AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AGENDA TO BENEFIT THE UNDERDEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Research Partnerships for Dr. Arnoldo K.Ventura

Sustainable Development

Office Of The Prime Minister

KINGSTON 6, JAMAICA

13th March,1997

Mr.Chairman, Ministers, research directors, colleagues from the South, friends; I take this opportunity to thank the Dutch Minister for Development Co-operation for his kind invitation to address this August gathering. Without an imaginative research partnership between the North and South, it is difficult to conceive how timely solutions to ubiquitous problems such as poverty and environmental depreciation will be formulated to curtail the current global slide into Vancouver, ugliness and strife.

Before proceeding, I must stress that the centrality of information, and the technologies associated with its efficient generation, storage, recovery and dissemination are not in question, as eloquently stated by Oettinger,Without materials nothing exist, without energy, nothing happens, without information, nothing makes sense. All countries therefore have a vested interest in the progress and use of information technologies. However, having posited this, it must be realized that the revolution in miniaturization and dematerialization launched by the technologies, based on the manipulation of electron flows and electromagnetic fields, and the so called information and telecommunication technologies, have caused the highest levels of speculation and debate among all the waves of recent generic technologies. Irrespective of the questions and uncertainties surrounding the use and impact of these technologies, the opportunities they seem to promise, have caused a mad rush to embrace them. So much so the world has been said to have moved into the information age. ÔThe speed of evolution and appreciation of have already caused great shifts in social orientation and anticipation in the major economies. The outlook on work, entertainment, interpersonal relationships, and government control, has drastically changed. Experience in the developed countries leaves no doubt that life can be improved by innovative information systems. Already financial, insurance, transport and education activities have benefited. And increasingly, they are being introduced into retail, by manufacturing and even agriculture, and the advent of the Internet is drastically changing the marketing of goods and services. The information and telecommunication technologies have increased the trend towards economic globalization and it is therefore reasoned that under developed countries cannot afford to be left out. Yet at the same time, ICTs have replaced jobs, invaded privacy, threaten human personal relationships and have tended to distance the rich further from the poor, while unfulfilled expectations triggered by these technologies are leading to resentment and violence. Questions about the various impacts of ICTs on governance, productivity, and social cohesion among individuals, the family, community and civic organizations, are still being asked.Most of the debate about the possible impacts of ICTs have centered around developments in the industrialized, of rich countries and there has been an unfortunate tendency to simplistically assume that the influence of these technologies on the poor, or underdeveloped societies, will be the same. The debate in these under privileged countries is whether it will allow leaps in socio- economic development, thereby closing the development and technological gap between the rich and the poor, both within and between countries, or whether these technologies will widen the gap, leading to more unemployment and competitive setbacks in trade. kin to these question are those which arise around the respective roles or the public and private sectors in the current information revolution. The necessity of government intervention to benefit the poor and preserve culturalÐdiversity, is often pitted against the minimalistic role of the public sector in markets. The stridency of the arguments and their importance to socio economic development have prompted the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD) establish a Working Group to consider the public policy implications of the march of these technologies. My aper today will recapitulate the major findings of the Working Group and will also dip into a small island country experiences with these technologies. Mr. Chairman, I shall spend sometime describing the current view of these technologies inclusive of a few questions from the perspective of the poor societies, then I shall proffer four areas for consideration for joint work.

Present Situation with the Global Information SocietyÐThe UNCSTD Working Group has concluded that the evidence of the benefits and risks of investment in the production and use ICTs is inconsistent. What appears clear is that the outcomes will depend on the capacity to design and implement policies, draft suitable regulations, facilitate education and training, and enable technological assessment programs that will build most effectively on each country technological capabilities and or their socio economic conditions. The factors which will govern anyone of these imperatives are however not yet properly understood. Nevertheless, a cursory analysis of the social and economic implications of these technologies have suggested that there are enormous benefits and risks in joining the global information society, but the greatest risk of all, apparently, is not participating and influencing the information revolution. Furthermore, it has been found that joining the information society is extremely difficult, often quite costly and present difficult choices.Here again, information and knowledge to steer decisions, with respect to these choices, are not available, especially in the poor countries. Questions such as what technologies to use, the precise details of their world market movements and behavior of the major layers, what sort of investments to make in skills and training at the outset, and what priority steps are needed to meet pressing social and economic goals, are still largely controversial, often loaded with speculation and biased hopes, and devoid of the hard empirical data. In fact, these technologies were created and fashioned in societies whose features are often the exact opposite of those that exist in the underdeveloped areas.The advanced countries have built academic,technological, industrial and market systems, in situations where there are relative scarcity of labor, considerable capital resources, and where services are making larger contributions to the Gross National Product than manufacturing or agriculture. Indeed, a definition of under development is the absence of these factors. The contrast between the highly developed and the underdeveloped countries is so compelling, that it is hard to conceive how the notion could persist that the ICTs would have similar impacts in both places. In the underdeveloped countries we are talking about populations ,technological and industrial infrastructures are weak and disjointed, where capital is short and labor abundant, and literacy is still a luxury confined to a few and the backbone telecommunication, roads, electricity and water systems are still being installed. In essence, the factors which are present in the rich countries but absent in the poor societies, are the said ones that have allowed the rapid developments and spread of it I must be realized that the majority in the underdeveloped countries do not have time to speculate about information technologies, as they are caught up in day to day survival and ways to fend off squalor, pain and inequity. The concerns about ICTs are confined to small, often ostentatious, urban elites, and certain blue and white collar workers in these countries. While the elite are busy trying to keep up with the information technology fads in the first world, workers in offices, banks, on the shop floor and other labor intensive situations, fear the intrusion of these technologies, which threaten to displace their jobs and reinforce disparities. These technologies spread, questions arise about the erosion of religion and cultures, pressure on families, and the possibilities of even more concentration of economic and political influence on the rich and powerful also problems of information overload, acceptability, relevance, morality and misinformation have begun to arise. It must also be remembered that full participation in the global information society means access to telephones, television sets and computers,but the vast majority of the populations of the underdeveloped countries do not possess these basic amenities. The annual wages for many of these countries is less than the cost of a cheap computer, in Jamaica for example, 80% of the population earns about US$1,500 per year and the cost of a discounted computer is of the order of US$2,500. The cost to install the necessary hardware, to participate in the global information system, in a significant number of homes and offices, in the underdeveloped countries, therefore, is going to be out of the reach of many of these economies. Questions in the Underdeveloped Countries. Let us briefly look at a poor country perspective of this issue. Despite the many unanswered questions, technological determinism has forced spectacular growth of the ICT in the rich countries. And in like fashion, there has been a remarkable attempt to do the same in the underdeveloped countries. It would appear that the speed of the introduction of these technologies has forced people to adjust to them, rather than the technologies made to adjust to human needs. Because there has been a billion fold reduction in the cost and speed of storage and transmission of information, there has been a misinterpretation that increase in information flows mean increase knowledge and wisdom. The underdeveloped countries appear to have no option but to have their enterprises and institutions acquire the ability to communicate through the channels of if they expect to deal effectively with the industrial countries. Furthermore, the vast potential and opportunities for increasing growth through more knowledge and more efficient use of inputs, such as energy, materials and capital, for launching innovations for tackling environmental problems, for allowing more decentralized organizational forms, individual enrichment and more democracy, cannot be summarily dismissed, even though all of the possible pitfalls of ICTs are not yet known. Irrespective of all this, little real development will take place if the majority in populations are excluded, and the owners of the technologies do not co-operate in meaningful technological transfer. Research Priorities For what has been said the following areas appear ripe for investigation.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

