Title: The developing world and the digital revolution what to do. Barry Mahon

Gerry McGovern, http://www.nua.ie/newthinking/archives/index.html

Gives you a nice warm feeling doesn’t it? MIT, arguably the world’s premier technology learning place makes all its teaching materials available, one of the Internet’s gurus says we are becoming information literate, the Internet is all pervasive.

The reality

There is no common denominator for an underdeveloped country, there are gradations. If you look at the UNDP’s development index http://www.undp.org/hdro/98hdi.htm you will find a measure based on certain parameters, including such items as infant mortality rates, adult literacy, etc. These are typical Northern measures, in a developing country the ability to actually measure these things with any accuracy is of itself a measure of the development.

What to do

Educate. That is the only long term solution.

• Start at the top – many of the political figures in developing country regimes are highly educated, that is how they manage to manipulate others. They need re-education, not in the old Marxist sense, but in the sense that they need to understand that support for their country from development agencies depends on their willingness to see things differently. Pressure donor governments to insist on this.

• 
  Introduce courses for teachers at all levels on how to get and use information, they can then pass it on. In due course this can be integrated with access to the Net, but not before teachers are familiar with how to get the best from the Net. One quick way, for example in developing countries where the Net is already reasonably available, is for developed countries to make contact with schools in developing countries, for teachers in developing countries to be included in IT teacher mailing lists and newsgroups.
  

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  Set up or develop existing information centres, libraries where they exist, community centres, regional development bodies, as centres where information and training are provided on new information technologies. These need reliable power and communications and experienced staff, so they can not be developed through ad-hoc programmes by development agencies. They also need credibility, they need to be supported both by local communities and government but also by having access to the best international support.
  

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  Supply IT based solutions that have been shown to work elsewhere, where appropriate.
  

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  Open up the telecommunications. In most developing countries telecommunications is a means of making money for the regime, the major users of the telephone and such like are the international agencies, importers, business. In addition, control of the means of communications is important to regimes who feel insecure. In countries where the average “income” is $1 per day a monopoly telecommunications suppliers prices for Internet access will only be for the rich.
  

There is no quick fix

The digital divide, in whatever fashion it is identified, will not be reduced or eliminated in the short term. It will not be solved by money alone, it will not be solved by showering technology on those who are “deprived” however that is measured.

What can (developed country) libraries do?