Asia Times: Bridging the 'digital divide'


	January 23, 2001	atimes.com

Media/Information Technology

Bridging the 'digital divide'
By Ramesh Jaura

BONN - Leapfrogging into the future with the help of information technology is a real opportunity for developing countries and poverty reduction. However, efforts to bridge the "digital divide" will succeed only if they are closely allied to the pressing needs of the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Of utmost importance to the developing nations are areas such as health, education and transport.

This was the consensus emerging from a business-government forum and an emerging market forum recently held in Dubai, organized by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Inaugurating the Emerging Market Economy Forum on Electronic Commerce, the Crown Prince of Dubai General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum urged governments and companies in developed countries and multilateral organizations to join forces in an "international gathering devoted to assisting governments and private sectors in developing countries in the area of information technology".

The widening of the knowledge gap is denying most developing countries the opportunity for true participation in the new global economy, thereby exposing them to many risks beginning with the economy and extending to include overall stability and security, the Dubai ruler claimed.

He added: "When we speak of a one world, one global economy, one international media city, we should also remember that security in the world is also indivisible. This in itself is an additional incentive for industrialized countries to assist in facilitating and accelerating entry of developing countries to the digital economy."

Dubai has launched a major investment program associating government spending with private sector initiatives to build an e-commerce hub. Citing this, Sheikh Mohammed called on developing countries to lay the foundations for growth by investing more in education and training and ensuring they have appropriate legislation and regulation for e-commerce development.

OECD secretary-general Donald J Johnston said the developed countries are eager and willing to share their experience and expertise in this area, but he underlined the importance of appropriate regulatory structures in all countries as a stimulus to private investment. He also called on developed nations to assist the world's poorest countries and regions in building the essential infrastructures for e-commerce by opening up their markets to the goods and services of the developing world.

"Not only is the world unsustainable in the long run with billions of people condemned to poverty," Johnston said, "Expanded trade and investment opportunities for OECD members will depend upon sustainable economic growth and social stability in every region of the globe."

As part of international efforts to address the so-called digital divide between nations and citizens with access to advanced communication technology and those without, the OECD is participating in the Digital Opportunity Taskforce set up by the Group of Eight industrial nations last July at their Okinawa summit.

Participants in the Dubai consultations made numerous suggestions for ways to help less-favored countries take full advantage of information and communication technology. Among other things, they called for awareness-building exercises involving senior government officials; for government-backed venture capital funds to support IT initiatives; for publicity for successful pilot projects that can serve as examples to others; and for tax incentives to encourage IT companies to expand their operations in these countries.

"We have been very impressed with what we have learned about what individual governments, civil society organizations and individual firms are doing in their own countries," OECD deputy secretary-general Sally Shelton Colby said. "The challenge is how to build on what is currently being done and on experience of what is successful and what is not."

(Inter Press Service)

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