IGADD

Ten years of efforts to ponder the Digital Divide have not been for nothing. Here are the nine lessons about Closing the Divide which have been learned by those on the front ranks of this movement. All these lessons have been incorporated into the model being developed by DigitalDivide.org.
TRUTH NUMBER ONE: The Divide is widening, not narrowing, and at an ever-increasing rate.

Here’s the key point: Yes, the poor are being given access and, chances are, in most countries virtually every citizen will eventually have his or her own wireless access device (or shared use of one in a village). But such access could hurt them, not help them, by loosening the bonds of tradition and enticing them with the allure of modern pop culture. A recent World Bank report, noting the spread of networks into the rural areas of Thailand, argues that the quality of digital access being received by low income Thais is one-way, entertainment-oriented, commercial and technologically backward and may be accelerating the exodus of untrained youth from rural areas into cities. Like poor nations brutally exposed to market forces weighted against them, rural youth entering the cities with Playstation2 images of Laura Croft dancing in their heads, may not be well equipped for the challenges that await them in cities such as Bangkok.

The nature of the problem is that, unless they are guided by wise policy and practice by ICT stakeholders, ICT market-development activity will inevitably look to the quickest returns on investment in serving the poor. Without a strong background in formal schooling, most of the poor lack demand for uplifting applications and are vulnerable to gamboling and entertainment applications as forms of escapism. The problem isn’t the marketers’ — their job is to deliver Returns on Investment as quickly as possible. The problem is that marketing activity isn’t being integrated into complex efforts in which training, government services and marketing work together in the long term to build demand for ICT applications that uplift the poor from poverty.

TRUTH NUMBER TWO: Closing the Digital Divide may be the only way to make globalization work for the poor.

One of the most damning statistics about globalization is this: in 1990, the world’s most affluent 20% of citizens were garnering xx% of the wealth. By 2000, that figure had doubled, while the percentage of wealth held by the poor was cut in half from eight to four percent. Noting that in this period digital technology became the driving force of globalization, Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz was correct when he asserted that new technologies are behind this growing inequity. Digital technology really is about empowerment. Empowerment for whom? For those who receive “solutions.” The challenge, then, is to shift the incentive structure that shape ICT stakeholder activity so that the poor, as well as the rich, become the object of the brainpower designed to meet their needs. Clearly, all reasonable notions about how to reduce poverty depend on ICTs.

TRUTH NUMBER THREE: The consequence of not closing the Divide is terrorism.

Most strategies for reducing the appeal of terrorism focus on ending the isolation of those who are currently good candidates for being recruited into terrorist organizations, e.g. the rural poor, especially those who have a gripe against modernism. Terrorism is Ireland was dramatically reduced in the mid-90s when ICTs were broadly disseminated throughout the Irish economy. A failure to close the Digital Divide may well undermine any efforts to resolve the underlying problems leading to terrorism.

TRUTH NUMBER FOUR: Closing the Digital Divide is fundamentally about empowerment, that is, it is about using new technologies to empower the poor just as they now empower the rich.

When the ICT industries talk about providing “end to end solutions” to users they are talking about fulfilling aspirations of users, that is empowering them. Thus, closing the Digital Divide must necessarily involve empowering the poor by closing studying their circumstances and then finding ways to shift the context that reinforces their poverty.

TRUTH NUMBER FIVE: Closing the Digital Divide is the only way to sustain the growth of world markets.

Without extending ICTs to the second-through-six billion population of consumers, world markets will be contained to a small group of one billion users who have already saturated markets for the major ICT markets, e.g. for cell phones, computers and software. As prices drop, the private sector will face dropping prices, deflation and overcapacity unless new customers emerge. The only places new customers exist is among the low-income. The only way to reach them affordably and profitably is through ICTs.

TRUTH NUMBER SIX: World leaders from every sector — business, government, academia, NGOs — can benefit from closing the Divide. Yet no one sector has the incentives to lead the effort to close the Divide.

This is the tragedy of the Digital Divide. Everyone stands to gain from closing the Divide — the private sector gets markets, philanthropists get poverty-reduction, governments become more productive, academic institutions can become spurs for their countries’ economic growth. Yet the Divide is not being closed because no one has the incentive to be prime-mover, that is, to take on the role of aligning all the other sectors in efforts to close the Divide.

TRUTH NUMBER SEVEN: Closing the Digital Divide requires building an “enterprise ecosystem” that offers “end to end solutions” for the poor.

This has been the most significant conclusion from a full decade of experiments in closing the Divide. You must offer the poor an integrated, holistic solution via information and communications technologies.

TRUTH NUMBER EIGHT: The midlevel countries in relatively advanced emerging markets, not the poorest countries, are the best settings for experimental efforts to close the Digital Divide.

The places that have produced the most innovation in closing the Divide are India, China, Thailand, Costa Rica, and Estonia. Poorer countries, such as Mali or Ghana can be settings for various useful projects, but they don’t make good settings for showing how all ICT stakeholders could be aligned to close the Digital Divide. It may not seem fair, but the poor countries must learn from the experience of wealthier countries, not the other way around.

TRUTH NUMBER NINE: Closing the digital divide involves using new technologies to formalize the “informal economy,” thereby bringing the poor into established markets.

One of the big new ideas about how to overcome poverty is to give the poor access to public lands that they in effect control, extend credit to the poor, and eliminate the illegal grey markets that sell counterfeit goods, legalize prostitution and so forth. All these changes become possible through information and communications technologies.