Is the Internet Africa’s salvation?
Least developed countries (LCDs), and others more economically advanced, seem ill-prepared to benefit from opportunities presented by the Internet because they lack the physical and human capital, along with the institutions required to exploit the e-economy. It’s a trap to be wary of.
This is the view of economist, Charles Kenny at United Nations University.
ICT can help address poverty. There are increasing examples in multiple domains where ICT is being used to beat back poverty. Moreover, there are a growing number of scenarios where aspects of poverty will not be addressed without ICTs.
And that is the opinion of Alan Greenberg, a Canadian ICT consultant with the Swedish International Development Agency, SIDA.
“The hope is widespread that the Internet will provide a powerful new tool in the battle against global poverty,” says Kenny, quoting the G8’s Charter on the Global Information Society that declared: IT is one of the most potent forces in shaping the 21st century. It is fast becoming a vital engine of growth for the world economy – enormous opportunities are there to be seized and shared by us all. However, he declares himself sceptical at the likely impact of the Internet on long-term economic growth rates in developing countries, and this should be worrying form those pinning LDC growth prospects on ICT rollout.
Kenny believes that physical access is the least significant carrier to the exploitation of ICT technology, a point of view supported by low Internet usage rates even where access is available in developing countries. A survey of Tanzanian firms found that computer usage is low even in firms that own a computer – only 20 percent had actually computerised basic business functions such as invoicing. “Internet use was also low; amongst the 30 percent who had access, less than half used it frequently and only 13 percent rated it as an effective product promotion tool.”
Those benefiting most from IT investments are the better educated and more highly skilled. The great majority of users in the developing world are from the most educated sector of the population. In Ethiopia, 98 percent of Internet users have a university degree. “Advanced education – of the greatest value in a global knowledge economy is rare in LCDs,” says Kenny. “Skills gaps are likely to remain in LCD populations because with per-student discretionary expenses in secondary schools running as low as $12 a year, the majority of schooling in developing countries cannot afford the technology, training and running of IT labs.
A further important aspect is the significant language skills gap, with perhaps half of the populations of least developed countries not speaking an official language of their own country – let alone English, the predominant language of the Internet. The number of sites that can be found in Ibo – spoken by 15 million people in Nigeria – can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The combination of low network rollout, low skills and a poor institutional environment could leave LCDs stuck in a low-use, low-utility Internet trap. With few firms and individuals induced to move online, the utility of the Internet will remain low.
There is compelling evidence of the Internet trap in LCDs. For example, the Tanzania survey found that low Internet usage was due in part to entrepreneurs simply not knowing how to make use of it, and helps to explain the extent of the “digital divide” in terms of access to the Internet. “Low income countries account for 40 percent of the world’s population and 11 percent of its gross national income,” relates Kenny. “Yet, of the 242 million Internet users worldwide in 1999, only 5 million, or 2 percent were in low income countries. Of about 111 000 secure servers worldwide that use encryption technologies in Internet transactions, only 0,2 percent are in low income countries.” That percentage might not have improved much today.
Kenny cautions that the Internet can widen the gap between rich and poor. “The fact that general technologies are important for growth, and that rich countries today are by and large the countries that were rich 50 or 100 years ago, suggests that average technology probably has a larger impact on growth prospects in wealthy countries than in poor countries, further concentrating growth in a few geographic areas.”
SIDA’s Alan Greenberg insists that IT is vital in poverty alleviation and goes on to list a number of areas where ICTs are demonstrably helping to alleviate poverty. “The focus is on using ICT as a tool to help address some aspects of poverty and not of finding interesting g uses for the latest IT fad,” he says. The represent situations where major strides can be made in poverty alleviation while controlling the risks of failure on non-sustainability.
Addressing communications and community access, Greenberg says that in addition in helping to improve livelihoods, healthcare and education, communication addresses other aspects of poverty. He points out that humans are social animals and communication in all forms helps foster feelings of well-being and empowerment. “Radio, telephone and Internet-based communications all have applicable uses,” he says. “With the advent of low-cost mobile accessibility has been revolutionised. In many rural areas, over 80 percent of households make regular use of the telephone whereas five years ago the figure was less than 5 percent. Both radio and telephone can operate regardless of languages spoken and do not require literacy.”
Internet-based communications can be as effective, but the resource thresholds are far higher, typically requiring higher-quality communications, electricity, infrastructure and literacy in a computer-supported language.
Greenberg maintains that there are two prime factors to success in education. The first is to ensure that the pre-requisite resources are deployed. “Installing computers in schools makes no sense without computer qualified teachers and without technical support to keep them working. The second is to deploy ICT resources widely enough to benefit the country – which is an expensive and long-term commitment.
ICTs have also been found effective at both enhancing traditional livelihoods and at allowing the creation of new ones. Examples include weather watches for farmers, web-based business and telephone access resellers. The variety of opportunities and challenges are so diverse that it is difficult to apply general rules.
There has been significant focus on using ICTs to actually deliver healthcare via telemedicine and as a way of educating people on healthcare issues. Despite low-tech ICT applications pilot programmes have shown improvements such as a 50 percent reduction in morality or 25 percent – 50 percent improvement in productivity.
The latest edition of UNCTAD’s Information Economy Report shows that while the number of Internet users has grown substantially in some developing regions, overall the gap between developed and developing countries remains wide and is probably increasing. It also stresses that the quality of connections is just as important as their number. While some countries have seen spectacular growth in broadband access, there are still large variations worldwide.
Information and communication technology ought to be a significant growth driver for least developed countries, but its outreach to the poor, even in its most basic forms, is slow and sporadic, and its application when it arrives, frustratingly intermittent or not at all. Programmes are hyped up i
n the media by governments and other providers but few succeed or are sustained. ICT concentrations are ill-conceived; improved and affordable basic telecommunications infrastructure will better help rural economies and provide more effective administration. The sharing of knowledge can make production more efficient. Because the LDCs are slower in adapting to new ICT, they are typically one step behind developed countries in ICT usage. In addition, the LDCs have largely not been able to exploit the potential network effects from ICTs because of language issues, English in particular.
A possible remedy, on top of a massive IT user education rollout, would be to encourage competition in order to depress consumer ICT prices, increase the use of ICT and enhance ICT-led growth. Another remedy would be to increase consumer confidence in online business by enhancing the institutional framework.
There is an urgent need to help LCDs use ICT to enhance their competitiveness. Strategies are needed to ease the transition of developing countries to an information economy to embrace a broad range of social and economic manifestations, including the Internet and e-business.
Source: John Etkind BiA Online
Loading ...