LONDON (PANOS) - A new global task force with an ambitious mission to eliminate the ‘digital divide' - the yawning gap in information technology between the rich and poor - is offering high-tech answers to the world's woes.

But some worry that the initiative, launched by the Group of Eight most industrialised countries (G8), will sideline more urgent efforts to reduce hunger, poverty and the chasm between the haves and have nots of the world.

Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States set up the Digital Opportunity Task Force at the G8 Summit in Okinawa, Japan, in July 2000. Dubbed ‘Dotforce', it comprises representatives from government, nongovernment and business sectors who are meant to come up with recommendations on how information and communications technology - telephones, computers, the Internet and e-commerce - can be harnessed to narrow the digital divide.

Nearly 90 per cent of all Internet users are in industrialised countries, with the US and Canada alone accounting for 57 per cent of the total, according to the International Labour Organisation's World Employment Report 2001. In contrast, Internet users in all of Africa and the Middle East together account for only one per cent of global Internet users.

Other things most of the West takes for granted - television, mobile phones, satellite TV, telephones and even constant electrical power - can be scarce or non-existent in parts of the developing world.

The division is basically between the rich and poor. Those with access to the Internet tend to be better-off, better-educated and urban. Africans, as a whole, have less access than Asians or Latin Americans. Within Africa, people in poorer countries have less access than those in wealthier countries like South Africa.

While the existence of the gap is well established, the relationship between technology and people's development is far more nebulous. Some argue that technology can be harnessed to break down barriers in health, education, market information and international trade.

Nearly 90 percent of all Internet users are in industrialised countries. In contrast, Internet users in all of Africa and the Middle East together account for only one per cent of global Internet users.

Dotforce believes a series of interventions - from policy and regulatory frameworks to training people - are necessary to bridge the digital divide, with efforts supplied by government, business and non-government organisations.

Anuradha Vittachi, director of Oneworld International Foundation, an Internet portal serving NGOs, sees a lack of information and communications technology (ICT) as a barrier to development. "Part of using ICT is to create an enabling environment in which basic citizens' rights are sure to be met," she says. "It's not a secondary issue or a side issue -mobilising public opinion and having good public information are priorities."

Vittachi says that harnessing this technology will help close the poverty gap by "empowering the poor" and giving them the chance to have their voices amplified to decision-makers. She believes efforts toward closing the digital divide encompass other efforts in development, such as health, education and "sustainable wealth creation".

Examples of using technology include: community radio stations, mobile telephones and community centres with television and the Internet. Dotforce has not come up with any recommendations yet but, says Vittachi, "Even if Dotforce doesn't do more than get the point of view across that digital technology can be used to close the socio-economic divide, that is a step forward." To G8 governments, the technology gap is also a barrier to global free trade.

Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) advocates a position of trade liberalisation, arguing that countries need to make the transition from state-run telecommunications monopolies to open, competitive environments, and cut tariffs on imported hardware.

Without reform, DFID says, the costs of using the new information and communication technologies will remain high and access restricted.

Richard Manning, DFID's director-general of resources, warns that Dotforce should not be seen as a one-off, "band-aid solution" for issues like poverty and hunger, nor should it be treading over ground already covered by other initiatives. But, he adds, it is important to explore how information technology can be used in economic development. "The question is to what extent can public policies shape the uptake of this technology," Manning says.

Critics point out that basic problems such as poverty, illiteracy and debt relief must be tackled before wiring the world. For those who live in a villages with no access to safe drinking water or schools, Internet access probably isn't a primary concern.

He says technology can encourage networking, improve communications and forge links between governments and peoples.

Dotforce aims to submit its recommendations at the coming G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, in July. However, the Italian response on the issue has so far been lukewarm. Prime Minister Guiliano Amato has even warned against touting technology above other efforts to give developing nations a boost.

Addressing a London conference on child poverty in February, Amato said, "…let us be frank with ourselves and the world, this [closing the digital divide] is not our immediate task in the sense that the results of these actions are necessarily medium-term
results."

"The immediate increase of Gross Domestic Product in poor countries depends on something else." That "something else", he argued, is immediate action on liberalising trade.

Others point out that basic problems such as poverty, illiteracy and debt relief must be tackled before wiring the world. Seth Amgott, a spokesman at Oxfam America, calls Dotforce "a distraction".

"If you live in a village that is not on the electrical grid, or phone system, which doesn't have access to safe drinking water or a school, the want of a computer or Internet access aren't your primary problems," he says.

Jubilee 2000 UK, which campaigns for debt cancellation, made its own statement after Dotforce was created, by symbolically burning a laptop on Okinawa's beach during the G8 gathering. The successor organisation to Jubilee 2000 UK, Drop the Debt, remains critical of the process. "G8 leaders shouldn't get carried away with a fashionable and intriguing idea which would be of interest to multinationals that want to get their hardware out there," Drop the Debt director Adrian Lovett says.

"While we recognise the longer-term need to bridge the gap in information technology, we want to make sure decision-makers are focused on short-term needs, that is to deal with major communicable diseases causing crisis in Africa, and ensure universal primary education and address continued reduction of debt." Dotforce advocates say the needs go hand in hand.






Contributed by Doug Alexander. Reprinted with permission from Panos.

To read another Global Envision article about technology and its effects on the developing world, see Exiled to Cyberia.