Appropriate policies necessary to build Information Society

By Aloyce Menda of JUSTA-AFRICA

Prominent scholars like sociologist Manuel Castells of The Network Society, predicts that the social implication of the current information revolution will be as profound as those of the agricultural revolution and the later industrial revolution of the 19th Century.

"Where is the money for bridging the digital divide and building Information Society?" “How do we acquire the expertise to develop infrastructure and install the necessary Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)?”

These are questions asked often by many people in developing countries whenever informed about the benefits of applying ICT in their daily activities, says Harry Hare, the east African manager of the African Information Technology Exhibitions and Conferences (AITEC). While stakeholders in the ICT sectors are probing hard for solutions, policy architects at local and international level are facing tough challenges and dilemmas in transforming the intellectual attitudes of bureaucrats and hard-line politicians toward modernization and sustainable development.

Head of States and the top government bureaucrats would like to question policy proposals, why the format of annual national budgets should be rectified to allocate more money for introducing ICT lessons in schools, while some schools lack essential facilities such as electricity, telephone and enough desks.

In Tanzania for instance, it was only after foreign donors’ pressure and promise to support that the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) accepted, and started implementation of a strategy to introduce ICT as a compulsory subject and teaching aid in all secondary schools. ICT training in teachers’ colleges started after Agreement signing on May 17, 2005 between the Swedish Embassy in Dar es Salaam and MoEC. In the Agreement, the Swedish International Agency for Development Aid (SIDA) pledged to grant Tshs. four billion (approx. US$ four million) in support of the project.

Nevertheless, some bureaucratic officials are asking: “What is the future benefit of ICT training in Tanzanian schools whilst most of students’ guardians are peasant farmers who still use the archaic hand-tools that do not enable them to produce beyond subsistence level?” “Can ICT knowledge alleviate rural poverty?” Covering 937,062 square kilometers of country size, Tanzania has a huge potential for agriculture with an estimated 43 million hectares suitable for farming. However, only an average of 6.3 million hectares are cultivated annually mostly by peasant farmers. Yet, about 80 % of the Tanzanian population of 3.4 million is rural and relies on agriculture for livelihood.

Deemed as the spine of the economy since independence from Britain in 1961, the agricultural sector is poorly performing and its current contribution to GDP is only 50 % though it employs over 70 % of national labour force. According to government statistics, an overall real agricultural GDP has been growing at an average rate of only about 3.5 % per annum since 1981.

In Tanzania like most developing countries, a policy proposal often faces criticisms based on prioritization challenges. Should the meager state resources go in education, ICT training in particular, or in modernizing the ailing agricultural sector to alleviate extensive rural poverty? Even authorities in the higher learning institutions find it hard to influence bureaucrats and source government funds, says Charles Senkondo; the director of the Dar es Salaam based Tanzania Global Development Learning Center (TGDLC). The center is a government project funded by the World Bank and it offers training courses through distant learning programs.

The National ICT Policy of Tanzania released in March 2003 passed prioritization challenges as well but has yet to address some criticisms. “What are the future benefits of ICT in the impoverished rural Tanzania?” and “Where would the money for bridging the digital-divide come from?”

In 2001, Tanzania was listed among nine technological marginalized countries in the UNDP’s Technology Achievement Index. According to the National ICT Policy, most of ICT services are limited to urban areas due to the lack of telecommunication networks and electricity in most rural areas. An official record indicates that by 2002, Tanzania had a low tele-density, at 12 telephone lines per 1,000 people for the fixed and mobile cellular lines. The mobile phone subscribers were 81 per 10,000 people. Dar es Salaam, the de-facto capital, had five fixed lines and 10 mobile phone subscribers per 100 people.

The fragile Information Society in Tanzania faces the problem of low capacity and costly Internet connectivity. Today the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) has licensed less than a dozen companies to provide public data communication services including Internet bandwidth. According to the National ICT Policy, these data operators have isolated initiatives of connecting their Points-of-Presence (PoPs) to the global Internet backbone. As a result, Tanzania lacks cheaper and high capacity connections to the global Internet. “All connections, regardless of data service provider are small capacity international links that connect to the global Internet back-bone in different countries such as Norway and the United States,” says the policy.

