huridocs-tech Global Knowledge II Conference

Title: DEVELOPMENT:Developing World Must Exploit Information
Explosion

By Gumisai Mutume

KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 7 (IPS) - Developing countries may miss
the ''remarkable'' opportunities of the information
explosion if they fail to put knowledge at the heart of
their development programmes, warns World Bank President
James Wolfensohn, Tuesday.

He told the opening session of the Global Knowledge II or GK
II conference in the Malaysian capital that within 10 years
it is likely that low-level satellites circulating the earth
will provide high-speed, free access to the Internet.

''With the remarkable opportunities that are offered to us
by the Internet ... It will be possible for us to arrange
for communications to poor communities and for education,
connectivity will be free,'' Wolfensohn says.

He posed a challenge to developing countries to rethink
their development options if they intend to be part of the
emerging information society.

Those that do not accept and prepare for this challenge will
fall back in development he told the Kuala Lumpur conference
in a satellite broadcast from Washington.

GK II, from Mar 7-10, has brought together more than 1,200
representatives from private sector companies,
not-for-profit agencies, intergovernmental organisations and
academics seeking ways to promote universal access to
information and communication technologies (ICTs).

The existing information and knowledge gap between
developing and industrialised nations is well documented.

In Finland more than one out of three people own a computer
and one in 10 are connected to the Internet while in Nigeria
1,000 people share 5 computers and only one in 30,000 people
have Internet access.

The answer to redressing the problem does not only lie in
sending more money to developing countries but in
co-operation between private companies, community
organisations and governments to ensure the transfer of
technology and knowledge to developing countries, says
Wolfensohn.

Yet the challenges ahead present even more daunting tasks to
development planners in poor countries as the information
revolution explodes. In 1998, worldwide electronic commerce
(e- commerce) volumes exceeded the gross domestic products
of the Philippines, Pakistan, Egypt or Nigeria.

''Many of the leading companies in the virtual economy are
located in the developed countries and from there they now
have direct access to the massive developing or emerging
markets without having their goods and services taxed,''
says Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.

''The foregone earnings by the governments of developing
countries will be enormous, but if we stand up for instance
and say that e-commerce should be taxed we will be seen as
being reactionary luddites resisting change which we fail to
comprehend.''

While today there are 400 million personal computers and
about one billion telephones in the world, it is estimated
that within 10 years there may be one billion PCs, one
billion high- definition television sets and 3 billion
telephones.

This will not only offer greater access to some developing
countries, but also multiply the challenges they face.

Martin Khor of the Philippines-based Third World Network
says the development of Internet intelligence is perhaps a
greater challenge for developing countries than improvement
in access. Internet intelligence is the capacity to
discriminate between the mass of information available to
obtain what is appropriate.

Once they achieve higher levels of access, which will occur
in time, developing countries also face the challenges of
getting their populations to participate fully in developing
their own information content in a sector controlled by
large media and communications corporations of the developed
countries.

''What would be more empowering is a reverse flow of
information, messages and values from local communities and
poorer countries to the global centres through the use of
modern ICTs,'' says Khor.

''Many of the values and practices of indigenous and local
communities are most relevant to the principles of
sustainable and human development which are vital if
humanity is to grow in the new millennium. The question is
whether ICT will be used for this reverse flow from the
grassroots to the global levels.''

Currently this seems unlikely as most of the decisions in
information technology, those who monitor its development
effects

and those who draw out its regulatory policies are based in
developed countries.

Institutions of ICT governance include the World Trade
Organisation, the World Intellectual Property Organisation
and the International Telecommunications Union. Although
developing countries are members of these institutions,
these organs remain mainly under the influence of northern
countries.

''In a globalised world in which the virtues of disappearing
borders and greater international co-operation are
trumpeted, the gentleman's agreement that allocates the
leadership of the two most influential international
financial organisations between the US and Europe is
unjust,'' says Malaysia's Badawi.

He was referring to an understanding between the world's two
most powerful regions to only have a US national lead the
World Bank and a European run the International Monetary
Fund.

Most of the member institutions of the Global Knowledge
Partnership --  the grouping which convened the Malaysian
conference and which hopes to map out ICT strategies for
developing countries -- are from the North and include the
United States government, the World Bank, the British
Council, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and several UN agencies.

The GK II conference has been brought to Malaysia owing to,
among others its achievements as it moves toward developing
an information society by the year 2020.

''There will always be inequality in society and I don't
think we can ever eliminate it,'' says Tengku Shariffadeen
of Malaysia's National Information Technology Council.
''However, society has a responsibility to strive to narrow
the gap.

Malaysia is touted as one of the success stories among
developing countries in providing access to new information
technologies. It already boasts cellular phone penetration
rates of one for every 10 people, more and more wired
schools and 21 Internet hosts per 1,000 people under the
'Vision 2020' plan.

But across the world, many societies are not yet organised
to deliver affordable education for all with one sixth of
humanity (850 million people) considered illiterate.

''Soon a country that will not find itself organised for
efficient delivery of affordable, high quality education to
its population will not be in a position to generate wealth
or individual income that is much above the poverty line,''
says Dr Jerzy Szeremeta of the UN Development Programme
(UNDP).

''By their policy choices, countries will either opt in or
opt out from the knowledge based economy.''
(END/IPS/gm/an/00)




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