huridocs-tech Losing ground bit by bit (2)

[Originally posted on the s-asia-it@apnic.net listserv.]


Losing ground bit by bit

By BBC News Online's Jane Black

The hype for everything online obscures the reality about how
technology is changing life at the end of the 20th century.

>From Manhattan and Madrid, the Internet has fundamentally changed
work, recreation - even love. But in Malawi and Mozambique, life
remains very much the same.

More than 80% of people in the world have never heard a dial tone,
let alone sent an email or downloaded information from the World Wide
Web.

"Think how powerful the Internet is. Then remind yourself that fewer
than 2% of people are actually connected," said Larry Irving, former
US assistant secretary of commerce. The power of the Web increases
exponentially with every person who goes online. Imagine what we're
missing."

Facts first

First the figures. The statistics on the basic building block of
connectedness - that is, phone lives - are stark.

According to the latest UN Human Development Report, industrialised
countries, with only 15% of the world's population, are home to 88%
of all Internet users. Less than 1% of people in South Asia are
online even though it is home to one-fifth of the world's population.

The situation is even worse in Africa. With 739 people, there are
only 14 million phone lines. That's fewer than in Manhattan or Tokyo.
Eighty percent of those lines are in only six countries. There are
only 1 million Internet users on the entire continent compared with
10.5 million in the UK.

Even if telecommunications systems were in place, most of the world's
poor would still be excluded from the information revolution because
of illiteracy and a lack of basic computer skills.

In Benin, for example, more than 60% of the population is illiterate.
The other 40% are similarly out of luck. Four-fifths of Websites are
in English, a language understood by only one in 10 people on the
planet.


Barriers

The lack of resources in poor communities can't explain the
technology gap alone.

In the developing world, there is still resistance to the idea that
technology is a quick-fix.

Take the African Virtual University. The World Bank-sponsored
programme has broadcast over 2000 hours of instruction to over 9000
students in all regions of sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative has
allowed AVU students to take courses given by professors from world-
renowned educational institutions in Africa, North America, and
Europe.

That does not impress Ethiopian Meghistab Haile: "With that money
just imagine how many lecturers you could have. If the World Bank is
really wanting to help African universities then the first step would
be to encourage and support the Africans to return back. In the end
it is only the Africans who could solve their problems."
Others complain that high-tech education - available only to a select
elite - is not worth it when so many places on the continent are
still without electricity and running water.
"Our priorities are hygiene, sanitation, safe drinking water," said
Supatra Koirala who works at a private nursing home in Kathmandu.
"How is having access to the Internet going to change that?"


How to close the gap

As the famous Alcoholics Anonymous saying goes: Admitting you have a
problem is the first step to recovery. International organisations,
governments and private institutions are just starting to do this.
When I was first talking about the Internet in the developing world
in 1992, I was called a 'technofascist' and a 'cybercolonist'," said
Larry Irving. "Now I don't get those comments, just questions about
how can we get this - and fast."

Magda Escobar, Executive Director of Plugged In, a non-profit working
to bring technology resources to poor communities in California,
agrees.

The convergence of a lot of different interests has put this on the
agenda," she said. "The general public is interested in having access
to the tech revolution, businesses want to expand their markets,
schools are interested in trying to change the way kids are taught.
Everyone's awareness is coming together at the same time.
Experts like Mr Irving estimate that the Internet will be virtually
global in five to seven years. But for that to happen infrastructure
must be put in place, which means a lot of money - and fast.
The Net may be the wave of the future but age-old problems still
apply.


<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/special_report/1999/10/99/information
_rich_information_poor/newsid_472000/472621.stm>



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