Netting the World ... in the Palm of Your Hand.

Bridging communications gaps and meeting its challenges have been tough issues facing small island developing States (SIDS) in terms of their isolation, fragmentation, and geographical and infrastructural diversities.

Taholo Kami, Manager of the New York-based United Nations Small Island Developing States Network's (SIDSnet) Internet project explains that "transmission of an average fax costs $2 to $3 in the Pacific, whereas hosting 10 pages of information via the Internet costs about $5 to $25 a month and targets a much greater audience."

Mr. Kami, one of the few Pacific Island experts on the Internet, says despite access being relatively expensive for some small islands, the Web still works out cheaper in the long term as it provides instant access to over 150 million people in relevant markets and greatly reduces communication costs. "It's God's gift to the islands as it addresses the issues of isolation and of small, fragmented markets which are pertinent to small island developing States."

The Pacific Islands have been slower than other world regions to climb onto the information superhighway, due to varying literacy levels, vernacular diversities, insufficient human, technical and financial resources, geography and infrastructural factors. "We need," Mr. Kami says, "applications that work in today's limited small island infrastructures, not just tomorrow's ideal affordable and fast connections. The net can provide access to developmental information and influence every sector of the economy. Applications such as e-commerce allow access to markets for local goods, and distance education can be used to provide education to any sector or provide institutional strengthening through teacher education."

The network's newswire provides a reliable means of obtaining development news from and among island countries.

"For instance, Fiji-based NGO can access SIDSnet development news from Mauritius or Jamaica, or the NGO can post its own news on the site", Mr. Kami explains.

"The Web allows the greater island community to interact on national and global levels and strengthens cultural issues. When weighed against the cost of communications and access to greater markets, the positives outweigh the negatives."

SIDSnet sees a future role in providing a reporting mechanism for regional meetings through a pool of trained journalists, with a development-focused mandate covering international and regional meetings. Mr. Kami endorses and advocates the idea of training and institutional strengthening to make the web friendlier and more accessible, and to provide women and women's groups with the basic skills and understanding needed to effectively utilize and become directly involved in this medium.

"Awareness and capacity building are also necessary and these are priorities of SIDSnet workshops", Mr. Kami says.

These are planned for the Pacific, the Caribbean, African and Indian Ocean regions from now to December, and include the use of the Internet as a development tool in the areas of distance education and tele-medicine and general overviews of the SIDSnet project. SIDSnet is also working with the Government of Tokelau in the Pacific to provide local e-mail access before the end of 1999.

That national participation on the Internet should be a major priority, says Mr. Kami. "This will be driven by relevant and affordable applications that will make access to the net more effective as access and affordability are current factors restricting further use on a national level."

SIDSnet is a community of 42 Pacific, Caribbean, Atlantic, Indian Ocean and African small island nations connected through a global Internet-based network. It aims to improve the way in which people in developing countries live, work and communicate through increasing access to information, in particular on sustainable development issues, and provides for virtual global connectedness. SIDSnet managed to obtain some 153,000 hits on its website from over 90 countries in August, a total of 50,000 more than in the preceding month.