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Information and communication technologies can make a crucial contribution in poverty eradication and aiding development, but only if urgent action is taken to improve infrastructure and connectivity, say experts
While information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play a key role in efforts to meet the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), one in six people worldwide still do not have access to a telephone, experts at a recent global ICT conference were told. Worse, nearly one-third of villages lack any communication technologies.
Addressing 400-odd delegates at 'Scaling Science and Technology to Meet the Millennium Development Goals', held during the recent UN Millennium Summit, Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said: "At present, 1 billion people in the world do not have access to a telephone...(and) around 800,000 villages, or 30% of all villages worldwide, are still without any type of connection."
What's more, despite the growth in these technologies, the United Nations Millennium Project says the 'digital divide' between those in poor countries who can connect to global information networks and those who still lack access continues to widen.
Connectivity and infrastructure are stabilising factors, vital for development and ridding the world of poverty, Jose Antonio Ocampo, chairperson of the United Nations taskforce on ICTs told the conference. "From Africa to East Asia, the challenge of scaling up physical connectivity -- telecommunications, ICT, media -- are more vital than ever."
Progress towards reaching the MDGs has been mixed at best, according to the ICT taskforce. It cites various reasons, including slow growth in the world economy, slow progress in reform among developing countries, and inadequate support from developed countries.
The past decade has witnessed the most dramatic growth in the history of global computing and communications, with potential for the near total spread of the wired and wireless Internet.
However, the gap between those developing countries now empowered by the fundamental right of access to local and global networks of knowledge and information, and others still impoverished by the practical denial of that right, is widening and as marked as ever, according to the Millennium Project. "We must not allow the progress in science and technology to widen disparities which already exist between the rich and the poor," Badawi stressed.
Leonel Fernandez Reyna, president of the Dominican Republic said that his administration had already noted a widening of disparities in his country -- rich children in private schools were learning about computers and ICT, while poorer children in public schools were not. Reyna's government successfully initiated a plan to put computer labs, with 20 computers each, in every public high school in the country. The plan is being expanded to middle schools and primary schools.
Many participants at the ICT conference, including Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, suggested creating "virtual universities" so that students would not have to travel to the United States or Europe, but could get the same degrees at home.
Without this sharp focus and vision from leaders of governments in developing and developed countries, donor agencies, the private sector and civil society, and international organisations, implementation of the MDGs in many instances will be impractical and, in some cases, impossible, Ocampo warned. "The millennium development agenda is still achievable globally and in most or even all countries, but only if we break with business as usual and dramatically accelerate and scale up action until 2015, beginning in 2005."
Source: www.scidev.net, September 16, 2005
www.ipsnews.net, September 14, 2005
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