:: Netwoman ::

:: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 ::

'Digital Divide' Narrowing Fast, World Bank Says

Thu Feb 24, 2005 01:54 PM ET
By Thomas Atkins

GENEVA (Reuters) - The "digital divide" between rich and poor nations is narrowing fast, the World Bank said on Thursday, calling into question a costly United Nations campaign to bring hi-tech telecommunications to the developing world.

As some 1,700 international experts gathered in Geneva to prepare for the U.N.'s World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the World Bank said in a report that telecommunications services to poor countries were growing at an explosive rate.

"The digital divide is rapidly closing," the report said.

"People in the developing world are getting more access at an incredible rate -- far faster than they got access to new technologies in the past."

Half the world's population now enjoys access to a fixed-line telephone, the report said, and 77 percent to a mobile network -- surpassing a WSIS campaign goal that calls for 50 percent access by 2015.

The report said there were 59 million fixed-line or mobile phones in Africa in 2002 -- contradicting Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade's claim at a U.N. news conference last year that there were more telephones in Manhattan than in all of Africa.

"Unless New Yorkers and their commuter friends have 12 phones each, Africa now has many more telephones than Manhattan," the World Bank report said.

MIND THE GAP

The U.N. hopes that widening access within the developing world to technology such as mobile phones and the Internet will help eradicate poverty and build stable democracies.

Poorer countries, particularly from Africa, are expected to repeat calls in Geneva Friday for a "Digital Solidarity Fund" to help finance the infrastructure they say is needed to close the perceived technology gap. But the telecoms industry has already leapt into action to feed demand in booming markets such as Africa, where mobile phone growth has leapfrogged fixed-line communications, to help offset falling customer growth in more mature markets.

To help fuel fierce demand for communications in countries which lack fixed-line alternatives, U.S. mobile phone equipment maker Motorola Corp announced this month it planned to provide an ultra low-cost mobile phone for less than $40 -- aimed at emerging markets. "Developing countries are catching up with the rich world in terms of access," the report said.

"Africa is part of a worldwide trend of rapid rollout ... This applies to countries rich and poor, reformed or not, African, Asian, European and Latin American."

:: Netwoman 11:52 AM [+] ::
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E-included and E-excluded

Poor left stranded by digital divide
By Lucy Sherriff
Published Monday 14th February 2005 17:35 GMT

Income, education and age as the biggest factors in creating the digital divide, according to a European Union report. It reveals that women are taking to technology in greater numbers than ever, and the over-55s are also gaining computer skills. But poor, badly educated people are still lagging behind.

Just to recap: the research has uncovered that people who can't afford a computer, or don't know how to use one, are much less likely to be online that anyone else. Just as well someone found out, really.

The report, eInclusion revisited: the local dimension of the Information Society, concludes that computer skills can help people avoid poverty, and warns that without action, Europe will become increasingly polarised between what it calls the e-included and the e-excluded.

Part of the problem, it says, is that the internet requires literacy, and lots of the content is aimed at highly educated people. It concludes that many people trying to pick up computer skills give up on their courses because none of the content is of interest.

Since it is possible to find almost anything on the net, we are a little perplexed by this conclusion. To horribly misquote Samuel Johnson, we argue that if someone can't find anything interesting online, they are probably not going to be interested in much at all. But the report is quite serious about its conclusions, and warns that being excluded from the online world compounds the difficulties faced by the poor and the long-term unemployed.

Still, the proportion of the European population using the net has not been badly affected by the addition of ten new member states. Before enlargement 43.5 per cent of the population was online. This has fallen to 41.4 per cent. All the new member states have at least 25 per cent of their populations switched on to the web, better than both Greece and Portugal.

:: Netwoman 11:45 AM [+] ::
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Gender and Computing Sources

FYi - Hilde has some amazing publications and conference presentations...so have a look, it's pretty impressive.

:: Netwoman 10:30 AM [+] ::
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Not happy about the snow...

But the dogs are....they love it!

Hard to blog when I have to shovel the driveway!!

:: Netwoman 10:09 AM [+] ::
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