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Technology Leapfrogging and the Digital Divide Anders Wijkman and Mona Afifi 0

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Technology Leapfrogging and the Digital Divide Anders Wijkman and Mona Afifi 0 TECHNOLOGY LEAPFROGGING AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE ANDERS WIJKMAN AND MONA AFIFI 0 w e 1 TECHNOLOGY LEAPFROGGING AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE ANDERS WIJKMAN AND MONA AFIFI The past two decades have witnessed a revo- lution in terms of technology developments. Information technology, the Internet, genetic engineering, nanotechnologies, new energy technologies – innovations that provide humanity with fascinating opportunities for new products and services, improved health and medicine, radically different ways of com- munication, enhanced productivity as well as more efficient use of energy and materials. 126 12 Take the profound impact that ICT has had on society and the way it has changed the production of goods and services, trade and distribution, research, education, information, media etc. ICT is not just another sector of economic development, nor can it simply be looked upon as a set of tools. Instead, ICT permeates every aspect of today’s societal activity. Ironically, the very factors that have phenomenally improved productivity by intelligent use of the technology, also risk driving the poor to the periphery, thus creating bar- riers within and between societies, and could lead to social unrest and tension. Countries and people lacking capacity for ICT will be marginalized in the new economy. New trade barriers will be erected. Moreover, without access to ICT, countries will not be able to benefit from the many innovative ways of addressing poverty and basic needs that these technologies offer. A WIDENING GAP One reason why the information gap is widening is that the potential of ICT in social and economic development has not been fully understood. There are still too many people in key positions in governments and aid agencies who seem to believe that only when basic needs are met does technology have a role to play. If they were right most of the poor would have to wait forever. The debate must move beyond choosing between ICT and other develop- ment needs such as health and education. The issue is not about a trade-off between one or the other, but an understanding that these must go hand in hand. However, technology alone is not enough. Technology must be applied within its social context and that, in many countries, is providing a real challenge. One thing is clear. The new technologies, notably ICT, will bring about major transformations in society. The structural logic of the information soci- ety will be vastly different from that of the industrial society. One eminent scholar, who has given a lot of thought to the implications of the ICT revolu- tion, is Professor Harlan Cleveland. Here is how he perceives the future: “Information – symbols, not things – will be playing the lead role in world his- tory that physical labour, stone, bronze, land, minerals, metals and energy once played. We will have to burn into our consciousness how very different information is from all its predecessors as civilization’s dominant resource.” In his speech to the American Association for History and Computing (April 2000, Baylor University, Texas) Cleveland continues: ”Information expands as it’s used – no “limits to growth” around here. It is ready transportable, at close to the speed of light. Information leaks so easily that it is much harder to TECHNOLOGY LEAPFROGGING AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE ANDERS WIJKMAN AND MONA AFIFI hide and to hoard than tangible resources were. The spread of knowledge empowers the many, by eroding the influence that once empowered the few who were “in the know”. Information cannot be owned, only its delivery serv- ice can. And giving or selling information don’t give rise to “exchange” trans- actions; they are acts of sharing.” If Cleveland is right, we are at the doorstep of a democratic revolution. In the industrial era, poverty was explained and justified by shortages of things. In the coming years, physical resources will still be important, but their role in wealth creation will gradually be overtaken by information. And since each baby is born with a brain, there ought to be radically different prerequisites for development and progress at the level of the individual, also in the poor regions of the world. But there is a catch: whether or not the information revo- lution is really going to lead to greater fairness depends to what extent the poor will have access, not only to the modern information technologies, but also to education. If such access is not provided, the expected fairness revolution will be turned into its opposite. In February 2001, well above 400 million people worldwide were users of the Internet. This represents phenomenal growth, given that the Internet is less than three thousand days old. But the spread of Internet use is very uneven. The vast majority of Internet users are found in OECD countries. There are more hosts in Manhattan than in continental Africa; more hosts in Finland than in Latin America and the Caribbean; and