Firstly, information and telecommunications are being imported and used in all underdeveloped countries. This is being done on the notion that if these technologies are good for the rich, then they ought to be good for the poor societies. They are being introduced in enterprises of all sorts, in service, manufacturing and agriculture, as well as, in public institutions and organizations. The obvious questions to be posed then is what are the impacts of these technologies. Have efficiency been increased, have they guided decisions to better outcomes, have education become more relevant and the environment nearer reclamation and protection, have government policies, or lack thereof, contributed to these developments, and whether have average consumers in the poor countries are being provided with more and better options, due to the flood of these technologies. This type of work could best be conducted by joint teams from the developed and underdeveloped countries.

ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN POVERTY ALLEVIATION:

Secondly, one of the greatest, if not the greatest problem, confronting the global community, is the scourge of poverty and all of its consequences. How then can ICT help? Clearly to empower the poor to help themselves will require more efficient ways to supply them with information to increase their productivities and marketing, to promote better health, provide more power over their lives by linking them with the center of their societies and better participation in the decision making machinery of their countries. The use of information technologies therefore to deliver distance teaching and provide more relevant medical knowledge, and install ways for the poor to voice their opinions about the course of development of their societies, are commendable research topics. The World Bank and progressive countries, like Holland, have recently been promoting a more assertive attack on poverty. However, few of these programs have featured ICT as a major contributor to this effort.

DEPLOYMENT OF STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM:

Thirdly, governance is under stress worldwide.The underdeveloped country leadership have to deal with a complex of problems from rapidly changing world order to intransigent problems of hopelessness and strife. Government in dealing with many of these problems in the poor societies do. so from gut feelings and common sense. The data, information and knowledge needed to make the wise decisions are often not available, and when they are, there is in efficient retrieval and dissemination. Strategic information systems which contribute to strategic planning and management of economies, are therefore being attempted in a number of situations but the results of these attempts are not widely known and the parameters that determine success, or failure, not clearly defined and documented. Project to design strategic information systems for the public sector in one, or a few areas of need, such as, education, health, public financial management and transportation, trade facilitation, disaster prevention and management, property and business registering and national statistics, would go a long way to improve weak infrastructures and address shortage of resources. Software businesses Lastly, if underdeveloped countries are to join the information society and be vibrant partners in its evolution, they must be more than passive consumers of information hardware and software. To become serious producers of hardware, significant human and capital resources are necessary, so is the near future, except perhaps for a few large underdeveloped countries, the manufacture of information hardware, is not a commercially viable option. The production of software however does not have such heavy constraints and indeed in some ways fits with the labor intensive need of the poor countries. Typically, many underdeveloped countries have sought to join the information technology revolution by providing low technology type services, such as data entry. Many are now realizing that this is not sustainable and indeed the provision of knowledge base services for the international market is perhaps a better way to proceed. Software production has been heralded as one such area. study to formulate various ways of approaching the software production industry by defining and analyzing the various phases,of the industry, such as the problem definition and specification and design and coding stages, or indeed to look at software for specific use such as guest management in tourism, water provision in agriculture and transportation flows in urban centers, are worthwhile conclusion as with other new generic technologies, information and telecommunication technologies hold out great promise for development. However, experience has taught us that without social changes to embrace and use these technologies, meaningfully, they may cause more harm than good. To be able to harness these technologies for effective socio economic development in the poor countries, more precise information is required to understand the various factors involved. The best way to proceed to gain this knowledge is to strike constructive research alliances between the rich and poor societies, and install systems to exchange experiences between the underdeveloped countries in this regard. This paper present a few ideas for collaborative research work. We hope that these

suggestions is a start of worthwhile dialogue to accelerate implementation and collaboration.