huridocs-tech Internet an Invisible Barrier according to UNDP

Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------
15 July 1999

Internet an "Invisible Barrier" for the Poor, U.N. Report Says
(Human Development Report released) (1210)
By Judy Aita
USIA United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- Technological advances, such as the
Internet, can spur growth in rich and poor countries, but at
present the relatively well-off and educated have benefited,
further marginalizing millions who lack access to new
technologies, according to a July report released by the UN
Development Program (UNDP).

Geographic barriers may have fallen for communications, but
the Worldwide Web or Internet has emerged as an invisible
barrier embracing the connected and silently excluding the
rest, the Human Development Report 1999 said.

Communications technology sets this era of globalization
apart from any other. The Internet, mobile phones, and
satellite networks have shrunk space and time setting
globalization at the end of the Century apart from any other
era, according to the report.

Nevertheless, the report pointed out that the communications
technology discrepancies are stark between rich and poor
countries and information is only one of many basic needs.

"E-mail is no substitute for vaccines and satellites cannot
provide clean water. High-profile technology projects risk
overshadowing basic priorities," the report said.

The report also said "Current access to the Internet runs
along the fault lines of national society in dividing
educated from illiterate, men from women, rich from poor,
young from old, urban from rural."

Internet surveys in 1998 and 1999 revealed that income and
education are tickets to the network high society, men and
youth dominate, ethnicity counts, and English talks, the
report explained.

For example, the report noted that the average South African
user had an income seven times the national average and 90
percent of users in Latin American came from upper-income
groups. Buying a computer would cost the average Bangladeshi
more than eight years' income compared with just one month's
wage for the average American.

Globally, 30 percent of users have at least one university
degree. Women accounted for 38 percent of users in the
United States, 25 percent in Brazil, 17 percent in Japan and
South Africa, 16 percent in Russian and only 7 percent in
China and 4 percent in the Arab states, the report said. The
average age of users in the U.S. was 36, in China and the
United Kingdom it was under 30.

When it comes to ethnic groups, disparity exists even among
U.S. university students, according to the report. More than
80 percent of students attending elite private colleges used
the Internet regularly while just over 40 percent attending
public institutions.

English is used in almost 80 percent of Web sites and in
graphics and instructions, yet less than 1 in 10 people
worldwide speaks the language.

Since 1990 UNDP has commissioned annually an independent
team of experts to explore major issues of global concern
and write the "Human Development Report." The report looks
beyond per capita income as a measure of human progress by
assessing it against other factors such as average life
expectancy, literacy, and overall well-being. The premise of
the report is that human development is ultimately a process
of enlarging people's choices.

The 1999 report focuses on the positive and negative aspects
of globalization. Richard Jolly, special adviser to the UNDP
administrator led the team of consultants and advisers that
prepared the report.

"This year's report comes down clearly in favor of the power
of globalization to bring economic and social benefits to
societies: the free flow of money and trade is matched by
the liberating power of the flow of ideas and information
driven by the new technologies," UNDP Administrator Mark
Malloch Brown said.

At the start of the 1990's the shift of the Internet from a
specialized tool of the scientific community to a more user
friendly network and the linking of computers and
communication unleashed an unprecedented explosion of ways
to communicate, the report pointed out. Computers with a
direct connection to the Internet rose from less than
100,000 in 1988 to more than 36 million in 1998.

More than 143 million people were estimated to be Internet
users in mid-1998 and by 2001 that number is expected to be
more than 700 million, it said.

The report noted that interactions between nations and
people are deeper than ever, spurred by travel, the Internet
and the media. For example, tourism more than doubled
between 1980 and 1996 from 260 million to 590 million
travelers a year; time spent on international telephone
calls rocketed from 33,000 million minutes in 1990 to 70,000
million minutes in 1996.

"Weightless goods -- with high knowledge content rather than
material content -- now make for some of the most dynamic
sectors in today's most advanced economies. The single
largest export industry in the United States is not aircraft
or automobiles, it is entertainment -- Hollywood films
grossed more than $30 billion ($30,000 million) worldwide in
1997," the report said.

But the discrepancies are glaring, the report noted. By
1998, industrial countries -- home to less than 15 percent
of people -- had 88 percent of Internet users. North
America, with less than 5 percent of all people, have more
than 50 percent of Internet users. By contrast South Asia --
home to over 20 percent of the world's population -- had
less than 1 percent of the world's Internet users.

Thailand has more cellular phones than all of Africa, the
report pointed out. There are more Internet hosts in
Bulgaria than in all of subSahara Africa with the exception
of South Africa. The United States has more computers than
the rest of the world combined and more computers per capita
than any other country.

Even if telecommunication systems are installed and
accessible, without literacy and basic computer skills
people will have little access to the network society, the
report pointed out. In 1995 adult literacy was less than 40
percent in 16 countries and primary school enrollments less
than 80 percent in 24 countries. In Benin, for example, more
than 60 percent of the population is illiterate so the
possibilities of expanding access beyond the current 2,000
Internet users are heavily constrained.

The report also noted that "distance learning" through
teleconferencing and increasing use of the Internet can
bring critical knowledge to information-poor hospitals and
schools in developing countries.

The potential is great but technology alone is not a
solution, the report said. It cautioned that in developing
countries schools and hospitals are often poorly connected
and, even where there is connection, up to 1,000 people can
depend on just one computer terminal. In any case, the
report said, a single computer is not enough: an entire
telecommunications infrastructure is needed in many
countries.

Distance learning also requires institutions, skills and
good management, the report warned. Distance learning is of
little use without relevant course content and strong staff
support, the report said.

The report set "seven goals on the road to an information
society:" 1) set up telecommunications and computer
networks; 2) focus on group access not individual ownership;
3) build human skills; 4) put local views, news,and culture
on the Web; 5) adapt technology to local needs and
constrains; 6) devise Internet governance for diverse needs
around the world; and 7) find innovative ways to fund
communication projects.




----------------------------------
Send mail for the 'huridocs-tech' list to 'huridocs-tech@hrea.org'.
Mail administrative requests to 'majordomo@hrea.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: 'owner-huridocs-tech@hrea.org'.
Archives of previous messages posted to the list can be found at:
http://www.human-rights.net/huridocs-tech.