at the World
Bank said. The local government agricultural authorities had been
called in and had failed to solve the problem on four separate
occasions.
The villagers came in contact with a foundation that connected
communities via the Internet - the solution to the village's ant
problem came a few days later from a village just across the
border in the Peruvian Andes.
The transformation of the Internet into a mass-market is now
commonly compared in scope and impact to the Industrial
Revolution of the 18th century.
Strong returns in all sectors on relatively modest investments in
electronic equipment and digital skills provide ample reason to
assign priority to ICT development planning. "ICT brings easy,
tangible and important benefits to the poor," the report says.
The report recommends that the United Nations create, under the
leadership of the Secretary-General Kofi Annan, but outside the
regular UN organisational structures, an ICT Task Force "charged
with bringing together international agencies, private industry
and foundations and trusts to facilitate the ICT market in
developing countries."
Furthermore a development fund administered by the Task Force
should be amassed from the millions of dollars solicited from such
sources as the UN Fund for International Partnerships.
Finally, private sector representatives on the panel suggested
that the ICT industry be willing and able to match any
contributions for development funding that will enlarge their
customer base.
The main theme of the 2000 ECOSOC session will be the
identification of means by which countries of the South can catch
up with the new information economy and the emerging global
knowledge society.
It is proposed that at the September Millennium Assembly that the
United Nations should proclaim the right of universal access to
information and communication services as an important new
component of UN principles and conventions on human rights and
development. (END/IPS/DV/mjs/da/00)
Origin: SJAAMEX/DEVELOPMENT/
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[c] 2000, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)
All rights reserved
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