By Anders Wijkman
NewsweekSeptember 2, 2002
In the 10 years since the last earth summit, worthy notions about making life better for the poorest among us without destroying the planet in the process have had little practical impact. This week the leaders in Johannesburg hope to remedy this shortcoming by forging partnerships between governments, NGOs and private companies on specific local issues, such as clean drinking water and renewable energy. But these plans are bound to fail unless they include a way for poor communities to bootstrap themselves out of poverty. Yet wealth creation isn't on the agenda at Johannesburg. That's a shame, because there's a very potent economic weapon at hand that doesn't involve huge capital investments, strip mining, clearing forests or carbon emissions.
I'm talking about information technology. Despite the growing importance of IT, the digital revolution never reached Africa and parts of Latin America and Asia. Concerted efforts to bridge the digital divide have been few and far between. That's because too many people in government and aid agencies seem to believe technology has a role to play only after basic needs are met. If this were so, the poor would have to wait forever. But there's no need for that. Basic welfare and high technology aren't either/or propositions. They go hand in hand.
This is why development organizations ought to invest in wiring the developing world. As latecomers to the digital revolution, developing countries are well placed to take advantage of the latest innovations without being hindered by obsolete technology. A crash program to get these countries on the Internet would bring financial and social benefits, and they might just avoid mistakes the industrialized countries have made, which would be good for the planet as well.
In some isolated instances, connectivity has already improved the living conditions of the poor. Village computer centers help farmers check the going prices for their produce, avoiding arbitrary markups by middlemen. Rural artists and craftsmen in remote villages can reach a global market for their handmade products, thanks to nonprofit Internet sites. The same centers provide distance education and health services. Mauritius's national IT program has attracted small tech companies, and Ghana has started making computers available in schools. Despite these successes, governments continue to discuss sustainable development in the context of industrialization, as if the information revolution did not exist.
A strong component of IT development belongs in any plan to promote sustainable development. We need to bring the Internet to remote villages, along with telemedicine, distance learning, democracy, electoral participation and pollution control and monitoring. We need to make broadband Internet access available to all countries.
Physical resources will always be important, but their role in wealth creation will gradually be eclipsed by that of information. Every child is born with a brain. There's no reason that children in developing nations shouldn't be able to reap the benefits of the information society.
Wijkman is a member of the European Parliament and trustee of the Global Responsibility Foundation, a nonprofit group devoted to sustainable development.
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