Referat The digital divide - Divided world, Policy gap

The digital divide

The digital divide, which is a gap between the most and least wired countries is a big problem. At the G8 summit in Okinawa heads of state and government spoke about a bid to bridge the digital divide and announced help for developing nations, which have to catch up on technology. Experts say that communication technologies would improve the situation of developing nations, but it is impossible to close the gap, no matter how much money is pledged. Academics say that the governments should offer more than just money to solve this big problem, and politicians and policy advisors fear that a spectacular growth of the Internet in rich countries will mean that poor countries fall even further behind.

Divided world

The difference in technology between developed nations and developing nations is huge. For example there are more Internet hosts in Manhattan than there are in the whole of Africa. An other example is that there are nearly 30 PCs per 100 people in the UK, but in countries such as Malawi there is only one computer for every 10000 people. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori announced a five - year aid package to bring new technologies to developing countries and said, that he would urge other G8 countries to do the same.

Policy gap

Professor Richard Hawkins, who works at the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit at Sussex University, said that the investment required is huge, and that the money which was pledged was unlikely to make a huge difference. He said, that the best way to get people to adopt and use technologies was to make them less expensive to use. Sam Paltridge, a communications analyst at the OECD, said that the grants of the governments were short - lived and left aid organizations to pay the costs of expensive machines and to train the people to use them. He said, that a lack of money was not the only reason why developing nations don't catch up on technology more quickly.

Phone numbers

Often monopolistic telephone companies resist liberalization. Mr. Paltridge said, that in some countries the amount of phones per 100 people had not changed for decades. Sri Lanka is a good example what can happen when monopolies are dismantled : Before liberalization there were 0.73 telephones per 100 people. Then foreign companies became licensed telephone operators, and now there are between four and five telephones per 100 people. Mr. Paltridge said that this makes a huge difference in availability of infrastructure. Both experts believe that communications technology could improve the lives of people in developing countries. Phone and computer technology can be used to educate and inform people about health initiatives. Mr. Paltridge said :" Communication is so important these days to every aspect of development that the two go hand in hand. You cannot separate them."

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