notwithstanding the remarkable progress in the application of ICT in India, most of its villages still lack a working telephone. To bridge the digital divide is both a moral and a social imperative. If we do not succeed, entire regions and hundreds of millions of people will be left behind. The consequences in terms of poverty and deprivation will be devastating. LATE-COMERS BENEFIT FROM LEAPFROGGING But there is another, equally compelling argument for developing countries to embrace the new technologies. By investing in cutting-edge technology, through leapfrogging, they will be able to bypass certain stages of develop- ment. The benefits can be financial, social, as well as environmental. As “late- comers”, developing countries can be better placed to take advantage of the newest technology developments, not the least in ICT, since they are not hin- dered by the previous investments in obsolete technology. Since prices come down very quickly in the area of ICT, investments in a telecommunication 128 12 infrastructure today may cost just a fourth or a fifth compared to what was the case a few years ago. The environmental benefits would be significant, since leapfrogging would make it possible for developing countries to avoid repeating some of the mistakes of industrialized countries. Take energy. Worldwide total energy pro- duction-related investments for 2000 to 2030 are estimated at between US 12 and US 17 trillion dollars ( IIASA-WEC scenarios, World Energy Assessment 2000). The majority of these investments will be made in developing coun- tries. Presently, most of them will favour fossil fuels, primarily coal. If this trend continues, the resulting emissions in terms of carbon will be disastrous. And these emissions will negatively affect people all over the world. New systems of energy supply and consumption are badly needed. Less polluting and more efficient energy technologies are available, but normally at a higher investment cost than conventional fuels. The challenge is at least twofold: i) to help build the necessary capacity in terms of institutions and skills in developing countries to enable them to adapt and expand on new dis- coveries and make them applicable to their specific needs, and ii) to provide investors with the right kind of incentives to make investing in alternative energy solutions attractive. Only if these preconditions are fulfilled will leapfrogging be possible. Investing in clean energy and transport are the most obvious examples of how the natural environment in developing countries could benefit from tech- nology leap-frogging. But the opportunities do not stop there. The ICT revolu- tion by itself offers fascinating possibilities for enhancing energy and resource efficiency and reducing pollution. When society becomes more digital, the possibilities for major structural change and efficiency gains multiply. New avenues open up. Concepts such as de-materialisation, tele-working, tele-con- ferencing, distance education, the flexible office, e-Commerce all promise great leaps forward in terms of enhanced resource efficiency. Environmentally sound technologies (ESTs) often depend on sophisticated measuring devices, data transmission networks and automatic data process- ing equipment. This can be provided by ICT, thus bringing about more effi- cient production processes as well as greatly enhanced product performance. Moreover, with advanced communications many conventional products will be transformed into services. A newspaper becomes an on-line news service; an instruction manual becomes an interactive technical advice service; cinema film re-production becomes a “video-on-demand” service in the home, etc. TECHNOLOGY LEAPFROGGING AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE ANDERS WIJKMAN AND MONA AFIFI It appears obvious to us that a high-tech economy based on knowledge, skills and innovation ought to be a cleaner, greener economy. But few attempts have been made to assess specifically to what extent the digital revolution and the sustainable development agenda complement each other. In some areas devel- opments so far have been disappointing. For instance, as long as e-Commerce is a marginal phenomenon in society, demand for transportation seems to increase, not the opposite. When more and more people will shop on the Net, things will change. The main reason is economics. When volumes increase it will be good business to organize transport and logistics in the most efficient way. As a result the environment will benefit. The reader may find that most of what ICT can offer in terms of enhanced energy and resource efficiency are relevant examples only in the context of OECD countries. Activities such as telework, e-Commerce, on-line services were pioneered in the US, Japan and Europe. But there is no reason why such activities should not start penetrating countries of the South as well. In fact, they already have. Many people do not realize that China is the single biggest market for mobile phones in the world today. As the volume of foreign direct investments in developing countries has multiplied in recent years, the result will be an increased transfer of high-tech from OECD countries to developing countries.
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