Unequal access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) has generated new inequalities, according to Social Watch, a coalition of 400 non-governmental organisations present in 60 countries.
Social Watch monitors government compliance with international commitments to development and gender equity.
Its annual enquiry, widely recognised as an independent and rigorous assessment of social advancement, has just been released on September 19 2006, in Singapore, where the controversial International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WB) held their annual meetings.
This year’s report, the eleventh edition, refers to the urgent need to reform the current international financial structure to fulfil national and international commitments to eradicate poverty and promote gender equity.
Entitled "Impossible Architecture", in reference to the urgent need to reform the current international financial structure, the report provides "new perspectives and ideas for a viable blueprint for action".
Besides ‘country reports’ contributed by local non-governmental groups linked to the global Social Watch network, the report includes thirteen thematic articles by experts on international finances. It also has a global study based on indicators developed by Social Watch itself: the Basic Capabilities Index and the Gender Equity Index.
Its Poverty Map provides a quick, visual overview of the level of basic capabilities in each country. On the other hand, the Gender Equity Map reflects women’s situation around the world. Various graphics illustrate the estimated dates for the achievement of the basic requisites needed to ensure "a dignified standard of living for all of the world’s people."
One section of the report spread over just two pages focuses on ICT issues.
"More than four-fifths of the people in the world do not have access to the internet and are therefore disadvantaged when it comes to making progress in production, education, and constructing full citizenship," the report reads.
Giving figures to measure the ‘size of the digital gap’, the study says, "In the most developed countries, there are 563 computers per 1000 people; but in the most backward there are only around 25 per 1000 people, which is to say there are 20 times more in the developed world. That is just one measure of the size of the digital gap."
Latest numbers point to digital gaps
Social Watch points out that in the most backward regions, "investment in new technologies is not geared to spreading them on a large scale."
The section called ‘Information, Science and Technology: Digital gap, people gap’ refers to the widely debated ‘digital divide’. The point its tries to bring home is that the divide is reflected among people and without a doubt, affects their ability to advance collectively.
It judged different countries on a range of select indicators – internet users per thousand people, personal computers, telephone mainlines, scientists and engineers in R&D (per million people), expenditure ICT (as a percentage of the gross domestic product – GDP), and expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP.
Says the report: "For some years now, the experts have been talking about the new ‘information society’ (and more recently about the ‘knowledge society’), and the challenges and dangers it involves." But it suggests that the "capability to manage information" is increasingly important.
It notes that currently, 40% of Canadians and the US-Americans have access to the internet, but in Latin America and the Caribbean, the figure averages only 2 or 3%. Narrowing this gap is a major challenge, the study finds.
There is currently not "one digital gap", but several, it suggests. This is because people’s access to current information systems "is conditional upon a series of factors". People simply get "left out" from using the emerging technology because of economic resources, geography, age, gender, language, education, cultural background, employment and physical well-being.
Moreover, "Access to personal computers is a pre-requisite for access to the new sources of information," it cautions.
One billion internet users on the planet is a "great success story". But the 80% still left out cannot be ignored. UNESCO says that 90% of internet users is from the ‘industrialised’ world.
Prioritising access to ICTs praised
Social Watch’s report praises China for jumping from "almost no broadband subscribers" to 23 million in just three years. It says technological scientific development in a country "depends to a large extent" on political will.
It says, "It is clear that state investment is a key factor… This is what is happening in China, where the current surge in ICT has been underpinned by a big increase in State investment in R&D, which jumped from 0.83% of GDP in 1999 to 1.23% in 2002." This has given China an edge not only in ICT but also in fields indirectly related to it, such as bio-technology.
The comparative document, leaving human rights records aside, says "Put simply, a country’s ability to take advantage of the new information systems is connected to its capacity to revalue its culture, traditions and values, and this revaluation should involve full integration into the modern world."
Social Watch cautions that if a poor country cannot manage this, "It will remain as a receiver of information and it will be limited to a passive role in the information society".
Also stressed in the 7765 kb and 358-page long study, is the amount of human capital that each country has, in the form of researchers and scientists.
