Just as education can equalize or divide countries and people, information and communication technologies can go in any direction. At the moment, these technologies, although at times surprisingly advanced in some developing countries, are very unevenly distributed. The resulting “digital divide” is of great concern.
One consequence of the investment binge of recent years is an incredible overcapacity in the world’s communications system. If the world’s 6 billion people spoke nonstop on the phone over the next year, their words could be transmitted in a few hours over currently available bandwidth, the capacity that connects homes and offices with each other and with data providers in the world. all the world.
However, some 2 billion people have never made a phone call. Cities like Manhattan and Tokyo have more phone lines than all of sub-Saharan Africa. Cell phone networks cover only 20 percent of the earth, mostly in rich countries. The telephone density (telephone lines per 100 inhabitants) is 50 to 60 in rich countries, but less than two in poorer developing countries. Even among developing countries, the distribution of telecommunications is skewed: in 1999, ten large developing countries accounted for 80 percent of foreign investment in the sector. Within countries, there are equally wide disparities: in Nepal, urban households are 100 times more likely to have telephones than rural households.
Information technology is distributed even more unevenly.Era of Internet traffic between the United States and Europe is 100 times that of Africa, and thirty times that of Latin America. About 10 percent of the world’s population understands English, the language of 75 percent of all websites. Rich countries have 95% of all Internet hosts, Africa only 0.25%. This has something to do with low phone density: with fewer than five phones per 100, it is almost impossible for a country to jump to would-be Internet connectivity across the country.
Why should we care about this? Because these technologies offer enormous leapfrogging possibilities for developing countries, in so many areas that it has become difficult to imagine a country developing and reducing its poverty levels without them:
Reduction of insulation. Cell phone in Bangladesh shows how a single cell phone per village can become a real business and life saver. In the Andes, satellites that provide telephony in rural areas drastically lower communication costs compared to the slow postal system.
Education. New technologies enable teacher training and the creation of networks that increase the quality of basic education. Children learn basic computer skills through trial and error through “computers on the wall” in slums of India. Business schools reach hundreds of remote locations through interactive distance education in South Africa.
Electronic government. This innovative application is spreading rapidly and shows great promise for improving services to people and reducing opacity, bureaucratic problems, errors and fraud. In Mauritania, an improved budget management system paid for itself within a few months. The government system of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is being computerized, with massive gains in efficiency and transparency.
