Digital Divide: Canyon or mirage?

[Mumtaz Ahmed <mumtazahmed@yahoo.com>]

THIS ARTICLE SEEMS RELEVANT TO S-ASIA-IT.



Canyon or mirage?
Jan 22nd 2004
>From The Economist print edition
http://economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=2367710


A new paper questions the notion of a worsening
digital divide between rich and poor


THAT there are more telephones, computers and internet
connections in rich countries than there are in poor
ones is obvious. There are also more cars, televisions
and air-conditioners. But the difference in the
availability of information and communication
technologies (ICTs) is the focus of particular concern
among policymakers, academics and non-governmental
organisations. Such technology, it is generally
agreed, boosts productivity, though how quickly and by
how much is the subject of much debate. The far wider
availability of ICTs in rich countries, goes the
argument, will therefore enable the rich to get
richer, while the poor are left behind. In short, not
only is there a worrying "digital divide" between rich
and poor, the divide is widening -- with ominous
consequences.

These beliefs are widely held. But a new paper* by two
economists at the World Bank, Carsten Fink and Charles
Kenny, questions the logic of this argument and
highlights the woolly thinking that pervades the
digital-divide discussion. The authors conclude that
the divide's size and importance have been overstated,
and that current trends suggest that it is actually
shrinking, not growing -- which means policies
designed to "bridge the digital divide" may need
rethinking.

For a start, Messrs Fink and Kenny observe, the term
"digital divide" came to prominence "more for its
alliterative potential than for its inherent
terminological exactitude". It is used in at least
four distinct ways, and two in particular: to describe
the gap in access to ICTs between rich and poor
countries, and the resulting gap in usage. The digital
divide is almost always described in terms of the
difference in the number of telephones, internet users
or computers per head in rich and poor countries. For
example, there are more telephones than people in most
developed countries, compared with around three
telephones per 100 people in the developing world.

While the gap as defined using these per-head measures
looks enormous, the growth rates tell a different
story. Over the past 25 years, telephone penetration
has been increasing faster in low and middle-income
countries than in high-income countries, which has not
been surprising given the market saturation in rich
countries. But the same is also true of internet
usage, which grew by around 50% per year in
high-income countries in the late 1990s, compared with
100% per year in low and middle-income countries. The
rich are ahead, but the poor are catching up fast. So
much for the "widening digital divide" decried by such
organisations as the United Nations Development
Programme. The most striking feature of the per-head
divide in access to ICTS, conclude Messrs Fink and
Kenny, "is not how large it is, but how rapidly it is
closing."


Wired in Wuhan

But such per-head figures may not even be the right
way to measure the divide. You would expect poor
countries to have fewer telephones and computers per
head, simply because they are poorer. And phones and
computers are routinely shared between many users in
developing countries. Mobile phones are often rented
out by the call, and cybercafés provide internet
access to people who could otherwise not afford it.
One alternative measure, suggest the paper's authors,
is per-income availability of ICTs. The number of
phones and internet users per dollar of GDP provides a
measure of the relative importance attached to ICTs.
On this measure, the digital divide becomes a "digital
leapfrog", as low- and middle-income countries jump
ahead of rich ones. This finding is even more
striking, say the authors, given that income
inequality between the developing and developed world
seems to have widened slightly. "Even though
developing countries have fallen behind economically
over the past decades, they managed to catch up
digitally," they note.

Does that mean there is nothing to worry about? Not
necessarily. One worry is that ICTs might have less
impact on productivity in poor countries than in rich
countries because of lower adoption levels. It is
possible, for example, that a certain threshold level
of adoption is required before the productivity
benefits of ICTs kick in. But even if this is true,
the high growth rates suggest that there are perceived
benefits to adopting ICTs in any case, even if
productivity benefits have yet to materialise, so that
the threshold will eventually be reached.

Another worry is that the adoption of ICTs within poor
countries may be hugely unequal, and limited to a
relatively affluent minority, so that the digital
divide within countries may grow even as the digital
divide between countries shrinks. Moreover, rich
countries with high penetration of ICTs may be more
likely to do business online with other such
countries, at the expense of poor countries. Well,
perhaps, but it seems far more likely that access to
ICTs will, overall, enlarge poor countries' trading
opportunities. And as the authors suggest, growing
access to ICTs will improve their plight.

All this has important ramifications for policymakers.
There is no doubt that the adoption of ICTs plays a
big role in development. But it is a mistake to place
too much emphasis on “bridging the digital divide” by
trying to narrow the per-head divide in access. For
one thing, the divide is narrowing on its own. More
important, when it comes to determining the best use
of international aid, money given to narrowing the
divide might be better spent elsewhere. In many
developing countries, people face far more important
challenges than the lack of internet access, namely
lack of access to water, food, medical treatment and
education. For them, the digital divide is a symptom,
rather than the cause, of wider inequality.



* "W(h)ither the digital divide?" Info, The journal of
policy, regulation and strategy for telecommunications
volume 5, number 6 (2003)
http://www.developmentgateway.org/download/181562/W_h_ither_DD__Jan_.pdf





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