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Every morning, five Honda motorcycles leave Banlung in Cambodia, marking the start of an exciting new way of providing the benefits of the Internet to villages that are not yet connected to the electricity grid and lack telephones and water. The bikes are equipped with a rear-mounted box that is equipped to send e-mail to schools. An antenna on the top of the box and a Wi-Fi wireless communication system inside enable e-mails to be relayed to schools in 13 remote Cambodian villages via satellite dishes.
Though these villages lack the most basic development amenities, they now have e-mail. The schools are equipped with solar panels to run a computer for six hours, with an e-mail link via the motorcycle delivery system.
The experiment was one of several highlighted at the just-concluded first-ever World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, which was attended by over 54 heads of state, prime ministers, presidents and ministers from 176 countries. They endorsed a Declaration of Principles and a Plan of Action to bring the benefits of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to deprived countries.
Delegates heard how the Cambodian bike drivers begin the day by collecting e-mails from the hub's dish, which takes just a few seconds. As they pass each school and a health center, they transmit the messages. At the end of the day, they return to the hub to transmit all the collected e-mail to the Internet for any point on the globe.
As one of the project's partners pointed out, a primary barrier to rural connectivity in developing countries is cost. "We have to provide affordable services in a country deprived of any telecommunication infrastructure: that is why we are testing out digital applications. Nonetheless, they have roads in Cambodia and we thought that what was useful for commerce could become useful for telecommunications,” said Bernard Krisher, Chairman of Japan Relief for Cambodia. The box is powered by the bike's motor so that fuel is used for both transportation and communication. The project managers hope that the project will catch on in other countries.
Bridging the Gap
Much of the World Summit was taken up by debates on the “digital divide” - the disparities in access to information and communication technologies between rich and poor countries. To an extent, such a divide exists within industrial countries as well. Some experts advocated that developing countries could leapfrog the process and provide basic amenities to their people through ICTs, which are cheaper than conventional infrastructure.
Other examples included the village of Embalam in the southern Indian state of Pondicherry, where 130 out of 210 families struggle below the poverty line, but two solar-powered computers provide villagers with a wealth of data. Through the project, villagers have gained a better grip on their local markets as prices are more transparent. Fisherfolk also get to learn where shoals are located from satellite images.
| In 2001, Malaysia had 196 telephone mainlines per 1000 people compared to 38/1000 in Vietnam. |
There are now 11 “information villages” in Pondicherry. As Usha Rani informed IslamOnline.net, “Each of these centers is managed by eight women who are members of a women’s micro-credit savings group. The centers are open from 9 am to 5 pm and each volunteer has to put in two hours every day.”
Ms Rani had never seen a PC before being inducted into the programme. The programme is self-supporting since the “knowledge center” in each village trains ordinary people to use computer applications.
In Vietnam, villages such as Bat Trang and Hoi An have created websites to promote selling village goods. This telecenter movement is spreading through developing countries as ICTs become more affordable. As telecenters provide shared access to the communications infrastructure, it becomes possible for many to share the cost of a single connection.
In Thailand, a telecenter village called Ban Samka, is operated by youth as a knowledge intermediary. It is used to broadcast information from the Internet to adults via the village audio tower. It is ranked as the strongest village in the district in terms of leadership, community funds, income, civic groups and many other indices.
ICTs for Development
At the Summit, the UN Development Programme released a report on “Promoting ICT for Human Development in Asia 2004” as a means of achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. UNDP surveyed nine Asian countries and ranked them according to their proficiency in using ICTs for development.
Malaysia figured on top of the list and was ahead by far of the second in rank, China. Vietnam ranked the lowest among the countries surveyed. Malaysia had 196 telephone mainlines per thousand people in 2001 as against just 38 in Vietnam. The comparable figures for Personal Computers (PCs) were 126 and 11.7 per thousand respectively.
Reports UNDP: “ICT offers promise to address existing human deprivations worldwide through direct and indirect means. The direct contribution to poverty reduction of ICT can come through the employment generating effects of ICT diffusion into poor rural and urban areas. Indirect contributions can come through facilitating and reducing costs of the delivery of the services that promote wage and self-employment or help overcome structural constraints on poverty alleviation projects.”
| "ICT offers promise to address existing human deprivations worldwide through direct and indirect means." UNDP Report. |
During the Summit, the US Government announced a $400,000 grant for ICT development in low-income countries. Cisco and ITU also signed a Memorandum of Understanding to open 20 more Internet Training Centers in developing countries. Hewlett-Packard will provide low-cost products that will help overcome the illiteracy barrier to ICT. Handwritten texts for example will be recognized for e-mail transmission. Microsoft, working with UNDP, will provide a $1 billion dollar programme over 5 years to bring ICT skills to poor communities.
An innovative initiative to bridge the digital divide is the Bhutan E-Post project. For faster, cheaper and more reliable communication to remote, mountainous areas of Bhutan, the Indian government will deliver e-post services to the Bhutanese Postal Service via a $400,000 grant for a V-satellite network and solar panels power system. The partners include ITU, Bhutan Telecom and Post, Worldspace and Encore India.
The cities of Geneva and Lyon and the Senegal government announced contributions totaling about 1 million euros to fund information technology in developing countries. The contributions will represent the first three payments towards the Digital Solidarity Fund, the creation of which is to be considered by a UN working group for the next summit on the Information Society in Tunis in 2005.
However, many delegates remained skeptical about the success of this fund. Judging by the manner in which other commitments to meeting the needs of developing countries have been broken in recent years, they felt that there was no reason why the Digital Solidarity Fund will fare any better.
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