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#320: Still Shut Out (Haiti mentioned among other nations))
From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>
By Kelechi Obasi
Lagos (The News, August 23, 1999) - Many countries are still not
catching up with the many benefits of the internet. Africa and other
developing coun tries are holding the short end of the stick in the
race toward the new age technology that abounds on the information super
highway.
Third world nations, that have been bedevilled by poverty, illiteracy,
political instability and inadequate telephone services are disproving
the theory that the internet would make the world a global village, and
in spite of the spurts and bursts of technological know-how in some of
these countries, experts on the industry have likened the gap between and
those hooked onto the worldwide web to the ever growing gap between the
rich and the poor. According to the United Nations only two per cent of
the global population is plugged in, thereby making the internet an
exclusive club of the privileged global classes.
In Nigeria, out of a population of over 100 million there are only
about 1,000 internet subscribers. In all Africa there are only about 1.5
million users online, based on a report by Freedom Forum.
Kola Owolabi, a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), blamed the
negligible presence of Africa on the worldwide web on governments all over
the continent. "When the leadership places little emphasis on
communication, there is no way people can get access to information. There
are no sufficient telephone lines, and power supply is epileptic, the
socio- economic factors are not even favourable, so how can people earning
a minimum wage of N3,000 afford to plug onto the internet? The government
has put the cost of communication at a premium, thereby making it a status
symbol, so much that it is seen as being a prerogative of the rich," he
said. In Africa, there are just about 14 million telephone lines.
In spite of these shortcomings, the so-called third world countries are
making something out of not very much. According to Raul Zambrano,
Information Technology Specialist for the U.N. Development Project,
"you'll find people in developing countries doing incredible things with
their fingernails, scratching out access."
In Haiti, the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, where the
average per capital income is $250 a year, the first site to be written in
Haitian Creole came online just this month.
However, having web sites on the internet is not the issue, the real
battle for most developing parts of the world, is to provide access
nationally in countries with either non-existent or deplorably inefficient
infrastructure (ISP) in many of these countries and they are faced with
bitter rivalry from either the major telephone company, or have to contend
with a populace that has more on its mind than the internet. Those who are
hell-bent on jumping on the information superhighway have devised
ingenious means to beat stifling communications regulations in their
environments. Some Haitians now use wireless connections and radio modems
to hook onto the ISP. In Goma, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
and in Nigeria people send E-mails through personal computers and high
frequency radio modems. While in Goma, users access the internet through
Bushnet, an ISP based in Uganda. In Nigeria, users log on to the worldwide
web, through Hyperia.
The advantages of using the internet are legion and range from domestic
to political and national interest. In Nigeria, two presidency contenders
launched campaign web site before elections.In Singapore, the internet is
to be put to use for the 2000 census. In 1989, the internet played a
prominent role when it was used by pro-democracy students in Beijing,
China, and in preventing a putsch against Soviet leader, Mikhail
Gorbachev in 1991, although in many countries such as Syria, China,
Singapore and Saudi Arabia restrictions are still placed on its use and
access.
Many have argued however, on the need for the internet culture in
Africa and other underdeveloped nations, when there is so much widespread
impoverishment, bad roads, and poor infrastructure and public utilities.
But representatives of many internet websites say they are trying to form
a network of many websites for developing countries, with a view to
linking them up and also to make some profit. "Eventually, the internet is
going to become more important in these countries, and it is an advantage
to be one of the first ones to be involved," they believe.