The Digital Divide : the same division of resources?
Daniel Pimienta, Funredes, Mars 2002.
�The human network MISTICA (http://funredes.org/mistica) is
constituted of researchers and grassroots actors of Latin America
and the Caribbean. They have thought collectively, for the past few
years, on the subject of the now famous �digital
divide�. The group too often get irritated of an over-simplifying and
superficial dominant rhetoric which has the tendency to erase the real societal challenges (the social appropriation of technologies and
the empowerment of people and communities) and to polarize the discussion
on the access, within the limited
meaning of the word (is it finally about
creating consumers in the South for electronic commerce and its products coming
from the North?).
�- The essence of the problem is the social divide and not the digital
divide. The statistical differences between the countries of the South
and those of the North concerning the access of users to ICTs are nothing
else than the reflect of this socioeconomic division (which indeed exists
also inside the industrialized countries).
�- Certainly, the collective MISTICA (where
gather many field players some of them having struggled for ICT dissemination
for more than 15 years) considers that, in certain conditions, ICT can
represent an extraordinary chance to
fight against the social fracture. But there is no evidence
that the generalized
connection of people to the Internet is the condition for that chance to
happen.
�- The obstacles
to overcome so that people can change
their social and economic environment using ICT are not limited to
the existence of a telecommunication infrastructure which is accessible at
affordable cost, although this condition is of course necessary.
There are other obstacles, as the one of the language and of the education
in general and, more specifically, the education for the culture of
information.
�- This culture
of information (or culture of networks) and, beyond, the know-how in the
use of ICT with a full conscience of the social, economic, linguistic,
cultural, policies, ecological (to the sense of the ecology of
information) challenges can only be
acquired by a complete training and
community practices. It is about facilitating the drive to the
users into a content producer
and a development player
within his/her community... and not only a� more or less aware consumer.
�If it is merely about giving some inexpensive
(or even free) access and a training to the proprietary software on a PC,
consequences will be to enhance the
sales of one software company and to create clients for products of the electronic commerce coming
from the industrialized countries...
Between
two persons of the South having in appearance similar practices in front of a PC, very strong differences in terms of development impact may exist;
et�s take two extreme cases so to schematize the message:
�- "A" (most often a Yuppie of a
PVD) surfs the Web, creates friendship thanks to the� chat and buys products on the Internet which will be delivered
via Miami;
�- "B" creates a page that reflects
his/her culture and his/her language, participate to professional electronic
conferences where he/she creates remote collaboration actions to contribute to
the development of his/her country, searches the Web in an efficient way
for information required to reach the previous objectives, facilitates a
virtual community and contributes, with the help of Open Source software, the
global sales of handicraft products from his/her region.
Actually,
"A" is behind the screen and "B" is in front of the
keyboard, and this makes the whole difference�
�What is the respective influence of
"A" and "B" on the development of his/her
country? Probably negative in the case of "A" (certainly negative in
terms of balance in US dollars!). Certainly positive in the case of� "B" (probably positive in economic
terms!).
What
difference between a community
telecenter "X" and a cybercaf� "Y"?
Both offer, in an apparently similar way, the sharing of ICT access resources
between several people who do not have thus the need to own individually
access infrastructures (PC, modem, lines...). But some
differences do appear after a careful analysis. The first is integrated to the community fabric
and articulates, by way of the ICT, solutions to different community
needs (such as the legal advice or the receipt of transfers of funds from
the family abroad). It offers a form of training to participants that aims at appropriation and empowerment. The
second is not linked to the community; it is a business of service that forms customers to the use of software and
who aims especially at the entertainment
market.
�Of course, in reality, there is a continuum
of practices between �A� and �B� and between "X" and
"Y", and it may be simplistic to schematize... But let�s
be clear: what is at stake? To form users of type "A" and to
cause the development of type �Y� telecenters? This is certainly not what
the organized civil society wishes
in developing countries! And this is the danger of a simplifying rhetoric on
the digital divide�
Field
actors in the South get worried of a mobilization of
attention and resources in the industrialized countries and international
organizations which claims to bring an answer to break the digital divide with
solutions where they are not really
represented and within the framework of a financial management where
contributions, once again, will remain, in their enormous majority, in the hand
of the North (an example among others is
the project of the World Bank named �Global Development Gateway which costs
alone as much as thousand of regional development projects such as Mistica��).
Perhaps
time has come to think that the present
model of international cooperation calls for a change of paradigm which would enable the support of genuine
solutions emerging from the field instead of continue the practice of
imposed solutions which are designed far from the realities and for which the
economic equation is absurd