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REPORTS: COMMUNICATIONS |
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Three
Who Are Not a Crowd
Raúl
Pierri
MONTEVIDEO, (IPS) - The state, civil
society and the private sector must work
together to foment more widespread use
of the latest information technologies,
which are vital for the economic and
social development of all countries, say
experts from the sector.
The World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS), to take place Dec. 10-12
in Geneva, will have to achieve
coordination among these three sectors,
which need not be in conflict, says
Richard Fuchs, director of the
information and communication
technologies division at the
International Development Research
Centre (IDRC).
In the preparatory meetings for the WSIS,
organised by the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) and
sponsored by the United Nations, there
has been a clash between the vision of
new technologies at the service of
business and that of new technologies to
benefit the world's poor populations.
But Fuchs said during a recent visit to
the Latin American and Caribbean
regional office of the IDRC in
Montevideo that a balance can be
achieved between these two approaches.
And he stressed that civil society and
the state cannot succeed without the
private sector.
”Civil society can bring these
technologies to people with problems
such as education and low income. But
civil society cannot do that without
contact with the social world, which
includes the state, the private sector
and international organisations,” he
explained.
Furthermore, ”the role of the state is
to embrace civil society and understand
that what it does is create skills that
create opportunities for the private
sector -- and revenues for the state.”
The IDRC official noted that there is a
”strong relationship between civil
society, the state and the private
sector that can be complementary, it can
also compete, but it need not
necessarily always be in conflict.”
The Canadian parliament created the IDRC
in 1970 to finance scientific research
that would contribute to development in
the world's poor regions, primarily
Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Representatives of government, business,
non-governmental organisations and mass
communications will gather for the WSIS
in December to discuss ways to
coordinate policies in order to bridge
the ”digital divide”, in other
words, the disadvantage that the
developing South suffers with respect to
the industrialised North when it comes
to information and communication
technologies (ICT).
The ITU estimates there are 500 million
Internet users worldwide, but 80 percent
are in industrialised countries. Just
one of every 50 inhabitants of the
developing South has access to the world
wide web. In the North, that ratio is
two of five.
The WSIS also aims to help ICT-related
industries, which have excess production
capacity in the countries of the North,
so that they can develop channels to
supply the markets of the South.
But civil society is demanding that the
summit take action on other issues, such
as promoting cultural and linguistic
diversity, improved content and
development of communications media,
democracy, equality of opportunity and
freedom of expression.
The second phase of the WSIS, intended
as a follow-up of the plans implemented
in the first phase, is scheduled to
begin with another summit in Tunis, Nov.
16-18, 2005.
The Geneva Summit ”is just another
step in the process by which these
technologies become appropriate in
development,” Fuchs said in a
conversation with IPS.
The expert was in Montevideo to take
part in meetings involving the Institute
for Connectivity in the Americas (ICA),
promoted by the IDRC and other Canadian
agencies, to foment policies for the
development of information technologies
in the region.
Ben Petrazzini, chief programme
specialist at ICA, noted that the
principal obstacle for making
information technologies more widely
available in the developing South is not
economic limitations but rather the
mentality of the political elite.
”There is an inability amongst the
governing elite to recognise the
enormous potential of technology and to
move beyond the 'status quo'. Many poor
countries are making it very difficult
to make the transition from the
traditional system to a new, more
competitive system,” said Petrazzini.
The costs of technology and
infrastructure ”are falling
dramatically,” he noted in a
conversation with IPS.
”It is no longer a matter of
sacrificing, for example, an education
budget in order to purchase computers.
Computers would cost about the same as
savings from efficient management of the
paperwork of the educational system,”
said Petrazzini.
According to the experts, governments
should work together to create stable
economic conditions and legal frameworks
favourable to ICT industry activity.
Fuchs stressed, ”We have to help them
(governments) to learn that technologies
make other activities more productive
and less expensive.”
”We have found through our work in
very poor countries in Africa that if we
are able to get the political elite
interested in these technologies, at the
same time as we are animating the
interest of civil society organisations,
the actual policies developed will
benefit the poor,” he said.
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