Digital Divide - The Global Divide

THE GLOBAL DIVIDE

The global dynamics of Internet access were expected to undergo some drastic changes through the first decade of the 21st century. While the United States and other western countries led the way in access at the start of the decade, by 2010 the two largest Internet user communities were likely to be China and India, as Internet availability begins to catch up to those countries' populations.

In booming Internet markets, such as Asia, internal disparities play a significant role as well. The Asian Development Bank (ADB), in its report Asian Development Outlook 2000, cautioned against the long-term effects of the limited and uneven development of information technology in the region, noting that, absent the adequate physical and network infrastructure, underdeveloped countries and communities of Asia risked being left even further behind their more developed neighbors when the Internet-based economy really takes hold. Among some key figures highlighting the regional divide, as reported in Asian Business, were the telephone and computer penetration rates in the Philippines, at only 3.7 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively. By way of comparison, the significantly more developed Hong Kong boasted telephone and computer penetration rates of 55.8 percent and 25.4 percent, respectively. Moreover, only 5 percent of public-school students and teachers in the Philippines enjoyed Internet access.

The report concluded that Asian countries should implement policies that encourage the development of a modern telecommunications infrastructure and eliminate regulations that inhibit private investment for such projects. A broad telecommunications and information-technology policy forum was conducted by the Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) eAsean Task Force, which formed in 1999. Meanwhile, the ADB insisted, as important as the technological infrastructure is the development of educational infrastructure and human resources so that the mass of the population can contribute to and take advantage of the blooming Internet culture.

In other regions, such as the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, overall penetration was even lower, and the institutional and infrastructural barriers to bridging the digital divide were generally higher. Precarious political systems and little tradition of a strong, modern industrial and information economy made the building of Internet-ready populations and infrastructures exceptionally difficult to negotiate, though many countries had made important moves in that direction. Some leading companies from more developed nations, moreover, have viewed the Internet development of those regions as a potentially beneficial undertaking, and have initiated donation programs to send computer equipment to and wire schools and community centers in those countries. For example, IBM maintained programs aimed at not only delivering equipment but also at providing hands-on technical training in such countries as Brazil, Mexico, and Vietnam.

Only about 5 percent of the world's population was online as of 2000, and many observers saw this discrepancy as the tip of a much more ominous iceberg. With half the Earth's inhabitants living on less than $2 a day, activists, philanthropic organizations, and, increasingly, businesses and policy makers saw the growing disparities highlighted by the digital divide as the fuel for explosive global instability and potential upheaval that could have severe human and economic costs. President Joaquim Alberto Chissano of Mozambique, for instance, pointed out that the number of Internet hosts in New York City exceeded those in all of Africa. Recognizing such dangers, the Group of Seven (G-7) wealthiest industrialized nations, at their 2000 summit in Okinawa, placed the digital divide on their planning agenda for the first time. At Davos, Switzerland that same year, the World Economic Forum assumed a positive stance, pointing to the digital divide as a "digital opportunity," whereby the remediation of the divide could be a springboard for more systematic reparation of societal inequalities. And, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, major technology companies such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, recognizing the emerging difficulties posed by the digital divide, sponsored an international conference addressing digital inequality.

Among political and business leaders gathered at the United Nations State of the World Forum in 2000, there was an emerging consensus that governments must stress education and technological infrastructure in their national strategies in order to ward off at least the worst excesses of the digital divide. In many countries, the problems to surmount are far more deeply based, including the uprooting of entrenched gender and ethnic discrimination and the quelling of political unrest. But most leaders agreed that the basic issues behind the digital divide were very real and a pressing issue of fundamental social and economic equality that needed to be addressed.