Internet: A Tool for Sustainable Human Development?

Who will make the most of the information revolution - the developed or the developing countries?

Does the cost of communication compel countries to turn their backs on its potential?

Does the freedom of the net inhibit the ability to assert creative - and commercial - rights?

Will "cybersquatters" pounce on empty chairs while the musician's gaze is diverted?

The invention of the Internet has been compared to the invention of the wheel, the semiconductor or the steam engine. And the vision of a global information society in which people travel at high speed on a virtual cyberhighway, connecting through mouse clicks even the remotest corners of the world, gained credibility since the Internet became accessible to a broad audience in the early 1990s.

But while this utopia of "global connectivity" has come true to a certain extent for the highly industrialized world with easy access to computers, developing countries which lack infrastructure, computers and skilled users find themselves left out from reaping the fruits of the "information revolution".

The United Nations through various programmes tries to counteract this development. The Working Group on Informatics, established by the General Assembly in 1994, coordinates the United Nations system's information technology use.

"In the UN, we are trying to firstly create awareness among Member States and the Permanent Missions: to get them access to the Internet, teach them how to use computers and to write their own webpages. And once you have achieved this, to hope that this will trickle down from the Permanent Missions to their respective countries", said Ahmad Kamal, Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and the Working Group's Chairman, in an interview with the UN Chronicle. "More and more people have started to use computers and e-mail. We have made a lot of progress and I hope we will continue to do so."

The Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) aims at bridging the gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" of access to information through field work in a number of developing countries. When the Programme was hunched by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1992 as a result of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, there was a lot of scepticism about using information technology, such as the Internet and e-mail, as a tool for sustainable human development in developing countries. "People did not see the benefit of having access to information for development. They would ask: Is this about development or computers?" recalls Raul Zambrano, Technical Adviser of SDNP, in a conversation with the UN Chronicle. "SDNP even faced some internal resistance because UNDP thought information technology was not a developmental priority."

But resistance to information technology as a developmental tool has dwindled and UNDP, as well as other organizations of the UN system such as the World Bank, have made increasing use of information technology in their respective development projects.

"Information is a powerful tool, especially for the have-nots, but it is not a panacea. Still, it can help individuals to better their lives", says Mr. Zambrano. SDNP establishes computing facilities in developing countries, both in rural and urban areas, connecting communities to the Internet. Information technology experts assist in setting up a website in each country, and staff is hired and paid by the Programme to manage the project. Currently, SDNP is running operations in 40 countries and considering expansion to an additional 35 States. With only $14 million to spend in six years, the Programme has made good use of its tight budget. SDNP's success is based on the concept of self-reliance; countries keep control of the projects through the so-called national steering committees that bring together government officials, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the business sector. The project manager answers to the committee in which the local UNDP office has only a voice but not a vote. "UNDP does not have the resources to change countries in a structural way. We only plant a small seed hoping that somebody richer can keep the effort going", says Raul Zambrano.

Connecting people to the Internet, however, does not pose as major a problem as it once did. The price of hardware has fallen considerably since the beginning of this decade. As the market for information and communication technologies is rapidly growing, multiple Internet service providers have sprung up in developing countries, although basic infrastructural necessities such as electricity and telephone lines are still lacking in many places. "When we started in Pakistan in 1993, we were the first ones to set up e-mail in four cities in the country. Today, you can find 25 Internet service providers selling the same services to the public", according to Mr. Zambrano. The main problem at the start of the programme was of a less tangible nature. "We faced the interesting challenge of basically trying to change the culture of the people in the use of information technology tools to exchange information. And that was one of the major constraints; it was not computers", he stresses.

Thus, SDNP focuses on opacity-building - teaching people how to use information technology for their needs and content development. "We emphasize developing national information sources like databases to be shared by everybody nationally and internationally", explains the SDNP Technical Adviser. The goal is to help developing countries to retain these national information sources, rather than seeing them exported to developed countries. To do that, SDNP helps to supply the technical requirements - expertise, hardware and software - to set up such online information systems.

You Cannot Drop Information Technology Like a Bomb and Run Away'

Practically, how does information technology benefit people in developing nations? How does one get a farmer, who can neither read nor write, from his field to the computer? And for what reason? The answer lies in the fact that most of the information is mediated. "These people don't touch the computer. You need an NGO that people trust" Mr. Zambrano stresses. These NGOs, empowered with knowledge through information technology, pass the information along to those who need it. In Mexico, for instance, SDNP has set up an inform on centre for corn producers in a region north of Mexico City. There, the farmers can find out online what the market price of corn is in the capital With this important information, they avoid underselling their crops. Other information centres have been set up in Jamaica, Guatemala, Honduras and Costa Rica. UNDP, through its Information and Communication Technology for Development Programme launched in 1997, has set up similar tele-centres in Egypt and South Africa. UNDP's regional offices in Africa, Asia and Latin America have also started internet initiatives in close cooperation with locals.

Since illiteracy is a main obstacle to the spread of information in developing countries, computers and their audio-visual features present great

advantages: a mouse click on a visual image and a user can listen to information. This way of exchanging knowledge also works the other way around. "For example, we are working with an NGO in the countryside in Guatemala that is trying to capture women's traditions on video. We help these women to film in the communities and to put these images on the Internet so that they are preserved. We also record the women", explains the SDNP Technical Adviser.

SDNP's long-term goal is to enable communities to manage these information centres independently. "You cannot drop information technology like a bomb and run away. That does not work. You have to train people, show them how to use it in a way that can help them, and that takes time, a lot of time", Mr. Zambrano says. He is concerned about the widening gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots" of knowledge. According to Ambassador Kamal, "knowledge about the problems, knowledge about the technology and the ability to fund it are key to development". In this regard, he is optimistic that the Internet can serve as "an equalizer for developing countries".