As Globalization broadens, a global knowledge and information society is emerging, across all nations including Tanzania. Today knowledge and information are significant factors for production and services and attain ever more value. They affect the international division of labor, determine the competitiveness of economies and corporations, breed new growth patterns and in the process generate new products, jobs and livelihoods.

ICT propel these processes, cut across all sectors and impact on virtually all human and societal activities. ICT infrastructures are a conveyer belt for sources that generate, access, disseminate and share knowledge, data, information, communications and best practices worldwide. Globally, the potentials and undeniably impact of modern ICT are widely felt. They can foster and facilitate sustainable development, assist in the fight against poverty and strengthen informed and participatory decision-making and governance at all levels.
Modern ICT have additional fascinating feature: they can empower the technologically poor societies to “leapfrog” across several generations and stages of technology, towards sustainable development. Previously, such a process took centuries. ICT are therefore a cost-effective and efficient option that could help all societies attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set by the United Nations.
Harnessing resources for ICT projects
Currently, foreign donors are funding most of ICT projects in developing countries. Nevertheless, the key challenge remains unsolved: “Where are the local resources for bridging the digital-divide and building Information Society in developing countries?”

Some stakeholders in the ICT sectors think local resources are currently not available hence the developed countries should increase development assistance to developing countries. On the contrary there are stakeholders who think otherwise. These think local resources are available but policy changes are necessary to diverge the resources towards adoption of ICT in all economic sectors. They believe ICT appliance would eventually empower poor communities to enable them generate resources locally for bridging the digital-divide.

These contradictory opinions are more or less like the ancient “chicken and egg” debate. What should be the initial strategy in searching funds? While the debate is going on, the annoying fact is; the official development aid from industrialized countries is not reliable and often not timely. Bonded with that fact is the inevitable reality that: "The gap between the minority affluent elite and poor ignorant majority will widen, opening the possibility to increased marginalization unless developing countries become full actors in the global information revolution”. The gap will increase the likelihood of cultural, religious and tribal ghettos leading to regional and inter-regional conflicts. Africa would be the most affected continent amid the risk of sliding farther behind than ever.

According to Dr. Martin Hall, the director of the Multimedia Education Group, a project based at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, over the last few years, low-cost electronic communication links to African countries have been established through small local networks. For the moment, most Africans wanting access to the Internet are dependent on the telephonic intervention of third parties, usually in the United States.

African network users are now lobbying their governments to improve and augment telecommunications infrastructure, particularly to spend the US$100 000 to $500 000 necessary to buy each country a "leased line connection." These lines eliminate the need for that third-party middleman (or his pre-programmed computer) and allow direct and almost instantaneous links to the Internet.

Dr. Hall says that up to 1995 seven African countries (Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Tunisia) had direct links to the Internet. Others were planning for full Internet connectivity. There are, in addition, several African initiatives to build capacity in networking and Internet connectivity. “It is difficult to introduce and maintain electronic networks in Africa, but it is not impossible,” remarks Dr, Hall in one of his publications.

Mobile phone technology is another efficient ICT that marches parallel with the Internet in boosting telecommunication. Cellular phones also known as mobile phones are no doubt, the most famous tool of all modern ICTs in Africa today. Only broadcasting FM radios, matches mobile phone operations in popularity amongst the ICTs. In contrast to the broadcast technologies that were the mark of modernism (radio and television) the digital wireless phone technology allows anyone to send a signal, and to choose which signal to receive. The message is free from the definition of the medium, and the consequences are intense.

Currently, Africa is the world's fastest-growing mobile phone market. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) says mobile phones users are increasing at an annual rate of 65%, more than twice the global average. Mobile phone companies are making a fortune as more Africans have begun using phones since 2000 than in the whole of the previous century. Today mobile phone users exceed users of fixed line phones in Africa.

