[p2p-research] does the south need internet?

Mon Feb 22 06:50:18 CET 2010

Hi Frederick,

I wonder if you had any info on this:'
- Intellectuals like
*Govindan Parayil (The Digital Divide and Increasing Returns: Contradictions
of Information Capitalism*) suggest the global threats of doing nothing, and
the more practical and immense efforts of development giants such as Sam
Pitroda (instrumental in creating India’s National Knowledge Commission
amongst many other ICT4D initiatives) show us how to do this on the large
scales that are necessary in our rapidly changing world (some think these
changes lead to more threats than opportunities). But will we follow their
leads?

text

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Walter Brown" <walbrown at mail.ngo.za>
To: <ciresearchers at vancouvercommunity.net>, "'michael gurstein'" <
gurstein at gmail.com>, <mobileactive08 at mobileactive.org>, <
ci-research-sa at vcn.bc.ca>
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:34:24 +0200
Subject: RE: [ciresearchers] "So What Do We Lose if We Don't Have the
Internet"

Dear Michael and interested Ciresearchers,

I sadly find much of this discussion very tedious: Are we really trying to
uplift rural communities in Sri Lanka and other marginalized countries
especially those in Africa, through information and the knowledge derived
from it, or are we promoting very costly technology that rural (and urban
poor) communities will not in our lifetimes (or theirs) afford? While the
rich world, with a small smattering of inspired poor world leaders, race
towards Gbps internet speeds to enable ordinary citizens to participate in
the 21st century knowledge society, we also celebrate the “success” of
mobile phones in the poorest regions with their user price baskets that
often exceed 50% of total incomes of the information poor, as the foremost
instrument of access to knowledge, and the “best practice” way of bridging
the mysterious digital divide. Yes, mobile banking is now available,
enabling financial transactions by the very poor at only 30% or so profit
margins accruing to the service providers that the users have little option
but to accept if they are to be part of the global economy. Sure, a growing
number of shack dwellers in Cape Town and Mumbai can even participate in the
joys of “Facebooking” and “Twitting” over mobile phones, but will they ever
catch up with their luckier global compatriots who can do that AND
download/upload advanced knowledge at 100Mbps on their mobiles and
home/office fixed terminals at less than 2% of their monthly incomes?

And Telecentres? Are they really information access tools, or are they
marketing tools to promote the sales of PCs in 72% of humanity’s unconnected
masses? “So What Do We Lose if We Don’t Have the Internet”? The LIRNEasia
reference in the link Michael provides mentions two interesting uses of
Telecentres:  provision of services such as utility bill payments (much
easier to run as fast as possible away from utility bill payments if your
income is US$1.25 per day), and: “computer training” – (Huh? I can’t even
afford to buy old-fashioned second-hand books to improve my children’s
reading and writing literacy skills, let alone learn how to use a device
that costs a year’s worth of my survivalist income!) Little is said about
the internet itself, or its information content (both good and bad, useful
and irrelevant), or how such information can be accessed without the
frightening prospects of becoming “computer literate” on a device that will
never be affordable. Telecentres can be likened to public telephone systems
that served the developed countries so well during the early ICT era, but
they were never perceived to be long-term solutions for development. They
were temporary bridges that were mostly broken or vandalized, costly to
maintain, to be replaced as soon as possible by individual access to
information terminals. I am not so sure that this perception of Telecentres
is shared by many development researchers and activists.

I recall my youth in an African marginalized community, literally “burning
the midnight oil” acquiring maths, science, English literacy (and English
history of course) by candlelight, and wonder how my career would have
evolved if I had to use a Telecentre to acquire all that early knowledge
that empowers me to write this email. Our governments and educational
authorities “pooh-poohed” Negroponte’s noble attempts at delivering books in
their electronic forms to 72% of the world’s knowledge-deprived children, in
favor of PC Labs (a formal educational version of the Telecentre that
children will learn to use in the allocated half hour a week access
intervals if they are lucky?), and now “Kindles” or their competitive
products while we still battle against mounting odds to provide
old-fashioned reading and writing materials to remote village and urban
shack-dwelling children and their parents.  Few flames of knowledge in
marginalized communities will be “kindled” by modern information
technologies unless we rethink the whole process of development through
ICTs.

Mobile telephones and Telecentres will continue to be useful tools for
development, but we should not kid ourselves that they will bridge the
growing divides between rich and poor, techno haves and have-nots, and
info-rich and info-poor. There is enough evidence to suggest that they are
in fact contributing towards growth of those divides. And those divides have
little to do with “digits” – try explaining to a rural African dweller that
it is the lack of “digits” that is keeping him or her marginalized and poor!

In my humble opinion, ICTs are the principal source of hope for halting
first and then narrowing the growing gap between the 28% “have everything”
global community and the 72% “have very little” population, but we should
re-think how we should use ICTs to make a real difference in time before
disaster hits. Intellectuals like Govindan Parayil (The Digital Divide and
Increasing Returns: Contradictions of Information Capitalism) suggest the
global threats of doing nothing, and the more practical and immense efforts
of development giants such as Sam Pitroda (instrumental in creating India’s
National Knowledge Commission amongst many other ICT4D initiatives) show us
how to do this on the large scales that are necessary in our rapidly
changing world (some think these changes lead to more threats than
opportunities). But will we follow their leads?

I think that the most urgent need is for developing countries to eschew the
idea that we can take expensive technologies such as those emanating from
the rich world and apply them as is in the developing world to “develop” the
very poor. They are of course necessary and vital in the segments of
developing countries that have partially overcome knowledge and
affordability inequalities, but these remain unrepresentative of the
communities that this communication addresses. Innovation for development
must, in my opinion, begin with a serious search for practical pro-poor ICT
solutions that will place useful information and knowledge (i.e. more than
the “please call me” sms of mobile phones in really poor communities) in the
individual hands of rural villagers and their urban shack dweller relatives.
Maybe a $10 PC? Anything else will just add to the growing gaps in
development and opportunity, and the growing anger and instability that
results from it. There are numerous technological tools to do this, and the
business and economic opportunities that support the required innovations,
but the will to apply them seems lacking amongst the political leaders that
run the developing world, the technocrats and researchers that find
livelihoods through “helping” the developing world, and the business and
economic leaders in the developing world who profit from the use of ICTs,
and those in the developed world that pay lip service to helping the former
rise out of their inequality traps. The process must be driven by the
developing countries’ leaders themselves, for without this, we will continue
trying to convince the parents of children who survive on a few dollars a
day to invest in information tools that cost up to ten times their annual
incomes.

The burning question for CI Researchers in my opinion is “How can policy
makers, business and economic leaders, academic and related research
institutions and organizations, and the whole development community, refocus
their attention on finding solutions to providing high quality affordable
information directly to individuals in marginalized communities?”  and “How
can marginalized communities and individuals be made aware of the power of
ICT4D and begin to demand affordable high quality information services?” And
the emphasis on finding answers to these questions must focus on “doing”
more than just knowing the underlying theories of how to or why it does not
get done.

Walter

-- 
Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think thank:
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

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