As world leaders call for the benefits of new technologies to be shared more evenly around the globe, the reality on the ground in West Africa is a stark reminder of just how much work remains to be done. Gathered together at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis last week, international leaders such as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and African Union President Olusegun Obasanjo argued for a bridging of the so-called digital divide between regions rural and urban, rich and poor. “There is a tremendous yearning, not for technology per se, but for what technology can make possible,” Annan said at the opening ceremony. “I urge you to respond to that thirst, and to take the tangible steps that will enable this Summit to be remembered as an event which advanced the causes of development, of dignity and of peace.” Many argue that promoting mobile phones and the Internet – otherwise known as ICTs, or information and communication technologies – is essential to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals such as the elimination of extreme poverty and the improvement of health. But in Niger, the world’s poorest country according to the UN’s Human Development Index, only two out of every 1000 people use the Internet. “In Zinder, people aren’t used to the Internet yet,” said Ali Lamine, proud owner of the first Internet cafe to be set up in Niger’s second-largest town, located in the dusty desert stretches hit hard by this year’s food crisis. “When I opened my cyber cafe, I spent three months advertising on local radio, inviting everyone to come and discover the world via the Internet. But it was a waste of time. Only a few NGO workers turned up to surf from time to time.” “Look,” he said, waving at the half-empty shop. “Only five of the ten computers are in use. At this rate, I’ll have to shut down.” Cash, according to Zinder resident Maimouna Hassan, was at the heart of the problem. “I’d be more than happy to surf but the Internet costs so much in Zinder,” she said. While the hourly rate had come down in recent years, she said, it was still triple the cost of rates in the capital Niamey. So Lamine is caught in a vicious circle: he cannot lower prices unless an increase in customers allows him to cover his high overhead costs. But in a country with an adult literacy rate of under 15 percent and with more than half the population living on less than one dollar a day, the Internet’s heavy reliance on text and US $3/hour rates could be a tough sell. And while telephones may not require a high level of literacy, coverage is rare outside major centres and expensive even within towns. Despite three new mobile phone companies, the majority of the vast land-locked country’s 10,000 villages remain outside network range. So it is hardly surprising that only six out of 1,000 people in Niger, according to the UN Development Programme’s latest report, owned mobile phones in 2003, a fraction of the global average. Recurring themes But Niger’s technological challenges are not unique. The digital divide is gaping across most of Africa where a population of nearly one billion accounts for less than 3 percent of the world’s Internet users. And the UN estimates the rate of Sub-Saharan Africans with a mobile at about a fifth of the global average. In Guinea, for example, where a political and economic crisis has left the government hard-pressed to provide even basic services such as water and electricity, telecommunications are erratic at best, even in the capital. “I sit here day after day, customers come, I try their numbers, but none of them will go through,” said Mamadou Diang Diallo who owns a small roadside shop, known as a telecentre, where people come to make phone calls in Conakry.
West Africa is the poorest region in the world |
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