However, like fixed lines concentrations, most of cellular phones are used by the urbanized minority and affluent elite. The poor African majority cannot afford cellular phones and hence need alternative cost-effective solutions. Amicable records shows that ten years ago, two consultants, Shahid Akhtar and Luc Laviolette briefed the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), that: "Africa's information infrastructure is by far the least developed in the world. Technical statistics consistently show that Africans have the smallest number of telephone lines per capita, the most restricted access to computer equipment, the most primitive information networks, and the most inaccessible media systems."

Despite poor communication infrastructure, military spending is increasing in most African countries along with emergence of new conflicts and civil wars. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), towards the end of last millennium, internal conflicts were recorded in more than a quarter (eleven states) of all 44 states in the sub-Saharan region and “in many cases no end seems in sight”

IISS said South Africa leads in Africa with high defense budget, despite elimination of apartheid and internal conflict in 1994. South Africa has an information technology infrastructure that is comparable to Europe, in terms of standards and is currently ranked 17th in the world in terms of total Internet hosts. However, within the same country, there is a broad digital-divide. In 2000 estimates, there were more than 500,000 Internet users but majority of them were the affluent white minority of the population.

The South Africa’s budget for defense is almost a quarter (25%) of the entire sub-Sahara region. Nigeria follows with 20%. Almost all countries of the east, west and central Africa are increasing military expenditure, according to the records of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) filtered from the Internet.

Angola with dilapidated infrastructures, recorded the utmost arms purchase towards the end of last millennium. According to IISS, in 1998 alone, Angola spent US$ 441 billion (64 % of GDP). IISS observed that; “low military spending could be dangerous to some countries”. IISS said those countries not engaged in civil wars, but choose not to invest in security, mutiny history and rebels in their neighbors i.e. Central Africa Republic (CAR), Congo Brazzaville, D.R. Congo, Angola, Lesotho, Burundi, Rwanda, Niger, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Guinea, Comoro, Mauritania etc are reminders that too low levels of defense expenditure are dangerous.

Growing parallel with Africa’s conflicts and military expenditure is the lucrative international arms trade. IISS says Africa is today the potential market for stockpile of small arms made in the industrialized nations, which reduces defense budgets following the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of Cold War.

Most of the money that Africa is spending on arms could completely plug the digital-divide, if African leaders decide to solve internal conflicts harmoniously. And that is possible with proper application of suitable ICT solutions to open dialogue, diplomacy and cooperation as a starter.

Bad elements in ICT policies

Elimination of poor elements in the national and international ICT policies is another way of harnessing financial resources for bridging the digital-divide. How? Most national ICT policies started to be developed in the early 1980s by industrialized countries. Several developing and transitional countries established their ICT policies from 1990s onwards following deregulation and privatization policies that enabled their telecommunication sectors to grow rapidly.

The UNDP’s Human Development Report 2001, which emphasized on the application of new technologies for human development and poverty reduction, stimulated the defiant states to establish ICT policies as well. Some oppressive states were reluctant to establish ICT policies because they do not want their country ICT sectors to grow rapidly. These undemocratic regimes feared ICT would enhance human rights and good governance hence inculcating genuine democracy through empowerment of the masses.

As a consequence some ICT policies were deliberately designed with negative elements or loopholes to enable the oppressive regimes resist democracy and cling on power. Such states omitted from their policy designs the essential elements that make ICT the channel for sustainable development initiatives. The policies became the tools for promoting rulers and detrimental to mass empowerment. Such policies should be overhauled to allow resource harnessing for bridging the digital-divide and building Information Society.

Other policies do not contain bad elements that deter mass empowerment but some are shallow and hence lack the essential ‘magnetic’ to attract resources for building robust Information Society. Few ICT stakeholders have criticized the national ICT Policy of Tanzania for that deficiency.

The second-phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS-II) is planned for Tunis, Tunisia, November 16 to 18, 2005 and Tanzania will participate. WSIS-II is envisioned to motivate policy changes to build Information Society worldwide. It is also likely to be more attractive than the WSIS-I, which took place in Geneva from December 10 to 12, 2003, when the US and UK armed forces were in the heart of Iraq seriously hunting for Saddam Hussein.

ENDS

Posted By: ALOYCE MENDA